This work evaluates the relative significance of forces determining the motion of a pulverized coal particle under conditions representative of a pressurized oxy-coal combustor. The gravity force and surface forces of drag, fluid stress, added mass, and Basset history are discussed and appropriate forms of these force equations are chosen, with a consideration of spherical and non-spherical drag and the Basset history kernel. Studies from the literature that emphasize specific forces are used to validate the implementation of the force equations and correlations. Modeling is based on time-averaged, one-dimensional motion of a single non-reacting particle along the centerline of a round, turbulent jet. The numerical methodology employed for solving the particle equation of motion is described in detail, and simulated particle motion is compared to experimental and high-fidelity simulations from the literature. Comparisons show the numerical methodology performs adequately relative to higher fidelity simulations and experimental test cases for one-dimensional, time-invariant conditions. To assess the effect of pressure on particle forces and motion under different conditions, simulation cases are run for particle diameters of 20 μm, 50 μm, 125 μm, gas temperatures of 300 K and 1500 K, and gas pressures of 1.01325 bar, 2 bar, 5 bar, 10 bar, 20 bar, 40 bar. Simulations are conducted over a 0.75-m length in a simplified environment representative of the pressurized oxy-coal (POC) combustor at Brigham Young University. Results show that all surface forces examined can be locally significant at high gas pressures when particle and gas velocity differences, i.e., particle Reynolds numbers, are greatest. The following trends are found for the behavior of surface forces in simplified, POC combustor simulations: 1) The quasi-steady drag force is always significant, though it's relative contribution to particle motion decreases as particles traverse regions with significant fluid velocity gradients or significant values for the substantial derivative of fluid velocity. Furthermore, quasi-steady drag is the only surface force that is significant throughout the entirety of a particle's trajectory. The relative contribution of the drag force decreases with increasing gas pressure. 2) The impact of the fluid stress force on particle motion increases with increasing gas pressure and particle size. The fluid stress force can be locally important for all of the particles sizes when at a gas temperature of 300 K and elevated pressure, as particles traverse regions with significant substantial derivatives of fluid velocity. The local impact of the fluid stress force is largely negligible at 1500 K, except for the case of the largest particle at the greatest pressure. 3) The behavior of the added mass force largely mirrors that of the fluid stress force, though the added mass force is generally of lesser magnitude. Therefore, the added mass force can be locally important for all of the particles sizes when at a gas temperature of 300 K and elevated pressure, as particles traverse regions with significant substantial derivatives of fluid velocity. The added mass force is generally the least significant of the analyzed surface forces. 4) The Basset history force is locally significant for all cases where the particles are traversing regions with significant fluid velocity gradients. The impact of the Basset history force on particle motion increases with increasing gas pressure and particle size, while decreasing as gas temperature increases.

Once a satellite has completed its operational period, it must be removed responsibly in order to reduce the risk of impacting other missions. Geostationary Transfer Orbits (GTOs) offer unique challenges when considering disposal of spacecraft, as high eccentricity and orbital energy give rise to unique challenges for spacecraft designers. By leveraging small satellite research and integration techniques, a deployable drag sail module was analyzed that can shorten the expected orbit time of launch vehicle stages in GTO. A tool was developed to efficiently model spacecraft trajectories over long periods of time, which allowed for analysis of an object’s expected lifetime after its operational period had concluded. Material limitations on drag sail sizing and performance were also analyzed in order to conclude whether or not a system with the required orbital performance is feasible. It was determined that the sail materials and configuration is capable of surviving the expected GTO environment, and that a 49 m2 drag sail is capable of sufficiently shortening the amount of time that the space vehicles will remain in space.

A Laser Inertial Fusion Energy (LIFE) target’s flight through a low Reynolds number and high Mach number regime was analyzed with computational fluid dynamics software. This regime consisted of xenon gas at 1,050 K and approximately 6,670 Pa. Simulations with similar flow conditions were performed over a sphere and compared with experimental data and published correlations for validation purposes. Transient considerations of the developing flow around the target were explored. Simulations of the target at different velocities were used to determine correlations for the drag coefficient and Nusselt number as functions of the Reynolds number. Simulations with different target angles of attack were used to determine the aerodynamic coefficients of drag, lift, Magnus moment, and overturning moment as well as target stability. The drag force, lift force, and overturning moment changed minimally with spin. Above an angle of attack of 15°, the overturning moment would be destabilizing. At angles of attack less than 15°, the overturning moment would tend to decrease the target’s angle of attack, indicating the lack of a need for spin for stability at these small angles. This stabilizing moment would cause the target to move in a mildly damped oscillation about the axis parallel to the free-stream velocity vector through the target’s center of gravity.

There is an increased need for spacecraft to quickly and efficiently de-orbit themselves as the amount of debris in orbit around Earth grows. Defunct spacecraft pose a significant threat to the LEO environment due to their risk of fragmentation. If these spacecraft are de-orbited at the end of their useful life their risk to future spacecraft is greatly lessened. A proposed method of efficiently de-orbiting spacecraft is to use an inflatable thin-film envelope to increase the body's area to mass ratio and thusly shortening its orbital lifetime. The system and analysis presented in this project is sized for use on a CubeSat as they are an effective utility as a technology demonstration platform. Analysis has been performed to characterize the orbital dynamics of high area to mass ratio spacecraft as well as the leak rate of such an inflatable device in a vacuum environment. Results show that a 1U CubeSat can be de-orbited using a 1.7 meter diameter spherical device in just under one year while using 0.7 grams of inflating gas, this is compared to over 25 years without any method of post-mission disposal.

This thesis discusses a comparison of the differences in aerodynamic performance of wings designed with elliptical and bell-shaped lift distributions. The method uses a Standard Cirrus sailplane wing with a lift distribution associated with the induced drag benefits of an elliptical distribution (span efficiency = 0.96) as the basis of comparison. The Standard Cirrus is a standard class sailplane with 15-meter wingspan that was designed by Schempp-Hirth in 1969. This sailplane wing was modeled and analyzed in XFLR5, then validated against existing wind tunnel airfoil data, and Standard Cirrus flight test data. The root bending moment of the baseline wing was determined and used as the primary constraint in the design of two wings with bell-shaped lift distribution. These wings were modeled in XFLR5 by adjusting chord length and geometric twist respectively, and then they were studied using fixed speed lifting line analysis. Steady state cruise conditions for the Standard Cirrus sailplane were taken from the flight test data and applied for the analysis. The wing designed with chord variation posed incompatibilities with the lifting line method. The resulting planform was strongly tapered in the wingtip region and the reference chord length there was such that the software could not solve for a Reynolds number the magnitude resulting from two-dimensional airfoil analysis. However, the wing geometry provided insight into the design aspect of wings with bell-shaped lift distribution. Using chord variation to shape the lift distribution, the wing featured a 12% increase in wingspan but a 6.5% decrease in total wetted area when compared to the baseline. The results of the analysis of the wing designed with geometric twist indicate that induced drag decreased by 5% when compared to the baseline wing. The constraint on root bending moment resulted in a 12% increase in wingspan. Wetted area also increased by 14.8% over the baseline yielding an estimated 15% increase in skin friction.

The first goal of this work was to develop models based on nonlinear ordinary-differential equations or nonlinear algebraic equations, which produce the lift and drag coefficients on a cylinder or a cylinder-like structure. We introduced an improved wake oscillator for the lift, which combines the van der Pol and Duffing equations. We proposed a two-term quadratic model that relates the drag and lift coefficients, which reproduces the phase relationship between the drag and lift and its variation with the Reynolds number. We found that a mixed-type (external and parametric) forcing is needed to represent the effects of the cylinder motion. The second goal of this work was to develop a deeper understanding of the shedding and fluid forces on a cylinder and how they depend on its oscillatory motion within and outside the synchronization (or lock-in) band of frequencies. We performed extensive CFD (computational fluid dynamics) simulations and solved the unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations that govern the flow fields around fixed and moving (in either the cross-flow or in-line direction) cylinders. We identified various wake modes that can exist, depending on the cylinder motion (direction, amplitude, and frequency) by using modern methods of nonlinear dynamics. The possible responses can be period-one, periodic with large period, quasiperiodic, or chaotic. Moreover, we found that the route to chaos is torus breakdown. We investigated how four frequency sweeps of the cross-flow motion affect the response curves and the hysteresis phenomenon. We studied in detail the effect of the in-line motion on the wake and related this effect to the reduction in the lift and mean drag due to a synchronization type that is very different from the one due to cross-flow motion. / Ph. D.

Determination of particle slip is a major concern for particle based measurements in un- heated supersonic facilities, as it is a limiting factor for the instruments' frequency response. For the purpose of determining the particle deceleration through a stationary shock wave in a super sonic windtunnel, a novel 1-D Laser Doppler probe with an unique spatial range (~1.5 mm) is presented. The study first gives a short review of the physics of particle motion with respect to different drag models and flow regime encountered in super sonic flows. In the second part, the focus lies on the development of a new Laser Doppler probe using non Gaussian beams to obtain a prolonged measurement volume. This volume covers a major part of the particle lag after a shock wave. An experimental investigation on particle acceleration and drag, using different types and sizes of seeding material, including standardized microspheres is carried out in the Mâ = 2.0 super sonic facility. Three different types of particles with four different sizes are experimentally investigated. The experimental data provides mean velocity as a function of distance from the shock and reveals significant agglomeration and evaporation problems with Titanium Oxide and Polystyrene Latex spheres. Particle acceleration measurements are presented, proving the unique concept of the new Laser Doppler probe. Mean and instantaneous acceleration data is extracted from high SNR signals. The acceleration data obtained is consistent in magnitude and trend with the physical phenomena expected and shows the feasibility of the new instrument. / Master of Science

A drag study was conducted on an oblate ellipsoid body in the Virginia Tech Stability Wind Tunnel. Two-dimensional wake surveys were taken with a seven-hole probe and an integral momentum method was applied to the results to calculate the drag on the body. Several different model configurations were tested; these included the model oriented at a 0° and 10° angle of attack with respect to the oncoming flow. For both angles, the model was tested with and without flow trip strips. At the 0° angle of attack orientation, data were taken at a speed of 44 m/s. Data with the model at a 10° angle of attack were taken at 44 m/s and 16 m/s. The high speed flow corresponded to a length-based Reynolds number of about 4.3 million; the low speed flow gave a Reynolds number of about 1.6 million. The results indicated that the length-squared drag coefficients ranged from around 0.0026 for the 0° angle of attack test cases and 0.0035 for the 10° angle of attack test cases. The 10° angle of attack cases had higher drag due to the increase in the frontal profile area of the model and the addition of induced drag. The flow trip strips appeared to have a tiny effect on the drag; a slight increase in drag coefficient was seen by their application but it was not outside of the uncertainty in the calculation. At the lower speed, uncertainties in the calculation were so high that the drag results could not be considered with much confidence, but the drag coefficient did decrease from the higher Reynolds number cases. Uncertainty in the drag calculations derived primarily from spatial fluctuations of the mean velocity and total pressure in the wake profile; uncertainty was estimated to be about 16% or less for the 44 m/s test cases. / Master of Science

In the context of building a framework for active flow control of turbulent boundary layers in wings, a set of large-eddy simulation (LES) are implemented in OpenFOAM. The flow around a NACA4412 wing profile is simulated at 5° angle of attack and Re_c = 400˙000. Validation of the uncontrolled flow results is performed with respect to the dataset generated by Vinuesa et al. (2018) at the same aerodynamic configuration. Afterwards, two different flow control strategies are analyzed over the suction side (SS) of the wing to yield skin friction drag reduction and an overall improvement of the aerodynamic efficiency. The region subject to the actuation spans 0.25 x_ss/c to 0.:86 x_ss/c, where c is the chord length of the wing. In the current setup, uniform blowing (BLW) and suction (SCT) control schemes show close agreement with the trends presented by Atzori (2021). Indeed, BLW decreases the viscous drag, but increases its pressure contribution and penalizes the lift, thus lowering the global efficiency of the wing, while SCT has an opposite effect. Thus, these methods behave similarly to pressure gradients (PGs) conditions, as BLW enhances the APG, whereas SCT damps it. The streamwise travelling waves strategy is then assessed for three set-ups characterized by different phase speeds. A consistent skin friction drag reduction and efficiency improvement are observed for two cases, while milder benefits are recorded even when drag increase was expected. Trends which have already been reported in the literature by Quadrio et al. (2009) and Skote (2014) are identified, i.e. the effects of this actuation to be mainly enclosed in the viscous sub-layer and the gross amount of drag reduction to be dependent on the wave relative speed; however, it is believed that the PGs conditions over the SS of the wing significantly alters the outcomes of the chosen parameters. Eventually, Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulations are performed to assess their accuracy with respect to the generated LES set-up, in the effort to enable a multi-fidelity approach for future works.

The art series A Sexual Series is based on posthumanist theory and asexual experience. Shapes of performative alter egos materialized from a queer cyborg position of technologically enhanced crip experiences (the strong symbolical constructing process of straightening scoliosis surgery). From the position of a glitch reflecting a postindividualist future, the AI sexbot is a metaphoric, elevated cyborg drag version of the artist to embody asexuality and queer Otherness. Based on multitudes of contradictions to encourage self-reflection, the series explores the complexities of ob/scene and on/scene performances; the position of a sex positive asexual as well as questions of belonging as a naturally artificial rebel. This essay touches upon rituals as well as performative methods of disidentification as a tool to reimagine shame, to ghost the own body and to stop being a pleaser.