More energy efficient fans, i.e. larger sizes running at lower speeds, in Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems decrease the fan noise and increase the importance of flow generated noise in other system components, e.g., dampers and air terminal devices. In this thesis, an extended prediction model, using semi-empirical scaling laws, for flow noise prediction in HVAC systems at low Mach number flow speeds is presented. The scaling laws can be seen as a combination of a generalized noise spectrum based on experimental data and constriction flow characteristics, where the latter can be gained from ComputationalFluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. The flow generated noise can be predicted by semi-empirical scaling laws to avoid a time consuming, fully resolved simulation or measurement. Here, an approach is suggested where the general noise spectra are combined with turbulent data obtained from Reynolds Average Navier Stokes (RANS) simulations. A model is proposed using a momentumflux assumption of the dipole source strength and a frequency scaling based on the constriction pressure loss. To evaluate the applicability of the semi-emprical scaling law on different HVAC geometries both literature data and new measurement data are considered. Focus is at comparing geometries of high and low pressure loss but also to discuss the differences in other properties, e.g. radiation characteristics. A general noise reference spectrum is determined bya best fit calculation of measurement data including orifice, damper and bend geometries. Air terminal devices at the end of a duct are also evaluated and compared to constrictions inside ducts. The expected accuracy of the suggested model and its challenges as a tool for flow noise prediction of non-rotating components in HVAC systems are discussed. / På grund av ökade energieffektivitetskrav har större fläktar som roterar med lägre hastighet börjat användas i byggnaders ventilationssystem(HVAC). De lägre hastigheterna har minskat ljudnivån från fläkten och ökat betydelsen av strömningsalstrat ljud från andra systemkomponenter, t.ex. spjäll och luftdon. I denna avhandling presenteras en förbättrad prediktionsmodell, utifrån semi-empiriska skalningslagar, för strömningsalstrat ljud i ventilationssystem. Skalningslagarna kan ses som en kombination av generellaljudspektra och strypningens specifika flödesegenskaper, där det senare kan fås från Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simuleringar. Semiempiriska skalningslagar är ett alternativ för att undvika tidskrävandemätningar eller fullt upplösta simuleringar. Ett tillvägagångssätt presenteras här där det generella spektrat, bestämt utifrån experimentell data, kombineras med data från Reynolds Average Navier Stokes (RANS) simuleringar. En prediktionsmodell föreslås där källstyrkan hos dipolkrafterna definieras utifrån rörelsemängd och frekvensskalningen utifrån strypningens tryckfall. För att utvärdera vilka HVAC geometrier som kan ingå i den generella modellen analyseras både resultat från litteraturen samt nya mätningar. Avhandlingsarbetet fokuserar på att jämföra geometrier av högt och lågt tryckfall men också på att diskutera skillnader i andra egenskaper såsom strålningskarakteristik t.ex. genom att jämföra luftdon i slutet av en kanal med strypningar inuti kanalen. Ett generellt ljudspektrum föreslås utifrån en anpassning av mätdata för strypningar, spjäll och böjar. Modellens förväntade noggrannhet och dess utmaningar som prediktionsverktyg för icke-roterande komponenter i ventilationssystem diskuteras. / <p>QC 20150518</p>

The wake behind a rectangular forebody with variable inlet conditions is investigated. The perforated surface of the two-dimensional rectangular forebody, with a smooth leading edge and a blunt trailing edge, allows for boundary layer modification by means of wall suction. The test section, of which the rectangular forebody is the main part, is experimentally evaluated with a series of hot-wire and Prandtl tube measurements in the boundary layer and the wake. For a suction coefficient of Γ&gt;9, corresponding to 0.9% suction of the free stream velocity, the asymptotic suction boundary layer (ASBL) is obtained at the trailing edge of the forebody for laminar boundary layers (Rex=1.6×105−3.8×105). The key feature of the ASBL, a spatially invariant boundary thickness which can be modified independent of the Reynolds number, is used to perform a unique parametrical study. Turbulent boundary layers (Rex=4.5×105−3.0×106) subject to wall suction are also investigated. For a critical suction coefficient Γcrit, which depends on Rex, the boundary layer relaminarizes. Strong evidence is found to support the hypothesis that turbulent boundary layers will ultimately attain the ASBL as well, provided that the wall suction is strong enough. The effect of the modulated laminar and turbulent boundary layers on the wake characteristics is studied. The shape of the mean wake velocity profile, scaled with the velocity deficit U0and the wake half width ∆y1/2, is found tobe independent of x/h, for x/h&gt; 6 and Reh &gt;6.7×103. The wake width is shown to scale with the effective thickness of the body h+2δ1, where the ratio is expected to vary with the downstream location. A decrease of the displacement thickness leads to a decrease of the base pressure, with Cp,b = −0.36 in the ASBL limit. The Strouhal number based on the effective thickness becomes Sth+2δ1 ≈ 0.29 in the ASBL limit and independent of the plate thickness (h) Reynolds number, in the range Reh = 2.9×103 − 6.7×103. For the turbulent boundary Sth+2δ1 is found to be 25% lower, which shows that the wake characteristics depend on the state of the boundary layer at the trailing edge. The total drag is found to be reduced by as much as 30% for Reh = 2.7×104 when a wall normal velocity of only 3.5% of the free stream velocity is applied. Wall suction successively reduces the total drag with increasing wall suction, at least in the Reynolds number rangeReh = 8.0×103−5.5×104. / <p>QC 20140312</p>

Dispersed particle flows occur in many industrial, biological and geophysical applications. The knowledge of how these flow behave can for example lead to improved material processes, better predictions of vascular diseases or more accurate climate models. These particle flows have certain properties that depend on single particle motion in fluid flows and especially how they are distributed both in terms of spatial position and, if they are non-spherical, in terms of orientation. Much is already known about the motion of perfectly spherical particles. For non-spherical particles, apart from their translation, it is important to know the the rotational motion due to local velocity gradients. Such studies have usually been restricted by the assumption that particles are extremely small compared to fluid length scales. In this limit, both inertia of the particle and inertia of the fluid can be neglected for the particle motion. This thesis gives a complete picture of how a spheroidal particle (a particle described by a rotation of an ellipse around one of its principal axes) behave in a linear shear flow when including both fluid and particle inertia, using numerical simulations. It is observed that this very simple problem possess very interesting dynamical behavior with different stable rotational states appearing as a competition between the two types of inertia. The effect of particle inertia leads to a rotation where the mass of the particle is concentrated as far away from the rotational axis as possible, i.e.\ a rotation around the minor axis. Typically, the effect of fluid inertia is instead that it tries to force the particle in a rotation where the streamlines of the flow remain as straight as possible. The first effect of fluid inertia is thus the opposite of particle inertia and instead leads to a particle rotation around the major axis. Depending on rotational state, the particles also affect the apparent viscosity of the particle dispersion. The different transitions and bifurcations between rotational states are characterized in terms of non-linear dynamics, which reveal that the particle motion probably can be described by some reduced model. The results in this theses provides fundamental knowledge and is necessary to understand flows containing non-spherical particles. / Flöden med dispergerade partiklar påträffas i många industriella, biologiska och geofysiska tillämpningar. Kunskap om hur dessa flöden beter sig kan bl.a. leda till förbättrade materialprocesser, bättre förutsägelser om hjärt- och kärlsjukdomar eller mer noggranna väderprognoser. Dessa flödens egenskaper beror på hur enskilda partiklar rör sig i en fluid och speciellt hur de är fördelade både i termer av position och, om de är icke-sfäriska, i termer av orientering. Mycket är redan känt om rörelsen av perfekt sfäriska partiklar. För icke-sfäriska partiklar är det inte bara translationen som är av intresse utan det är även viktigt att veta hur partiklarna roterar till följd av lokala hastighetsgradienter. Sådana studier har tidigare varit begränsade av antagandet att partiklarna är extremt små jämfört med fluidens typiska längdskalor. I denna gräns kan både partikelns och fluidens tröghet antas försumbar. Den här avhandlingen ger en komplett bild av hur en sfäroidisk partikel (en partikel som beskrivs av en rotation av en ellips runt en av dess huvudaxlar) beter sig i ett linjärt skjuvflöde när tröghetseffekter inkluderas. Resultaten har erhållits genom numeriska simuleringar. Det visar sig att detta enkla problem är väldigt rikt på olika dynamiska beteenden med flera stabila rotationstillstånd som uppstår tilll följd av både partikel- och fluidtröghet. Inverkan av partikeltröghet leder till en rotation där massan av partikeln är koncentrerad så långt ifrån rotationsaxeln som möjligt, d.v.s. en rotation runt lillaxeln. Den typiska inverkan av fluidtröghet är istället att fluiden försöker påtvinga partikeln en rotation där strömlinjer förblir så raka som möjligt. Primärt leder detta till att partikeln istället roterar runt storaxeln. Beroende på rotationstillstånd, så har partikeln även olika inverkan på den märkbara viskositeten av partikeldispersionen. De olika övergångarna och bifurkationerna mellan rotationstillstånd är karaktäriserade i termer av icke-linjär dynamik, vilket visar på att partikelrörelserna förmodligen kan beskrivas med en reducerad modell. Resultaten i denna avhandling är därför fundamental kunskap och ett nödvändigt steg mot att förstå beteendet av flöden med dispergerade, icke-sfäriska partiklar. / <p>QC 20140328</p>

At the intake of hydropower plants, air-core vortex formation is known to cause severe damage. In order to study how to prevent and reduce the origin of the vortex, Vattenfall has built a scale model of the Akkats hydropower plant dam, where scale testing is possible. This thesis work consists of discerning whether Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in terms of solving the Unsteady Reynolds Average Navier-Stokes equations (URANS) can be used as a complement to scale testing. For this work, the RNG k-epsilon turbulence model is chosen, and the flow field is solved with implicit time discretization using a pressure-based solver, for three different inlet flow conditions. Despite significant differences in the inflow of these three cases, the resulting flow fields are surprisingly similar. A main result is that no vortex is formed in any of the cases. The cause of this is discussed, but the number of possible answers is large. The main purpose of the report has therefore become to lay the foundation for further research. Amongst the top priorities in parameters to investigate lies the choice of turbulence model, the surface height, the pressure discretization scheme and to perform calculations on a more expensive mesh. / Virvlar som uppstår vid intaget i vattenkraftverk kan orsaka stora skador. För att kunna göra studier om hur man bäst motverkar virveln och förhindrar dess uppkomst, har Vattenfall AB byggt en småskalig modell av dammen vid Akkats vattenkraftverk. Det här arbetet behandlar frågeställningen huruvida Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) med lösning av ekvationerna för Unsteady Reynolds Average Navier-Stokes (URANS) kan användas som ett komplement till dessa modell-tester. I det här arbetet har turbulensmodellen RNG k−epsilon valts och flödesfältet löses för tre olika tillstånd för flödet vid inloppet, med hjälp av implicit tidsdiskretisering tillsammans med en tryckbaserad ekvationslösare. Trots betydande skillnader för inflödet för dessa tre fall är de resulterande flödesfälten överraskande lika. Ett huvudresultat är att ingen virvel formas för någon av dessa fall. Anledningen till detta har diskuterats, men antalet möjliga anledningar är många. Huvudsyftet med den här rapporten har därför blivit att lägga en grund för framtida efterforskningar på området. Några av de viktigaste parametrarna att undersöka är valet av turbulensmodell, höjden på vattenytan, tryckdiskretiserings-schema samt att genomföra beräkningar för en finare mesh.

For modeling thermal heat transfer, not only the effects of convection and conduction are relevant, but also thermal and visible radiation. Radiation is especially important for setups with large temperature differences, as well as for interaction with external light sources.Common computational fluid dynamic models usually treat radiation transport as a minor effect, that can be handled by simplified algorithms. All these normal models, e.g. surface to surface model, discrete transfer model, P_N method, discrete ordinates model, exhibit disadvantages in the computing performance and the physical modeling. Hence, there are many technical applications, where the fluid simulation are limited both in accuracy and calculation time by the available radiation model. As exemplary cases combustion chambers, smoke and soot creation, solar power generation, UV water disinfection, condensation in car headlights, fusion and fission reactor chambers, electric arc movement, as well as low-emissivity glass windows can be named. In the fields investigating radiation as main effect, e.g. cinematic 3d animation or illumination simulation for lamps and workspaces, the mentioned methods are not in use anymore as ray tracing is the first choice. In this work, the existing methods for ray tracing were adapted and implemented with the goal to interact with fluid flow simulations and replace existing radiation modeling. This can be regarded as innovative, interdisciplinary method for the interaction of fluids and solids with radiation, incorporating physical effects that could not be included in previous simulations. While in usual light calculations, the geometry exists solely in the form of surfaces and their triangulation, fluid flow requires volumetric calculation grids. Hence, methods are implemented that actually use the volumetric grid, and incorporate volumetric effects with little additional effort. Spectral volumetric path tracing with Monte Carlo integrated, importance sampled emission was hence the method of choice for this work. The implemented ray tracer is able to emit radiation from point sources, geometric surfaces, as well as from volumetric sources. Spectral dependence of material values is treated using radiation bands with hardly no increase of calculation time, whereas in all other models, the calculation time scales linearly with the amount of bands. Direct, diffuse and mixed surface reflection is modeled. The volumetric refraction index is implemented, so refraction is modeled, even including partial and total reflexion. The focusing of lenses or mirror systems can hence be simulated satisfactory, which cannot be treated sufficiently by any other radiation model. Surface and volumetric absorption are implemented, as well as surface and volumetric scattering effects. The radiation emission can be caused by a temperature field at surfaces and volumes. These fields are imported from software calculating the fluid and the thermal system. Ray tracing results in volumetric and surface heat sources that can be returned to the original code, and their effect further calculations. This coupling was implemented and tested with the commercial computational fluid dynamics code Fluent, using its plug-in interface. As most of Fluent's radiation models are only performed after a fixed number of implicit flow and turbulence iterations, no further disadvantages or limitations occur, that are not as well existing for the existing radiation simulations. A fully implicit treatment of radiation is unlikely to be performed, as stability is already sufficient for most applications. Of course, systems containing only heat sources caused by light and no secondary heat radiation can be treated by the implemented ray tracer with high performance. The implemented ray tracer is validated with analytically solved systems, and compared to quantitative simulation results of other simulation methods. Also, the scattering effects are validated against experimental and simulation results from literature. The observed calculation performance is similar or faster then for standard models with geometries of approximately 150000 volume elements, while the modeling is done more accurately. For larger models, even larger advantages can be expected.

The behavior of fibers suspended in a flow between two counter-rotating discs has been studied experimentally. This is inspired by the refining process in the papermaking process where cellulose fibers are ground between discs in order to change performance in the papermaking process and/or qualities of the final paper product. To study the fiber behavior in a counter-rotating flow, an experimental set-up with two glass discs was built. A CCD-camera was used to capture images of the fibers in the flow. Image analysis based on the concept of steerable filters extracted the position and orientation of the fibers in the plane of the discs. Experiments were performed for gaps of 0.1-0.9 fiber lengths, and for equal absolute values of the angular velocities for the upper and lower disc. The aspect ratios of the fibers were 7, 14 and 28. Depending on the angular velocity of the discs and the gap between them, the fibers were found to organize themselves in fiber trains. A fiber train is a set of fibers positioned one after another in the tangential direction with a close to constant fiber-to-fiber distance. In the fiber trains, each individual fiber is aligned in the radial direction (i.e. normal to the main direction of the train). The experiments show that the number of fibers in a train increases as the gap between the discs decreases. Also, the distance between the fibers in a train decreases as the length of the train increases, and the results for short trains are in accordance with previous numerical results in two dimensions.Furthermore, the results of different aspect ratios imply that there are three-dimensional fiber end-effects that are important for the forming of fiber trains.

Vehicles with internal combustion (IC) engines fueled by hydrocarbon compounds have been used for more than 100 years for ground transportation. During the years and in particular in the last decade, the environmental aspects of IC engines have become a major political and research topic. Following this interest, the emissions of pollutants such as NOx, CO2 and unburned hydrocarbons (UHC) from IC engines have been reduced considerably. Yet, there is still a clear need and possibility to improve engine efficiency while further reducing emissions of pollutants. The maximum efficiency of IC engines used in passenger cars is no more than $40\%$ and considerably less than that under part load conditions. One way to improve engine efficiency is to utilize the energy of the exhaust gases to turbocharge the engine. While turbocharging is by no means a new concept, its design and integration into the gas exchange system has been of low priority in the power train design process. One expects that the rapidly increasing interest in efficient passenger car engines would mean that the use of turbo technology will become more widespread. The flow in the IC-engine intake manifold determines the flow in the cylinder prior and during the combustion. Similarly, the flow in the exhaust manifold determines the flow into the turbine, and thereby the efficiency of the turbocharging system. In order to reduce NOx emissions, exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) is used. As this process transport exhaust gases into the cylinder, its efficiency is dependent on the gas exchange system in general. The losses in the gas exchange system are also an issue related to engine efficiency. These aspects have been addressed up to now rather superficially. One has been interested in global aspects (e.g. pressure drop, turbine efficiency) under steady state conditions.In this thesis, we focus on the flow in the exhaust port and close to the valve. Since the flow in the port can be transonic, we study first the numerical modeling of such a flow in a more simple geometry, namely a bump placed in a wind tunnel. Large-Eddy Simulations of internal transonic flow have been carried out. The results show that transonic flow in general is very sensitive to small disturbances in the boundary conditions. Flow in the wind tunnel case is always highly unsteady in the transonic flow regime with self excited shock oscillations and associated with that also unsteady boundary-layer separation. To investigate sensitivity to periodic disturbances the outlet pressure in the wind tunnel case  was varied periodically at rather low amplitude. These low amplitude oscillations caused hysteretic behavior in the mean shock position and appearance of shocks of widely different patterns. The study of a model exhaust port shows that at realistic pressure ratios, the flow is transonic in the exhaust port. Furthermore, two pairs of vortex structures are created downstream of the valve plate by the wake behind the valve stem and by inertial forces and the pressure gradient in the port. These structures dissipate rather quickly. The impact of these structures and the choking effect caused by the shock on realistic IC engine performance remains to be studied in the future. / CICERO

In the industry, all passenger vehicles are treated with damping materials to reduce structure-borne sound. Though these damping materials are effective to attenuate structure-borne sound, they have little or no effect on the air-borne sound transmission.The lack of effective predictive methods for assessing the acoustic effects due to added damping on complex industrial structures leads to excessive use of damping materials.Examples are found in the railway industry where sometimes the damping material applied per carriage is more than one ton. The objective of this thesis is to provide a better understanding of the application of these damping materials in particular when applied to lightweight sandwich panels. As product development is carried out in a fast pace today, there is a strong need for validated prediction tools to assist in the design process. Sound transmission loss of sandwich plates with isotropic core materials can be accurately predicted by calculating the wave propagation in the structure. A modified wave propagation approach is used to predict the sound transmission loss of sandwich panels with honeycomb cores. The honeycomb panels are treated as being orthotropic and the wave numbers are calculated for the two principle directions. The orthotropic panel theory is used to predict the sound transmission loss of panels. Visco-elastic damping with a constraining layer is applied to these structures and the effect of these damping treatment on the sound transmission loss is studied. Measurements are performed to validate these predictions. Sound radiated from vibrating structures is of great practical importance.The radiation loss factor represents damping associated with the radiation of sound as a result of the vibrating structure and can be a significant contribution for structures around the critical frequency and for composite structures that are very lightly damped. The influence of the radiation loss factor on the sound reduction index of such structures is also studied. / QC 20100519 / ECO2-Multifunctional body Panels

All organs, including the brain, need a pathway to remove neurotoxic extracellular proteins. In the brain this is called the glymphatic system. The glymphatic system works by exchanging proteins from interstitial fluids to cerebrospinal fluids. The extracellular proteins are then removed through the cerebrospinal fluid drains. The glymphatic system is believed to be driven by arterial pulsatility, cerebrospinal fluid production and respiration. Cerebrospinal fluids enters the brain alongside arteries. In this project, we investigate if a simulated pulsatile flow in a common carotid artery can drive cerebrospinal fluid flow running along the artery, using computational simulations of a linearly elastic and fluid-structure multiphysical model in COMSOL. Our simulations show that a heartbeat pulse increases the arterial radius of the common carotid artery by 6 %. Experimental data, assessed using 4D magnetic resonance imaging of a living human, show an increase of 13 %. Moreover, our results indicate that arterial displacement itself is not able to drive cerebrospinal fluid flow. Instead, it seems to create a back and forth flow that possibly could help with the protein exchange between the cerebrospinal and interstitial fluids. Overall, the results indicate that the COMSOL Multiphysics linearly elastic model is not ideal for approximations of soft non-linearly elastic solids, such as soft polydimethylsiloxane and artery walls work for stiffer materials. The long term aim is to simulate a part of the glymphatic system and the present work is a starting point to reach this goal. As the simulations in this work are simplified there are more things to test in the future. For example, using the same geometries a non-linear elastic model could be tested. The pulsatile waveform or the geometry could be made more complex. Furthermore the model could be scaled down to represent a penetrating artery in the brain instead of the common carotid artery.

Modern gas turbine blades and vanes are operated at temperatures above their material’s melting point. Active external and internal cooling are therefore necessary to reach acceptable lifetimes. One possible internal cooling method is called matrix cooling, where a matrix of intersecting cooling air channels is integrated into a blade or vane. To further increase the efficiency of gas turbines, the amount of cooling air must be reduced. Therefore it is necessary that heat transfer inside a cooling matrix is well understood. In the first part of the thesis, a methodology for estimating heat transfer in the flow of matrix cooling channels was established using Computational Fluid Dynamics. Two four-equation RANS turbulence models based on the k-ε turbulence model showed a good correlation with experimental results, while the k-ω SST model underpredicted the heat transfer significantly. For all turbulence models, the heat transfer showed high sensitivity towards changes in the numerical setup. For the k-ω SST turbulence model, the mesh requirements were deemed too computationally expensive and it was excluded from further investigations. As the second part of the thesis, a parameter study was conducted investigating the influence of several geometric parameters on the heat transfer in a cooling matrix. The matrix was simplified as a channel flow interacting with multiple crossing flows. The highest enhancement in heat transfer was seen with changes in taper ratio, aspect ratio and matrix angle. Compared to smooth pipe flow, an increase in heat transfer of up to 60% was observed. Rounded edges of the cooling channels showed a significant influence on the heat transfer as well. In contrast, no influence of the wall thickness on the heat transfer was observed. While no direct validation is possible, the base case and the parameter sweeps show a good correlation with similar cases found in the literature.