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Underwater acoustic propagation modeling and utilization for marine hydrokinetic devices
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2024) Hafla, Erin Christine; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Erick Johnson
Over the last two decades, there has been growing concern surrounding the increase in underwater anthropogenic sounds as expanding human populations interact with marine life and look for alternative energy production methods. That concern has led to a significant push worldwide to understand how propagated sound interacts with the surrounding marine environment. Marine hydrokinetic (MHK) devices are an alternative source of renewable energy available, which generate electricity from the motion of tidal and ocean currents, as well as ocean waves. Sounds produced by MHKs tend to overlap the frequency range common to both marine fauna communication and behavior. Preliminary measurements indicate that sound level values fall near the total sound decibel limitations presented by regulatory bodies. To date, the power optimization of MHK arrays has been prioritized over how its sound is produced, directed, and may impact the marine soundscape. There is a gap in knowledge regarding how marine fauna may respond to these sounds and what their physical and behavioral impact may be, and an absence in measured levels from insitu MHK deployments. A model for predicting the propagation of sound from an array of MHK sources in a real environment is essential for understanding potential impacts on a surrounding system. This work presents a fully three-dimensional solution to a set of coupled, linearized velocity-pressure equations in the time-domain as applied to underwater systems, and is an alternative sound propagation model to the Helmholtz and wave equation methods. The model is validated for a single source located within a series of increasingly complex two-dimensional and three-dimensional shallow water environments and compared against analytical solutions, examples from literature, and recorded sound pressure levels collected from Sequim Bay, WA. An uncertainty analysis for an array of MHK devices is presented to further understand how multiple turbine signals interact with one another in increasingly complex systems. This research presents a novel use of the velocity-pressure equations to analyze the variability associated with sound sources as sound propagates through a selected environment to inform the design and deployment of a MHK device or array of devices to minimize potential future impacts.
Rheo-NMR of complex fluids under startup, steady state and large amplitude oscillatory shear
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2021) Jayaratne, Jayesha S.; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Joseph D. Seymour and Sarah L. Codd (co-chair); This is a manuscript style paper that includes co-authored chapters.
Fluids are categorized as either simple or complex based on the intricacy of their structure and material response to deformation. Simple fluids composed of small molecules subject to deformation, readily flow with linear interaction dynamics with neighboring molecules. In contrast complex fluids like polymers, micelle solutions, colloidal gels and suspensions, composed of larger molecules or particulates alter the dynamics of individual constituents during deformation, requiring complicated constitutive models. Complex fluids are encountered daily, as they are found in consumer products such as food, pharmaceutical and personal care products. Knowing flow characteristics of these consumer products and their raw materials under industrially applicable deformations enables engineers to design efficient industrial processes and to formulate products to desired qualities. While classical rheology (the study of the flow and deformation of matter) techniques give good estimation of stress-strain bulk flow response, it fails to provide local flow information. Proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR) has been used to measure spatially and temporally resolved velocities of fluids subject to mechanical deformation. This research field is known as 'Rheo-NMR' and is a novel flow measuring technique in that it is non-invasive and able to quantify three-dimensional velocity fields even of opaque fluids. Velocity responses of complex fluids like worm-like micelle solutions, yield stress fluids and shear thinning fluids were studied under varied mechanisms of deformation and were compared to the responses of simple Newtonian fluids. How local velocities of the fluids change over time when a steady shear is applied suddenly, how the velocity fields are affected on applying large oscillatory shear deformations and how using different shearing geometries impacts the local flow response were explored. Using Rheo-NMR techniques, experimental protocols to study spatio-temporal velocity fields of complex fluids were developed and data analysis methods for quantifying such measurements were established.
Magnetic resonance imaging studies of forced and free convective heat transfer in packed beds and fluid columns
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2021) Skuntz, Matthew Eric; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Ryan Anderson; This is a manuscript style paper that includes co-authored chapters.
Prediction of fluid flow and associated energy transport is an essential component in many engineering applications where analytical solutions are not possible. In these systems experimentation and numerical simulations are a necessary part of the design process. This work focuses on the experimental study of mass and energy transport in packed beds and pure fluids under forced and natural convection using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging (MRI) techniques. It further evaluates the efficacy of commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software to simulate these processes. The study of heat transfer via NMR has proven difficult historically, despite sensitivity of NMR parameters to temperature. Here, a novel experimental setup is pioneered, which enables the study of heat transfer in packed beds. The method employs fluorinated pore-filling fluid and hydrogen-rich core-shell packing particles. Hydrogen and fluorine are NMR-active chemicals that can be imaged with the same experimental equipment by adjusting the resonance frequency; providing means to image the two domains separately. Pore- fluid velocities and particle-wax melting are observed in the same packed bed, at sub-millimeter resolutions, presenting a more complete picture of the conditions in these hard-to-measure systems. In the presented studies, this methodology is demonstrated under forced convection and proven capable in identifying and correlating spatial variations in heat transfer to pore-fluid velocity. The technique is then employed to assess the accuracy of a CFD model in the commercial software package, STAR CCM+, using the melt to quantify energy absorbed by the bed. In natural convection studies of a pure fluid and packed bed in the Rayleigh-Bénard configuration, the axial circulation pattern is found to change with axial position in the long narrow cylinder, a result that is rarely discussed in literature. A CFD model is shown to match well with these experimental findings. In porous media convection with sub-, near- and super- critical fluid, the rapidly changing thermal diffusivity was captured by the rate the particles absorb energy. Finally, a correlation is developed allowing particle-wax T 2 relaxation time to be converted into temperature.
Transient and steady state Rheo-NMR of shear banding wormlike micelles
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2020) Al Kaby (Al Qayem), Rehab Noor; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Sarah L. Codd and Jennifer Brown (co-chair); Jayesha S. Jayaratne, Timothy I. Brox, Sarah L. Codd, Joseph D. Seymour and Jennifer R. Brown were co-authors of the article, 'Rheo-NMR of transient and steady state shear banding under shear stratup' in the journal 'Journal of rheology' which is contained within this dissertation.; Sarah L. Codd, Joseph D. Seymour and Jennifer R. Brown were co-authors of the article, 'Characterization of velocity fluctuations and the transition from transient to steady state shear banding with and without pre-shear in a wormlike micelle solution under shear startup by Rheo-NMR' submitted to the journal 'Journal of applied rheology' which is contained within this dissertation.
Over many years, the combination of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques with rheometry, referred to as Rheo-NMR has been used to study materials under shear noninvasively. Rheo-NMR methods can provide valuable information on the rheological responses of materials or their behavior by temporally and spatially resolved mapping of the flow field. In this thesis, 1D velocity profiles across the fluid gap of a Couette shear cell are recorded using Rheo-NMR velocimetry to investigate the wormlike micelles (WLMs) surfactant system under transient and steady state flow conditions. The WLM system was a solution of 6 wt. % cetylpyridinium chloride (CPCl) and sodium salicylate (NaSal) in 0.5 M NaCl brine which is well-known for its ability to exhibit a mechanical response during flow known as shear banding. The shear banding phenomena is simply defined as the splitting of the flow into two macroscopic layers, a high and low shear band bearing different viscosities and local shear rates. Elastic instabilities are well known to develop in the unstable high shear band and manifest as fluctuations in the 1D measurements. Recently, it has been suggested that 1D velocimetry alone cannot reveal information about those observed fluctuations in terms of a sequence of elastic instabilities and 2D or 3D measurements are required. In this thesis, new Rheo-NMR equipment and quantitative analysis are used to characterize those fluctuations and show that 1D velocity measurements still have the potential to provide valuable information about 3D flows. Transient and steady state shear banding was observed for a range of shear rates across the stress plateau and the impact of several flow protocols were studied. The evolution of the high, low, and true shear rates, as well as interface position with time after shear startup was used to evaluate changes in the kinetics of shear band formation as a function of applied shear rate and flow protocol. Ultimately, these results will help in understanding the correlation between the macroscopic flow field and the microscopic structure and dynamics of WLMs and can also be a way to gain information about the presence and the dynamic of secondary flow without the need of a 3D measurement.
Thermal energy storage with sensible heat in an air-alumina packed bed using axial flow, axial flow with layers and radial flow
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2020) Al-Azawii, Mohammad Mahdie Saleh; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Ryan Anderson; Carter Theade, Megan Danczyk, Erick Johnson and Ryan Anderson were co-authors of the article, 'Experimental study on cyclic behavior of thermal energy storage in an air-alumina packed bed' published in the journal 'Journal of energy storage' which is contained within this dissertation.; Carter Theade, Pablo Bueno and Ryan Anderson were co-authors of the article, 'Experimental study of layered thermal energy storage in an air-alumina packed bed using axial pipe injections' in the journal 'Applied energy' which is contained within this dissertation.; Duncan Jacobsen, Pablo Bueno and Ryan Anderson were co-authors of the article, 'Experimental study of thermal behavior during charging in thermal energy storage packed bed using radial pipe' in the journal 'Applied thermal engineering' which is contained within this dissertation.
Thermal behavior in a packed bed thermal energy storage (TES) system is studied experimentally. TES systems are a promising solution to integrate renewable energy sources such as solar energy. The performance of such systems can be affected by different variables such as storage material size/type, pressure, temperature, heat transfer fluid (HTF), storage type (sensible/latent heat), and flow rate. Although these variables have been studied in literature, the resulting thermal dispersion and heat losses to the environment have been considered in few studies. This thesis studies the thermal behavior of an air-alumina TES packed bed focusing on dispersion and heat losses to quantify the thermal performance. Reducing their effects can improve the thermocline and thus thermal efficiency. The research efforts in this work quantify these effects and provide two new methods to reduce thermal dispersion and increase exergetic efficiency. Three configurations were considered in the present study. In the first configuration, a traditional packed bed is used focusing on performance for multiple partial cycles. This configuration quantified the thermal performance and served as a basis to compare the results from the other configurations. Dispersion effects were found to accumulate before a steady state was achieved during cycling. In the second and third configurations, novel pipe injection techniques were used to charge/discharge the bed. First, the normal bed is divided into layers via inserting pipes along the bed's axial length, focusing on a full charge-discharge cycle. Results show that exergy efficiency increases with flow rate and number of layers. The thermocline improved and dispersion losses decreased with number of layers. Second, a perforated pipe to facilitate radial flow was inserted at the center of the bed along the axial length to heat the bed. Radial charging shows higher charging efficiency compared to normal axial charging. Pipe injection is a novel method and a promising technique that improves the thermal performance of a lab scale storage bed, especially the layering method. Radial injection warrants more investigation to quantify its performance in thermal cycles.
Intrusive uncertainty quantification method for simulations of gas-liquid multiphase flows
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2020) Turnquist, Brian Robert; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mark Owkes; Mark Owkes was a co-author of the article, 'MULTIUQ: an intrusive uncertainty quantification tool for gas-liquid multiphase flows' in the journal 'Journal of computational physics' which is contained within this dissertation.; Mark Owkes was a co-author of the article, 'A fast, density decoupled pressure solver for an intrusive stochastic multiphase flow solver' submitted to the journal 'Journal of computational physics' which is contained within this dissertation.; Mark Owkes was a co-author of the article, 'MULTIUQ: a software package for uncertainty quantification of multiphase flows' submitted to the journal 'Computer physics communications' which is contained within this dissertation.; Mark Owkes was a co-author of the article, 'Exploration of basis functions for projecting a stochastic level set in a multiphase flow solver' submitted to the journal 'Atomization and sprays' which is contained within this dissertation.
Simulations of fluid dynamics play an increasingly important role in the development of new technology. For example, engineers may need to simulate an atomizing jet to create a better direct injection system for improving fuel economy in a vehicle, or to more efficiently spray water for building fire mitigation systems. The increased use of computational fluid dynamics requires improvements in methodology to improve simulation efficiency and accuracy. We can extract a great deal from these models, including uncertainty information. Although simulation of gas-liquid multiphase flow scenarios are common, most are deterministic in nature. Model parameters, like fluid density or viscosity, are assumed to be known and fixed. But this is not usually the case, and a research gap exists for uncertainty analysis in these simulations. For efficient performance, an intrusive approach is used to create a multiphase solver capable of uncertainty analysis. Variables of interest, such as velocity and pressure, are converted into stochastic variables which are allowed to vary in an added uncertainty dimension. Variability is then added to fluid parameters or initial/boundary conditions and a simulation is run which produces stochastic results. To verify the solver, several cases are presented which compare the ability of the solver against analytic solutions. Once satisfied with the ability of the solver, we can answer questions about more complex scenarios. For instance, we may question how uncertainty about the surface tension force may affect the atomization of a jet and find that fluids with a lower surface tension coefficient breakup sooner (as expected). We could also consider scenarios that may not have such an obvious outcome, such as imposing uncertainty about the density ratio for an atomizing jet to determine the effect of running simulations at low vs high density ratios. multiUQ is capable of producing accurate results of real world situations. As a tool it can provide additional insight into understanding complicated multiphase flow systems.
Accurate conservative simulations of multiphase flows applying the height function method to Rudman dual grids
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2019) Olshefski, Kristopher Thomas; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mark Owkes
Gas-liquid flows can be significantly influenced by the surface tension force, which controls the shape of the interface. The surface tension force is directly proportional to the interface curvature and an accurate calculation of curvature is essential for predictive simulations of these flow types. Furthermore, methods that consistently and conservatively transport momentum, which is discontinuous at the gas-liquid interface, are necessary for robust and accurate simulations. Using a Rudman dual mesh, which discretizes density on a twice as fine mesh, provides consistent and conservative discretization of mass and momentum. The height function method is a common technique to compute an accurate curvature as it is straightforward to implement and provides a second-order calculation. When a dual grid is used, the standard height function method fails to capture fine grid interface perturbations and these perturbations can grow. When these growing perturbations are left uncorrected, they can result in nonphysical dynamics and eventual simulation failure. This work extends the standard height function method to include information from the Rudman dual mesh. The proposed method leverages a fine-grid height function method to compute the fine-gird interface perturbations and uses a fine-grid velocity field to oppose the fine-grid perturbations. This approach maintains consistent mass and momentum transport while also providing accurate interface transport that avoids non-physical dynamics. The method is tested using an oscillating droplet test case and compared to a standard height function. Various iterations of the fine grid method are presented and strengths and shortcomings of each are discussed.
Extraction of droplet genealogies from high-fidelity atomization simulations
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2019) Rubel, Roland Francis Clark, IV; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mark Owkes
Many research groups are performing high-fidelity simulations of atomizing jets that are taking advantage of the continually increasing computational resources and advances in numerical methods. These high-fidelity simulations produce extremely large data-sets characterizing the flow and giving the ability to gather a better understanding of atomization. One of the main challenges with these data sets is their large size, which requires developing tools to extract relevant physics from them. The main goal of this project is to create a physics extraction technique to compute the genealogy of atomization. This information will characterize the process of the coherent liquid core breaking into droplets and ligaments which may proceed to break up further. This event information will be combined with detailed information such as droplet size, shape, flow field characteristics, etc. The extracted information will be stored in a database, allowing the information to be readily and quickly queried to assist in the development and testing of low-fidelity atomization models that agree with the physics predicted by high-fidelity simulations.
The interstitial fluid pressure response during stress-relaxation of articular cartilage due to viscosity and porous media effects: a computational study
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2018) Paschke, Brandon James; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Erick Johnson
Articular cartilage is a complex material made of several fluid and solid components. A model that fully describes the responses of cartilage is required to accurately create a cartilage replacement that can be used in cases of injury or disease. Modeling of articular cartilage has proven difficult and currently no constitutive law fully describes its solid and fluid responses. Many of the current models describe the interstitial fluid as inviscid, even though it is known that proteoglycan migration within cartilage causes a viscous response within interstitial fluid. The goal of this research was to create a viscous fluid porous media model that better captures the compressive resistance of cartilage created by migration of interstitial fluid during cartilage compression. Through the creation of this model it was possible to capture the experimental magnitudes of fluid pressure within cartilage during unconfined slow compression simulations. As part of this model, a porous media approximation was used, which demonstrates that small variations in the solid matrix, comprised of collagen fibers, can cause large variations in system response. Magnitudes of mean pressure values, after 150 seconds of compression, for the viscous fluid porous media model bound the values found in experimental testing. Limitations of the fluid model are that system relaxation isn't captured and the slope increase of pressures during compression for experiments don't match those of the fluid model. A main conclusion drawn from the model is that viscosity of interstitial fluid plays a large role in creating compressive resistance within articular cartilage. Another takeaway is that the porous media approximation greatly impacts the magnitude of fluid pressurization, which creates a need to accurately represent the solid matrix within cartilage.
Influence of orifice plate shape on condenser unit effectiveness
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2018) Kuluris, Stephen Patrick; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Erick Johnson
In both residential and commercial buildings, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) is the largest consumer of energy. The HVAC industry works to consistently reduce their energy consumption in order to lower consumer costs and to stay competitive in the field. Therefore, improving fan efficiency of any component in an HVAC system is beneficial. A major part of the industry is to use the vapor-compression refrigeration cycle to cool buildings and an essential component of the cycle is the condenser unit. Axial fans are commonly used to move air through and cool the heated refrigerant coil. Improving axial fan performance by redesigning the casing that surrounds the fan, known as an orifice plate, is suspected to lead to a more productive condenser unit. Changing the geometry can increase performance by reducing turbulence generation both upstream and downstream of the fan, which is thought to be a major contributor to loss in fan fan efficiency. Manufacturing many different geometries in a design process to find an improved orifice plate is time-consuming and expensive. With advances in computer technologies, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has become a low-cost alternative to iterative, physical prototyping. This work uses CFD in the design process of an orifice plate, to characterize and analyze the effects of different geometries. Fan fan efficiency and volume ow rate characterize the performance of the design, and turbulence, vorticity, and pressure visualization provides further information about the effects of design changes. The orifice geometry upstream and downstream of the fan were changed independently, and then both regions were combined into a single design. Results show that the flow upstream and downstream are affected in different ways, and contribute to overall fan efficiency through different mechanics. An improvement to the inlet region produced an fan efficiency increase of 4.8%, and the addition of an outlet region increases fan efficiency by 9.8%. The combined change in the orifice resulted in an overall increase in fan efficiency by 15.85% over the original design.

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