Computational Methods for Simulations of Multiphase Compressible Flows for Atomization Applications

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Description
Compressible fluid flows involving multiple physical states of matter occur in both nature and technical applications such as underwater explosions and implosions, cavitation-induced bubble collapse in naval applications and Richtmyer-Meshkov type instabilities in inertial confinement fusion. Of particular interest is

Compressible fluid flows involving multiple physical states of matter occur in both nature and technical applications such as underwater explosions and implosions, cavitation-induced bubble collapse in naval applications and Richtmyer-Meshkov type instabilities in inertial confinement fusion. Of particular interest is the atomization of fuels that enable shock-induced mixing of fuel and oxidizer in supersonic combustors. Due to low residence times and varying length scales, providing insight through physical experiments is both technically challenging and sometimes unfeasible. Numerical simulations can help provide detailed insight and aid in the engineering design of devices that can harness these physical phenomena.

In this research, computational methods were developed to accurately simulate phase interfaces in compressible fluid flows with a focus on targeting primary atomization. Novel numerical methods which treat the phase interface as a discontinuity, and as a smeared region were developed using low-dissipation, high-order schemes. The resulting methods account for the effects of compressibility, surface tension and viscosity. To aid with the varying length scales and high-resolution requirements found in atomization applications, an adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) framework is used to provide high-resolution only in regions of interest. The developed methods were verified with test cases involving strong shocks, high density ratios, surface tension effects and jumps in the equations of state, in one-, two- and three dimensions, obtaining good agreement with theoretical and experimental results. An application case of the primary atomization of a liquid jet injected into a Mach 2 supersonic crossflow of air is performed with the methods developed.
Date Created
2020
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A level set approach for denoising and adaptively smoothing complex geometry stereolithography files

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Description
Stereolithography files (STL) are widely used in diverse fields as a means of describing complex geometries through surface triangulations. The resulting stereolithography output is a result of either experimental measurements, or computer-aided design. Often times stereolithography outputs from experimental means

Stereolithography files (STL) are widely used in diverse fields as a means of describing complex geometries through surface triangulations. The resulting stereolithography output is a result of either experimental measurements, or computer-aided design. Often times stereolithography outputs from experimental means are prone to noise, surface irregularities and holes in an otherwise closed surface.

A general method for denoising and adaptively smoothing these dirty stereolithography files is proposed. Unlike existing means, this approach aims to smoothen the dirty surface representation by utilizing the well established levelset method. The level of smoothing and denoising can be set depending on a per-requirement basis by means of input parameters. Once the surface representation is smoothened as desired, it can be extracted as a standard levelset scalar isosurface.

The approach presented in this thesis is also coupled to a fully unstructured Cartesian mesh generation library with built-in localized adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) capabilities, thereby ensuring lower computational cost while also providing sufficient resolution. Future work will focus on implementing tetrahedral cuts to the base hexahedral mesh structure in order to extract a fully unstructured hexahedra-dominant mesh describing the STL geometry, which can be used for fluid flow simulations.
Date Created
2014
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