Search Results (433)

This study applies Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and mathematical modeling to examine uterine and umbilical arterial blood flow during pregnancy, providing a more detailed understanding of hemodynamic changes across gestation. Statistical analysis of Doppler ultrasound data from a large cohort of more than 200 pregnant women (in the second and third trimesters) reveals significant increases in the umbilical arterial peak systolic velocity ($PSV$) between the 22nd and 30th weeks, while uterine artery velocities remain relatively stable, suggesting adaptations in vascular resistance during pregnancy. By combining the Navier–Stokes equations with Doppler ultrasound-derived inlet velocity profiles, we quantify several key fluid dynamics parameters, including time-averaged wall shear stress ($TAWSS$), oscillatory shear index ($OSI$), relative residence time ($RRT$), Reynolds number ($Re$), and Dean number ($De$), evaluating laminar flow stability in the uterine artery and secondary flow patterns in the umbilical artery. Since blood exhibits shear-dependent viscosity and complex rheological behavior, modeling it as a non-Newtonian fluid is essential to accurately capture pulsatile flow dynamics and wall shear stresses in these vessels. Unlike conventional imaging techniques, CFD offers enhanced visualization of blood flow characteristics such as streamlines, velocity distributions, and instantaneous particle motion, providing insights that are not easily captured by Doppler ultrasound alone. Specifically, CFD reveals secondary flow patterns in the umbilical artery, which interact with the primary flow, a phenomenon that is challenging to observe with ultrasound. These findings refine existing hemodynamic models, provide population-specific reference values for clinical assessments, and improve our understanding of the relationship between umbilical arterial flow dynamics and fetal growth restriction, with important implications for maternal and fetal health monitoring. Full article

The placement of hydraulic elements in existing pool-type fishways to make them more suitable for Cyprinid fish is an issue of increasing interest in fishway research. Hydrodynamic characteristics and fish behavior at the representative pool of the fishway with bottom orifices and notches were assessed at the Dagdelen hydropower plant in the Ceyhan River Basin, Türkiye. Three-dimensional velocity measurements were taken in the pool of the fishway using an Acoustic Doppler velocimeter. The measurements were taken with and without a brush block at two different vertical distances from the bottom, which were below and above the level of bristles tips. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was conducted for the studied fishway. The numerical model utilized Large Eddy Simulation (LES) combined with the Darcy–Forchheimer law, wherein brush blocks were represented as homogenous porous media. Our results revealed that the relative submergence of bristles in the brush block plays a very important role in velocity and Reynolds shear stress (RSS) distributions. After the placement of the submerged brush block, flow velocity and the lateral RSS component were reduced, and a resting area was created behind the brush block below the bristles’ tips. Fish movements in the pool were recorded by underwater cameras under real-time operation conditions. The heatmap analysis, which is a 2-dimensional fish spatial presence visualization technique for a specific time period, showed that Capoeta damascina avoided the areas with high turbulent fluctuations during the tests, and 61.5% of the fish presence intensity was found to be in the low Reynolds shear regions in the pool. This provides a clear case for the real-world ecological benefits of retrofitting existing pool-weir fishways with such flexible hydraulic elements. Full article

This study investigates the flow dynamics and local scour around a Reef Cube^® artificial reef deployed in Torbay, UK, using computational fluid dynamics. The flow is modelled using Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations with a k-ω SST turbulence model. A novel hydro-morphodynamic model employing the generalized internal boundary method in HELYX (OpenFOAM-based) is used to simulate scour development. Model performance was validated against experimental data for flow fields, bed shear stress, and local scour. Flow simulations across various scenarios demonstrated that parameters such as the orientation angle and arrangement of Reef Cubes significantly influence flow patterns, bed shear stress, and habitat suitability. The hydro-morphodynamic model was used to simulate scouring around a reef cube in the Torbay marine environment. Results indicate that typical tidal flow velocity flow in the region is barely sufficient to initiate sediment motion, whereas extreme flow events, represented by doubling the mean flow velocity, significantly accelerate scour development, producing holes up to ten times deeper. These findings underscore the importance of considering extreme flow conditions in scour analyses due to their potential impact on the stability and failure risk of AR projects. Full article

This study investigates the downstream wake characteristics of a helical hydrokinetic turbine through combined experimental and numerical analyses. A four-bladed helical turbine with a 20 cm rotor diameter and blockage ratio of 53.57% was tested in an open water channel under a flow rate of 180 m³/h, corresponding to a Reynolds number of approximately 90 × 10³. Velocity measurements were collected at 13 downstream cross-sections using an Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter, with each point sampled repeatedly. Standard error analysis was applied to quantify measurement uncertainty. Complementary numerical simulations were conducted in ANSYS Fluent using a steady-state k-ω Shear Stress Transport (SST) turbulence model, with a mesh of 4.7 million elements and mesh independence confirmed. Velocity deficit and turbulence intensity were employed as primary parameters to characterize the wake structure, while the analysis also focused on the recovery of cross-sectional velocity profiles to validate the extent of wake influence. Experimental results revealed a maximum velocity deficit of over 40% in the near-wake region, which gradually decreased with downstream distance, while turbulence intensity exceeded 50% near the rotor and dropped below 10% beyond 4 m. In comparison, numerical findings showed a similar trend but with lower peak velocity deficits of 16.6%. The root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE) between experimental and numerical mean velocity profiles were calculated as 0.04486 and 0.03241, respectively, demonstrating reasonable agreement between the datasets. Extended simulations up to 30 m indicated that flow profiles began to resemble ambient conditions around 18–20 m. The findings highlight the importance of accurately identifying the downstream distance at which the wake effect fully dissipates, as this is crucial for determining appropriate inter-turbine spacing. The study also discusses potential sources of discrepancies between experimental and numerical results, as well as the limitations of the modeling approach. Full article

Annular flow is a common flow configuration encountered in fields such as food engineering, energy and power engineering, and petroleum engineering. The annular space formed by the inner and outer pipes exhibits unique characteristics, with the distinct curvatures of the inner and outer pipes rendering the annulus fundamentally different from a circular pipe. The complexity of the annular structure complicates the rapid calculation of turbulent statistics in engineering practice, as modeling these statistics necessitates a comprehensive understanding of their peak characteristics. However, current research lacks a thorough understanding of the peak characteristics of turbulent flows in annuli with varying diameter ratios (the ratio of the inner tube’s diameter to the outer tube’s diameter) between the inner and outer pipes. To gain a deeper insight into the turbulent peak characteristics within annular flows, this study employs numerical simulation methods to investigate the first- and second-order turbulent statistics under different diameter ratios resulting from varying curvatures of the inner and outer pipes. These statistics encompass velocity distribution, the position and magnitude of maximum velocity, turbulence intensity, turbulent kinetic energy, and Reynolds stress. The research findings indicate that the contour plots of velocity, turbulence intensity, and turbulent kinetic energy distributions under different diameter ratio conditions exhibit central symmetry. The peaks of the first-order statistical quantities are located in the mainstream region of the annulus, and their positions gradually shift closer to the center of the annulus as the diameter ratio increases. For the second-order statistical quantities, peaks are observed near both the inner and outer walls, and their positions move closer to the walls as the diameter ratio rises. The peak values of turbulent characteristics show significant variations across different diameter ratios. Both the inner and outer wall surfaces exhibit peaks in their second-order statistical quantities. For instance, the maximum value of Reynolds stress near the inner tube is 101.4% of that near the outer tube, and the distance from the wall where the maximum Reynolds stress occurs near the inner tube is 97.2% of the corresponding distance near the outer tube. This study is of great significance for optimizing the diameter combination of the inner and outer pipes in annular configurations and for evaluating turbulent statistics. Full article

In this study, a computational thermo-fluid dynamics simulation of a wide-slot jet impingement heating process is performed. The present configuration consists of a turbulent incompressible air jet impinging orthogonally on an isothermal cold plate at a Reynolds number of around 11,000. The two-dimensional mean turbulent flow field is numerically predicted by solving Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations, where the two-equation eddy viscosity k-$\omega$ model is utilized for turbulence closure. As the commonly used shear stress transport variant overpredicts heat transfer at the plate due to excessive turbulent diffusion, the recently developed generalized k-$\omega$ (GEKO) model is considered for the present analysis, where the primary model coefficients are suitably tuned. Through a comparative analysis of the various solutions against one another, in addition to reference experimental and numerical data, the effectiveness of the generalized procedure in predicting both the jet flow characteristics and the heat transfer at the plate is thoroughly evaluated, while determining the optimal set of model parameters. By improving accuracy within the RANS framework, the importance of model adaptability and parameter tuning for this specific fluid engineering application is demonstrated. This study offers valuable insights for improving predictive capability in turbulent jet simulations with broad engineering implications, particularly for industrial heating or cooling systems relying on wide-slot jet impingement. Full article

This paper addresses the errors that arise when calculating the convective heat transfer in concentric annular pipes by using the equivalent diameter and turbulent heat transfer formula for circular pipes. This approach employs numerical simulations to solve the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations and uses the realizable k–ε turbulence model and a low Reynolds number model near a wall. This study conducts numerical simulations of turbulent convective heat transfer within a concentric annular pipe. The results show that the shear stress on the inner wall surface of the concentric annular pipe and the heat transfer Nusselt number are significantly higher than those on the outer wall surface. At the same Reynolds number, both the entrance length and the peak velocity increase upon increasing the inner-to-outer diameter ratio. A correction factor for the inner-to-outer diameter ratio is proposed to achieve differentiated and accurate predictions for the inner and outer wall surfaces. The results clearly demonstrate the effect of the inner-to-outer diameter ratio on heat transfer. Full article

Rotor–stator interaction and the coupling between the clearance flow and main flow amplify the flow complexity in small-scale, high-speed automotive pumps. This degrades the pressure fluctuations, compromising the operational stability of these pumps. To better understand the pressure fluctuation distribution characteristics within such a pump, the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations and the shear stress transport k-ω turbulence model were applied to numerically compute the pump. The simulation results were compared with experimental data, and good agreement was achieved. The results show that pressure fluctuations in the main flow region are mainly dominated by the blade passing frequency, and the intensity of pressure fluctuations in the near-field area of the tongue reaches its peak value, showing significant fluctuation characteristics. Significant peak signals are captured in the low-frequency band of pressure fluctuations in the clearance region. The pressure fluctuation characteristics are also affected by the rotor–stator interaction between the impeller front shroud and the volute casing, while the dominant frequency is still the blade passing frequency. In addition, the dominant frequencies of pressure fluctuations in the main and clearance flows show a similar distribution to the flow rate, but the minimum amplitude corresponds to different flow rates. Full article

This study aims to enhance the understanding of film cooling performance in an actual turbine vane by investigating influencing factors and developing more precise numerical prediction methods. Pressure sensitive paint (PSP) testing and Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) simulations were conducted. The findings indicate that the current design blowing ratio of S1 holes (0.89) is too high, resulting in poor film cooling effectiveness. However, the blowing ratios of P3 (0.78) and P4 (0.69) holes are relatively low, suggesting that increasing the coolant flow could improve the film cooling effectiveness. It is not recommended to design an excessively low blowing ratio on the suction surface, as this can lead to poor wall adherence downstream of the film holes. A slight increase in turbulence intensity enhances the film covering effect, particularly on the suction surface. Additionally, a novel superposition method for multirow fan-shaped film cooling holes on an actual turbine vane is proposed, exhibiting better agreement with experimental data. Compared with experimental results, the numerical predictions tend to underestimate the film cooling effectiveness with the examined k-ε-based viscosity turbulence models and Reynolds stress turbulence models, while the SST demonstrates relatively higher accuracy owing to its hybrid k-ω/k-ε formulation that better resolves near-wall physics and separation flows characteristic of turbine cooling configurations. This study contributes to the advancement of turbine vane thermal analysis and design in engineering applications. Full article

In this paper, we propose and develop a stationary Stokes Inverse Model (SIM) to estimate the stress distributions that are difficult to measure directly in flows. We estimate the driving stresses from the velocities by solving the inverse problem governed by Stokes equations under iterative Tikhonov (IT) regularization. We investigate the heuristic L-curve criterion to determine the proper regularization parameter. The solution existence and uniqueness for the Stokes inverse problem have been analyzed. We also conducted convergence analysis and error estimation for perturbed data, providing a fast and stable convergence. The finite element method is applied to the numerical approach. Following the theoretical investigation and formulation, we validate the model and demonstrate that the velocity data closely match the velocity fields that were reconstructed using the computed stress distributions. In particular, the proposed SIM can be used to reliably derive the stress distributions for the flows governed by the Stokes equations with small Reynolds number. Additionally, the model is robust to a certain number of perturbations, which enables the precise and effective estimation of the stress distributions. The proposed stationary SIM may be widely applicable in the estimation of stresses from experimental velocity fields in engineering and biological applications. Full article

Curved surfaces are a feature of many engineering applications, and as such, the accurate prediction of separation and reattachment from a curved surface is of great engineering importance. In this study, improved delayed detached eddy simulation (IDDES) is used, in conjunction with synthetic turbulence injection using the synthetic eddy method (SEM), to investigate the boundary layer separation from a curved backward-facing step for which large eddy simulation (LES) results are available. The commercial code Star CCM+ was used with the k-ω shear stress transport (SST) variation of the IDDES model to assess the accuracy of the code for this class of problem. The IDDES model predicted the separation length within 10.4% of the LES value for the finest mesh and 25.5% for the coarsest mesh, compared to 36.2% for the RANS simulation. Good agreement between the IDDES and LES was also found in terms of the distribution of skin friction, velocity, and Reynolds stress, demonstrating an acceptable level of accuracy, as has the prediction of the separation and reattachment location. The model has, however, found it difficult to capture the pressure coefficient accurately in the region of separation and reattachment. Overall, the IDDES model has performed well against a type of geometry that is typically a challenge to the hybrid RANS-LES method (HRLM). Full article

This study presents a comparative numerical investigation of Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) and partially averaged Navier–Stokes (PANS) turbulence models applied to the Joubert BB2 submarine geometry under steady, calm-water conditions. To assess the influence of turbulence resolution and grid density on hydrodynamic performance prediction, simulations were conducted using three mesh resolutions—coarse, medium, and fine—based on unstructured hexahedral grids. The results were validated against international benchmark data, with emphasis placed on total resistance, pressure and shear stress distributions, wake development, and vortex structure. The PANS model consistently outperformed RANS in accurately predicting total resistance and resolving wake asymmetry, especially at medium grid resolution, due to its ability to partially resolve turbulence without full reliance on eddy viscosity assumptions. It demonstrated superior capability in capturing coherent vortex structures and preserving axial momentum in the stern region, resulting in more realistic surface pressure recovery and delayed boundary layer separation. Cross-sectional and circumferential velocity distributions in the propeller plane further highlighted PANS’s enhanced turbulence fidelity, which is essential for downstream propeller performance evaluation. Overall, the findings support the suitability of the PANS model as a practical and computationally efficient alternative to RANS for high-fidelity submarine flow simulations, particularly in wake-sensitive applications where LES remains computationally prohibitive. Full article

This study investigates the organized flow structures and turbulence quantities in a transitional oscillatory boundary-layer flow over a smooth bed using a DNS model set up by the open-source framework Nektar++ (v5.2.0). The present model was validated against the results of a previous study involving a bypass transition mechanism in the intermittently turbulent regime. To trigger the initial perturbations, a roughness element was placed on the bed and removed at the very moment a two-dimensional vortex tube, caused by an inflectional-point shear-layer instability, was observed on it. Then, the turbulent spots where the flow experienced intense fluctuations in an otherwise laminar boundary layer were identified from the bed shear-stress distribution on the bed, which served as a reliable indicator of turbulence. These flow features emerged as the first sign of the initiation of turbulence. Several measurement points were selected to follow the bed shear-stress variations and to observe the spatial and temporal development of turbulent spots at a low-wave Reynolds number, $Re=1.8\times {10}^5$. Along with these observations, phase-resolved turbulence quantities were also investigated over successive half-cycles for the first time in the literature to understand how turbulence develops and spreads over the flow domain. The results show that the turbulence generated in the near-bed region becomes stronger in the deceleration stage due to the adverse pressure gradient and diffuses away from the bed during the subsequent phases of the developing oscillatory boundary-layer flow. The findings related to the turbulence quantities also indicate that the turbulence gradually evolves and spreads into the fluid domain in successive half-cycles. Full article

This paper investigates the significance of various physical factors affecting the wave generated by submerged jet and the synchronization relationship between the wave surface process and different fluid dynamic parameters, based on three-dimensional numerical simulations using a large eddy simulation (LES) model. An orthogonal experimental design was employed, and range analysis and variance analysis revealed that the orifice contraction ratio has the most significant effect on wave height, followed by upstream water depth and orifice elevation. Through wavelet coherence and spectral correlation analysis, the wave surface process was examined in relation to fluid kinetic energy, Reynolds stress, and vortex structure parameters along the jet axis. The results indicate that regions of strong wavelet coherence are concentrated between 0.01 and 1.0 Hz. In the low-frequency range (0.01~1.0 Hz), there are narrow yet continuous coherence bands, while in the slightly higher frequency range (1.0~5.0 Hz), intermittent coherence relationships with wider bands are observed. Additionally, there is a certain degree of correlation between the power spectral density of the wave surface process and these physical quantities, with a maximum spectral correlation coefficient reaching 0.91. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the factors affecting waves generated by submerged jets, enabling better prediction and control of their effects. Full article

The accurate estimation of the entry length required for a flow in a tube to transition from a uniform velocity profile to a fully developed state is crucial in many industrial processes. Although viscoelastic fluids are widely utilized in industrial processes, most studies have concentrated on inelastic fluids. This study employed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to analyze the developing flow of viscoelastic fluids in a circular tube. An axisymmetric computational domain was employed along with the Giesekus model to represent the viscoelastic fluid flow. The Log Conformation Technique (LCT) was adopted to ensure numerical stability and accuracy at high Weissenberg numbers. The CFD model was first validated against published data for planar contraction flow. After validation and mesh sensitivity analysis for tube geometry, we systematically studied the influence of the Reynolds and Weissenberg numbers, solvent viscosity ratio, and mobility parameter on the entry length. Our results highlight the significant influence of fluid elasticity on flow development. For a constant Wi value, reducing inertia enhances the elastic effects, whereas at a fixed Re number, increasing Wi strongly impacts the developing flow region. Increased elasticity extends the entry length for both velocity and stress fields, with stress typically requiring a longer region to develop fully. Full article