Mechanical Engineering - Research Publications

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    UNSTEADY SIMULATIONS OF A TRAILING-EDGE SLOT USING MACHINE-LEARNT TURBULENCE STRESS AND HEAT-FLUX CLOSURES
    Lav, C ; Sandberg, R (ASME: The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2020-06-22)
    The trailing edge slot is a canonical representation of the pressure-side bleed flow encountered in high pressure turbines. Predicting the flow and temperature downstream of the slot exit remains challenging for RANS and URANS, with both significantly over predicting the adiabatic wall effectiveness. This over prediction is attributable to the incorrect mixing prediction in cases where the vortex shedding is present. In case of RANS the modelling error is rooted in not properly accounting for the shedding scales while in URANS the closures account for the shedding scales twice, once by resolving the shedding and twice with the model for all the scales. Here, we present an approach which models only the stochastic scales that contribute to turbulence while resolving the scales that do not, i.e. scales considered as contributing to deterministic unsteadiness. The model for the stochastic scales is obtained through a data-driven machine learning algorithm, which produces a bespoke turbulence closure model from a high-fidelity dataset. We use the best closure (blowing ratio of 1.26) for the anisotropy obtained in the a priori study of Lav, Philip & Sandberg [A New Data-Driven Turbulence Model Framework for Unsteady Flows Applied to Wall-Jet and Wall-Wake Flows, 2019] and conduct compressible URANS calculations. In the first stage, the energy equation is solved utilising the standard gradient diffusion hypothesis for the heat-flux closure. In the second stage, we develop a bespoke heat-flux closure using the machine-learning approach for the stochastic heat flux components only. Subsequently, calculations are performed using the machine-learnt closures for the heat-flux and the anisotropy together. Finally, the generalisability of the developed closures is evaluated by testing them on additional blowing ratios of 0.86 and 1.07. The machine learnt closures developed specifically for URANS calculations show significantly improved predictions for the adiabatic wall-effectiveness across the different cases.
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    A New Data-Driven Turbulence Model Framework for Unsteady Flows Applied to Wall-Jet and Wall-Wake Flows
    Lav, C ; Philip, J ; Sandberg, R (The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2019-11-05)
    The unsteady flow prediction for turbomachinery applications relies heavily on unsteady RANS (URANS). For flows that exhibit vortex shedding, such as the wall-jet/wake flows considered in this study, URANS is unable to predict the correct momentum mixing with sufficient accuracy. We suggest a novel framework to improve that prediction, whereby the deterministic scales associated with vortex shedding are resolved while the stochastic scales of pure turbulence are modelled. The framework first separates the stochastic from the deterministic length scales and then develops a bespoke turbulence closure for the stochastic scales using a data-driven machine-learning algorithm. The novelty of the method lies in the use of machine-learning to develop closures tailored to URANS calculations. For the walljet/wake flow, three different mass flow ratios (0.86, 1.07 and 1.26) have been considered and a high-fidelity dataset of the idealised geometry is utilised for the sake of model development. This study serves as an a priori analysis, where the closures obtained from the machine-learning algorithm are evaluated before their implementation in URANS. The analysis looks at the impact of using all length scales versus the stochastic scales for closure development, and the impact of the extent of the spatial domain for developing the closure. It is found that a two-layer approach, using bespoke trained models for the near wall and the jet/wake regions, produce the best results. Finally, the generalisability of the developed closures is also evaluated by applying a given closure developed using a particular mass flow ratio to the other cases.
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    Improvement In Unsteady Wake Prediction Through Machine Learning Based Rans Model Training
    Lav, C ; Sandberg, R ; Philip, J (ISUAAAT15, 2018)
    The inability of RANS to correctly capture profile wake dynamics and decay prevents the accurate prediction of unsteady losses and poses additional challenges to the aeromechanic verification of both turbines and compressors. This paper addresses this problem by introducing a novel technique applied to improve wake prediction through a RANS based calculation. In particular, for the first time, a data-driven approach is used to develop bespoke turbulence closures to be used in the context of unsteady RANS (URANS) calculations. The new closure is obtained from an evolutionary machine learning algorithm. The algorithm requires a high-fidelity dataset which, in this study, is provided through a DNS for the wake downstream of a normal flat plate with a Reynolds number = 2,000, based on the freestream velocity and plate height. URANS are conducted with the developed closure and the mean flow statistics are compared with the high-fidelity data. The results from the developed closure show excellent agreement with the reference data. Furthermore, the generalisability of the developed closure is evaluated by considering other flat plate wake data, which differ in both the aspect ratio and the Reynolds number from the case used in this study to develop the closures. The results once again show remarkable improvement compared with the standard URANS.
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    Influence of Pressure Gradient on Plane Wake Evolution in a Constant Area Section
    Lav, C ; Sandberg, R ; Philip, J (Australasian Fluid Mechanics Society, 2018)
    This study focusses on understanding the influence of streamwise pressure gradients acting in a constant area section on the spatial wake evolution. First, the impact of a constant area section in contrast to the usual variable area section is studied analytically for a simplified 2D inviscid flow. Second, high-fidelity data (DNS) is used to verify some of the conclusions of the above study. A flat plate normal to the flow at a Reynolds number of 2,000, based on the plate height and freestream velocity is considered as the test case for the high-fidelity calculations. Multiple pressure gradients are simulated to identify any global trends and compare with the existing experimental findings of variable area sections. The results indicate that the wake evolution in presence of a pressure gradient is dissimilar for constant and variable area sections.