Engineering Commons^™

Cfd Modeling Of Smoke Movement In An Atrium, Robin Wu

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this paper is to better understand the behavior of smoke movement in an atrium. Thus gives first responders and civilians in and out of building a better understanding

With the advancements of modern technology, computers and softwares make simulation models possible such as fire models to simulate fire and smoke movements. In this paper, a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) software Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS) is used to conduct a series of atrium tests to investigate the effectiveness of smoke exhaust systems. FDS solves the Navier-Stokes equations appropriate for low speed flows (Ma < 0.3) with an emphasis on smoke, heat transport and CO2 concentrations from fires. The default turbulence model used in FDS simulation is the Large Eddy Simulation (LES), which is the solution of Navier-Stokes equations at low speed.

The compartment tested was 9 …

Micro-Nozzle Simulation And Test For An Electrothermal Plasma Thruster, Tyler J. Croteau

Master's Theses

With an increased demand in Cube Satellite (CubeSat) development for low cost science and exploration missions, a push for the development of micro-propulsion technology has emerged, which seeks to increase CubeSat capabilities for novel mission concepts. One type of micro-propulsion system currently under development, known as Pocket Rocket, is an electrothermal plasma micro-thruster.

Pocket Rocket uses a capacitively coupled plasma, generated by radio-frequency, in order to provide neutral gas heating via ion-neutral collisions within a gas discharge tube. When compared to a cold-gas thruster of similar size, this gas heating mechanism allows Pocket Rocket to increase the exit thermal velocity …

Effect Of Aerogel On The Thermal Performance Of Corrugated Composite Sandwich Structures, Jacob Dillon Chess

Master's Theses

Current insulation solutions across multiple industries, especially the commercial sector, can be bulky and ineffective when considering their volume. Aerogels are excellent insulators, exhibiting low thermal conductivities and low densities with a porosity of around 95%. Such characteristics make aerogels effective in decreasing conductive heat transfer within a solid. These requirements are crucial for aerospace and spaceflight applications, where sensitive components exist among extreme temperature environments. When implemented into insulation applications, aerogel can perform better than existing technology while using less material, which limits the amount of volume allocated for insulation. The application of these materials into composites can result …

Investigating The Effect Of An Upstream Spheroid On Tandem Hydrofoils, Joel Tynan Guerra

Master's Theses

This thesis documents a series of three dimensional unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes CFD simulations used to investigate the influence of an upstream prolate spheroid body on tandem pitching hydrofoils. The model is validated by performing separate CFD simulations on the body and pitching hydrofoils and comparing results to existing experimental data. The simulations were run for a range of Strouhal numbers (0.2-0.5) and phase differences (0-π). Results were compared to identical simulations without an upstream body to determine how the body affects thrust generation and the unsteady flow field.

The combined time-averaged thrust increases with Strouhal number, and is highest …

A Computational Fluid Dynamics (Cfd) Analysis Of The Aerodynamic Effects Of The Seams On A Two-Dimensional Representation Of A Soccer Ball, Allen R. Rohr

Master's Theses

Most major sports today use a dedicated ball or projectile with specific shape, size, and surface geometry, except for soccer. Over the history of the sport, the surface geometry and design stayed relatively unchanged, sewn together using 32 pentagonal and hexagonal panels. However, recent innovations in panel designs differ substantially from the traditional 32 panel ball. The effects these new designs have on the aerodynamic characteristics of the ball have remained largely unknown, even with the influx of experimental research completed in the past decade. Experimental studies have been broad in scope, analyzing an entire ball in wind tunnels or …

Liquid Jet Penetration And Breakup In A Free Supersonic Gas Jet, Hansen Jones

LSU Master's Theses

In the testing of today’s rocket engines, both on large scale vertical test stands and smaller subscale horizontal component testing stands, it is extremely important to be able to accurately quantify and mitigate the thermal and acoustic loads the engines will generate on test stand infrastructure. Due to the large number of parameters that must be considered for many cases, development of a multi-phase computational code is under way to properly analyze and design water spray cooling systems used at NASA’s Stennis Space Center (SSC) and across other NASA centers. As such, a small-scale experiment has been conducted at Louisiana …

Validation Of Cfd Simulations For Hypersonic Flow Over A Yawed Cone, Julian Cecil

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This study aims to numerically simulate the wind tunnel results for hypersonic flow over a circular cone of semi-apex angle of 10 degrees yawed from 0° to 20° using the commercial computational fluid dynamics software ANSYS Fluent. The ANSYS workbench is used to create the 10° semi-apex circular cone with a shock aligned structured mesh of 3.05 million cells surrounding the cone. Simulation boundary conditions for pressure and temperature in the far field correspond to Tracy’s wind tunnel experiment at Cal Tech. The six simulations cases are conducted for yaw angles of 0, 8, 12, 16, 20 and 24 degrees. …

Low Reynolds Number Numerical Simulation Of The Aerodynamic Coefficients Of A 3d Wing, Khurshid Malik, Waqar Asrar, Erwin Sulaeman

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

A low Reynolds number, three-dimensional CFD analysis is carried out for a finite flat plate wing using the commercial CFD code STAR CCM+. The six-aerodynamic force and moment components C_L, C_D, C_M, C_N, C_l, C_Y and their derivatives are computed at a Reynolds numbers of 3x10⁵ by varying the pitch, roll and yaw angles about the quarter chord point. The computed results have been validated with experimental aerodynamic balance data when possible. The results indicate that roll and yaw angle affect the aerodynamic coefficients of the flat plate …