Date of Award

Summer 8-2015

Access Type

Thesis - Open Access

Degree Name

Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering

Department

Aerospace Engineering

Committee Chair

Yechiel J. Crispin

First Committee Member

R.R. Mankbadi

Second Committee Member

Dongeun Seo

Abstract

Swirling counter-flows are used in numerous engineering applications, like combustion, heat exchangers, cyclonic separation and mixing, etc. These swirling counter-flows produce complex flow fields. It is important to study these types of flows in order to use them properly in many applications.

The present work provides insight into the flowfield inside a swirling counter-flow when the fluid is injected tangentially in a cylindrical container. A semi-analytical solution is developed by starting with the full Navier-Stokes equation and using a similarity analysis. A decaying swirl along the axis of the cylinder is assumed, which reduces the Navier-Stokes equations to first order ordinary differential equations with boundary conditions. The two point boundary value and eigenvalue problem is then solved using a collocation method. Profiles are obtained for various velocity components that validate the swirling counter-flow behavior. The opposite pressure gradients near the inlet and dead-end, and also near the side wall and the axis, show that there are two streams of fluids that flow in opposite directions. CFD simulations of 2D axisymmetric setup and a fill 3D configuration of the same problem are carried out using a commercial finite volume method code (Fluent). The analytical results are then compared against the CFD results. It is observed that the velocity profiles for all the cases behave similarly, although there are some variations in their values.

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