Direct numerical simulations(DNS) were performed for the forced homogeneous isotropic turbulence(FHIT) with/without polymer additives in order to elaborate the characteristics of the turbulent energy cascading influenced by drag-reducing effects.The finite elastic non-linear extensibility-Peterlin model(FENE-P) was used as the conformation tensor equation for the viscoelastic polymer solution.Detailed analyses of DNS data were carried out in this paper for the turbulence scaling law and the topological dynamics of FHIT as well as the important turbulent parameters,including turbulent kinetic energy spectra,enstrophy and strain,velocity structure function,small-scale intermittency,etc.A natural and straightforward definition for the drag reduction rate was also proposed for the drag-reducing FHIT based on the decrease degree of the turbulent kinetic energy.It was found that the turbulent energy cascading in the FHIT was greatly modified by the drag-reducing polymer additives.The enstrophy and the strain fields in the FHIT of the polymer solution were remarkably weakened as compared with their Newtonian counterparts.The small-scale vortices and the small-scale intermittency were all inhibited by the viscoelastic effects in the FHIT of the polymer solution.However,the scaling law in a fashion of extended self-similarity for the FHIT of the polymer solution,within the presently simulated range of Weissenberg numbers,had no distinct differences compared with that of the Newtonian fluid case.
Direct numerical simulation(DNS) of forcing homogeneous isotropic turbulence with polymers was performed.In order to understand the polymers effect on turbulent coherent structures,proper orthogonal decomposition was performed to identify coherent structures based on DNS data,so as to analyze the remarkable difference due to the addition of polymers.The results showed that the numbers for eigenmodes required for capturing coherent structures were 32 and 24 for the Newtonian fluid and polymer solution flows,respectively,which means the decrease of the complexity in polymer solution flow.Through the POD energy spectrum,it was found that the turbulent kinetic energy is distributed onto a large number of eigenmodes whether in the Newtonian fluid flow or polymer solution flow,suggesting that polymer solution flow is still turbulent in one aspect.Besides,the POD eigenmodes were investigated,which found that the small-scale structures are inhibited in polymer solution flow.
In order to investigate the effect of additives and nano-particle on the surface tensions of lithium bromide(Li Br) aqueous solution/ammonia, many experiments were carried out based on Wilhelmy plate method. Firstly, the surface tension of Li Br aqueous solution with 1-octanol was measured and then the comparison between the measured results and previous experimental results was given to verify the measuring accuracy. Some new additives, such as cationic surfactants cetyltrimethyl ammonium chloride(CTAC), and cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide(CTAB) were chosen in the experiments. The experimental results show that CTAC and CTAB can obviously reduce the surface tension of Li Br aqueous solution/ammonia. In addition, it is found that nano-particles cannot remarkably decrease the surface tension of Li Br aqueous solution/ammonia. However, the mixed addition of additives and nano-particles can remarkably affect the surface tension of Li Br aqueous solution/ammonia. That is to say, additives play more important role in reducing the surface tension of Li Br aqueous solution/ammonia. But nano-particles may enhance the heat transfer in the absorption refrigeration process.
Large-eddy simulations(LES) based on the temporal approximate deconvolution model were performed for a forced homogeneous isotropic turbulence(FHIT) with polymer additives at moderate Taylor Reynolds number. Finitely extensible nonlinear elastic in the Peterlin approximation model was adopted as the constitutive equation for the filtered conformation tensor of the polymer molecules. The LES results were verified through comparisons with the direct numerical simulation results. Using the LES database of the FHIT in the Newtonian fluid and the polymer solution flows, the polymer effects on some important parameters such as strain, vorticity, drag reduction, and so forth were studied. By extracting the vortex structures and exploring the flatness factor through a high-order correlation function of velocity derivative and wavelet analysis, it can be found that the small-scale vortex structures and small-scale intermittency in the FHIT are all inhibited due to the existence of the polymers. The extended self-similarity scaling law in the polymer solution flow shows no apparent difference from that in the Newtonian fluid flow at the currently simulated ranges of Reynolds and Weissenberg numbers.
A mixed subgrid-scale(SGS) model based on coherent structures and temporal approximate deconvolution(MCT) is proposed for turbulent drag-reducing flows of viscoelastic fluids. The main idea of the MCT SGS model is to perform spatial filtering for the momentum equation and temporal filtering for the conformation tensor transport equation of turbulent flow of viscoelastic fluid, respectively. The MCT model is suitable for large eddy simulation(LES) of turbulent dragreducing flows of viscoelastic fluids in engineering applications since the model parameters can be easily obtained. The LES of forced homogeneous isotropic turbulence(FHIT) with polymer additives and turbulent channel flow with surfactant additives based on MCT SGS model shows excellent agreements with direct numerical simulation(DNS) results. Compared with the LES results using the temporal approximate deconvolution model(TADM) for FHIT with polymer additives, this mixed SGS model MCT behaves better, regarding the enhancement of calculating parameters such as the Reynolds number.For scientific and engineering research, turbulent flows at high Reynolds numbers are expected, so the MCT model can be a more suitable model for the LES of turbulent drag-reducing flows of viscoelastic fluid with polymer or surfactant additives.
