Vortices are shed from tubes in heat exchangers and in countless other commonly encountered flows of practical importance. The shed vortices can excite vibration in the equipment, which in turn can lead to inefficient operation or damage, which is a known phenomenon and usually accounted for in the design. However, if the liquid flow past an object like a tube contains gas or vapor bubbles, the shedding frequency can shift and hence excite potentially unexpected frequencies. The flows with a shift in the shedding frequency remain only partially understood. The goal of this research is to better understand the physical mechanisms of multiphase flows encountering a bluff body (i.e. an object that is not streamlined). This research will provide recorded visualizations for K-12 students explaining the bubbly-fluid physical phenomena. This interaction will introduce a diverse student population to the relevant physics of these flows with the goal of increasing interest in the STEM field.
To gain a deeper understanding of vortex shedding in multiphase flows, a carefully planned fundamental study is undertaken on the physical mechanisms relevant to a bubbly flow past a cylinder in a nominally two-dimensional flow. The research will utilize state-of-art experimental techniques, theory, and numerical modelling to gain a thorough understanding of the flow over a wide range of parameters. The numerical simulations will be carried out using high-order accurate flow solvers with adaptive meshes and large eddy simulation models. The bubble size has a predictable effect on the probability and rate of bubble entrainment to boundary layers and vortex cores in a flow past a cylinder. Small bubbles act as passive tracers, whereas for large bubbles buoyancy dominates. However, for intermediate size bubbles there is a notable nonlinear dependence on probability of bubble capture in the vortices on bubble size. For conditions where bubbles accumulate in the vortices at disproportionate rate and increasing local void fraction, there is an enhanced shift in shedding frequency. Hence, the questions to be studied include: what are the dominant mechanisms controlling gas accumulation in the vortex cores, does the modification of the underlying flow by the dispersed phase affect vortex shedding by mechanisms other than modification of average density in wake, and does the vortex shedding frequency bifurcate as suggested by previous investigators? data?
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
