A Combined Numerical and Experimental Investigation of the Coupling Mechanisms Between an Ablative Wall and Turbulence
Start Date
2-3-2011 3:20 PM
Description
This talk will describe a collaborative effort between numerical simulations and experiments to investigate the fundamental coupling mechanisms between an ablative wall and turbulence. The scientific approach employed is to systematically validate numerical and experimental methods and advance our understanding of the phenomenon as a progression from simple flows to turbulent flows. The flow configuration studied is a spatially developing heated boundary layer flow over a wall made of transparent paraffin wax. Several variations of the inlet conditions, both for flow and temperature, will be described that will allow for the temporal and spatial study of the ablation processes driven by coherent structures, such as vortices, and the response of turbulence to wall recession and emergence of roughness (ablation patterns). The choice of paraffin wax as the ablated material is based on its low melt point temperature and its ability to ablate in two phase steps (solid to liquid, and liquid to vapor, if the flow temperature is high enough), which is necessary for the development of our numerical algorithm. The focus of the talk is to provide a description of the experimental facility, experimental methods, numerical models, planned experiments, and preliminary results.
A Combined Numerical and Experimental Investigation of the Coupling Mechanisms Between an Ablative Wall and Turbulence
This talk will describe a collaborative effort between numerical simulations and experiments to investigate the fundamental coupling mechanisms between an ablative wall and turbulence. The scientific approach employed is to systematically validate numerical and experimental methods and advance our understanding of the phenomenon as a progression from simple flows to turbulent flows. The flow configuration studied is a spatially developing heated boundary layer flow over a wall made of transparent paraffin wax. Several variations of the inlet conditions, both for flow and temperature, will be described that will allow for the temporal and spatial study of the ablation processes driven by coherent structures, such as vortices, and the response of turbulence to wall recession and emergence of roughness (ablation patterns). The choice of paraffin wax as the ablated material is based on its low melt point temperature and its ability to ablate in two phase steps (solid to liquid, and liquid to vapor, if the flow temperature is high enough), which is necessary for the development of our numerical algorithm. The focus of the talk is to provide a description of the experimental facility, experimental methods, numerical models, planned experiments, and preliminary results.