B. W. Skews

Highly transient squeeze-film flows

The aim of this work was to investigate the flow evolution with time of fluid between two parallel disks and the corresponding pressure variations at the centre of the lower disk that occur subsequent to an impact-loading situation arising from dropping a mass onto the upper disk from a chosen height. During the event a fixed amount of energy is dissipated in the fluid between the disks through the action of friction. Therefore, this fundamental system may be regarded as a constant energy one, as distinct from one in which the upper disk is moving at a constant velocity, or is acted upon by a constant force. A test cell was set up to conduct the investigation, for which the separation between the disks was monitored, together with the pressure at the centre of the lower disk, over the duration of the experiment (about 8―10 ms). Glycerine was used as the test fluid. The equation of motion, based on a self-similarity approach, was reduced to a simpler (quasi-steady linear or QSL) form. Measured values of disk separation, velocity and acceleration were substituted as inputs into the full QSL model and two limiting cases, namely an inviscid and a viscous model. The QSL model provided excellent comparisons between the pressure measurements and data generated by a commercial computational fluid dynamics software package, throughout the duration of a typical experiment. The inviscid and viscous models achieved good correlations with measurements for the initial impact (during which disk accelerations exceeding 2 km s ―2 occurred) and towards the end of the event, that were characterized by a small and much larger pressure rise, respectively. The former feature appears not to have been previously reported and is likely to typify that which would be observed in impact systems involving squeeze films.

Supersonic viscous corner flows

Results of numerical and experimental investigations of steady state supersonic viscous corner flows in simplified geometries that resemble typical wing body–fuselage intersections are presented. These flows are numerically calculated using the computational fluid dynamics code of Fluent and include the use of standard turbulence models. Experimental work includes the use of the oil film flow visualization technique to visualize the surface flow patterns. The flows considered are symmetric about the corner bisector. This article focuses on the development of the three shock structure along the various geometries, specifically focusing on the formation and growth of the shear layers that result from the Mach reflection. The resultant effects of this shear layer on pressure distributions, shear stress, and changes in Mach numbers are discussed. The shock wave boundary layer interaction is also presented.

An experimental study of highly transient squeeze-film flows

The aim of this work was to extend a previous investigation of the flow between two parallel disks (one of which was stationary) that have been subjected to a constant energy impact arising from a falling mass onto the upper disk assembly. Whereas the previous work considered the measurement of centreline pressures and distance between the plates only, for a single case, the current work in addition entailed monitoring of pressures at 45% and 90% of disk radius, under 28 combinations of drop height (100 to 1000 mm), drop mass (10 to 55 kg), and initial disk separation (3 to 10 mm), each with 5 repeat tests. Over the duration of the phenomenon (about 3.5 to 10 ms), four basic features were identified: (1) during initial impact under the dominance of temporal inertia, a preliminary pressure spike with peak pressures occurring at a displacement change of less than 0.25 mm from the initial disk separation; (2) an intermediate region with lower pressures; (3) pressure changes arising from a succession of elast...