Hydrodynamics of Accumulators of Compressed Air for an UWCAES Plant

193 Pages·2015·6.87 MB·English

University of Windsor
Scholarship at UWindsor
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
11-7-2015
Hydrodynamics of Accumulators of Compressed
Air for an UWCAES Plant
Ahmadreza Vaselbehagh
University of Windsor
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Dissertations.Paper 5493.
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Hydrodynamics of Accumulators of
Compressed Air for an UWCAES Plant
by
Ahmadreza Vasel-Be-Hagh
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies
through the Department of Mechanical, Automotive & Materials Engineering
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
at the University of Windsor
Windsor, Ontario, Canada
(cid:2)c 2015 Ahmadreza Vasel-Be-Hagh
Hydrodynamics of Accumulators of Compressed Air for an
UWCAES Plant
by
Ahmadreza Vasel-Be-Hagh
APPROVED BY:
R. E. Khayat, External Examiner
Western University
S. Cheng
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
B. Zhou
Department of Mechanical, Automotive & Materials Engineering
V. Stoilov
Department of Mechanical, Automotive & Materials Engineering
D. S.-K. Ting, Co-Advisor
Department of Mechanical, Automotive & Materials Engineering
R. Carriveau, Co-Advisor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
2 June, 2015
iii
DECLARATION OF CO-AUTHORSHIP AND
PREVIOUS PUBLICATIONS
I hereby declare that this dissertation incorporates material that is result of joint re-
search, as follows:
Chapter Details
This chapter incorporates the outcome of a joint research project
undertaken in collaboration with Professor John Stewart Turner.
The author initiated the work under supervision of Dr. David S.-K.
Chapter 6 Ting and Dr. Rupp Carriveau, and performed the key ideas, primary
contributions and data analysis and interpretation. Later, Professor
John Stewart Turner kindly accepted to join the team as an advisor
on the draft manuscript.
I am aware of the University of Windsor Senate Policy on Authorship and I certify that
I have properly acknowledged the contribution of other researchers to my dissertation,
and haveobtained written permission fromeachof theco-author(s)toincludetheabove
material(s) in my dissertation.
I certify that, with the above qualification, this dissertation, and the research to which
it refers, is the product of my own work.
This dissertation includes 8 original papers that have been previously published/under
review for publication in peer reviewed journals, as indicated in the following table (see
page iv).
IcertifythatIhaveobtainedawrittenpermissionfromthecopyrightowner(s)toinclude
the above published material(s) in my dissertation. I certify that the above material
describes work completed during my registration as graduate student at the University
of Windsor.
I declare that, to the best of my knowledge, my dissertation does not infringe upon
anyone’s copyright nor violate any proprietary rights and that any ideas, techniques,
quotations, or any other material from the work of other people included in my disser-
tation, published or otherwise, are fully acknowledged in accordance with the standard
referencingpractices. Furthermore, totheextentthatIhaveincludedcopyrightedmate-
rialthatsurpassestheboundsoffairdealingwithinthemeaningoftheCanadaCopyright
Act, I certify that I have obtained a written permission from the copyright owner(s) to
include such material(s) in my thesis.
I declare that this is a true copy of my dissertation, including any final revisions, as
approved by my dissertation committee and the Graduate Studies office, and that this
iv
Chapter Publication Status
Vasel-Be-Hagh, A. R., Carriveau, R. and Ting, D. S.-K.
2013 Numerical Simulation of Flow Past an Underwater
Chapter 2 Published
Energy Storage Balloon. Computers and Fluids, 88, 272
-286.
Vasel-Be-Hagh, A. R., Carriveau, R. and Ting, D. S.-K.
2014 Flow past an Accumulator Unit of an Underwater
Chapter 3 Energy Storage System: Three Touching Balloons in Published
Floral Configuration. Journal of Marine Science and
Application 13(4), 467-476.
Vasel-Be-Hagh, A. R., Carriveau, R. and Ting, D. S.-K.
2015 Flow over Submerged Energy Storage Balloons
Chapter 4 Published
in Closely and Widely Spaced Floral Configurations.
Ocean Engineering, 95, 59-77.
Vasel-Be-Hagh, A. R., Carriveau, R. and Ting, D. S.-K.
Chapter 5 2015 A Balloon Bursting Underwater. Journal of Fluid Published
Mechanics, 769, 522-540.
Vasel-Be-Hagh, A. R., Carriveau, R., Ting, D. S.-K. and
Chapter 6 Turner, J. S. 2015 On the Drag of Buoyant Vortex Rings. Under Review
under review.
Vasel-Be-Hagh, A. R., Ting, D. S.-K. and Carriveau, R.
2013 Correlating Flow Pattern with Force Coefficients
Appendix A in Air Flow past a Tandem Unit of Three Circular Published
Cylinders. International Journal of Fluid Mechanics
Research, 40(3), 235-253.
Vasel-Be-Hagh, A. R., Carriveau, R. and Ting, D. S.-K.
2013 Energy Storage using Weights Hydraulically Lifted
Appendix B Published
above Ground. International Journal of Environmental
Studies, 70(5), 792-799.
Vasel-Be-Hagh, A. R., Carriveau, R. and Ting, D. S.-K.
2014 Underwater Compressed Air Energy Storage
Appendix C Published
Improved through Vortex Hydro Energy. Sustainable
Energy Technologies and Assessments, 7, 1-5.
dissertation has not been submitted for a higher degree to any other University or
Institution.
v
ABSTRACT
Thepresentdocumentisamanuscript-baseddissertationcoveringAhmadrezaVasel-Be-
Hagh’sPhDresearchfromSeptember, 2011toMay, 2015. Theresearchwasparticularly
focused on studying hydrodynamics of underwater accumulators of compressed air for
an underwater compressed air energy storage (UWCAES) plant. The accumulator units
were floral configurations of droplet-shaped balloons installed close to the bed of deep
water. The research was carried out in two major parts: water flow over the balloons
and flow produced by the bursting of the balloons. In the first part, three-dimensional
simulations were conducted to investigate water flow over accumulators. The simulation
was carried out at a free stream Reynolds number of 2.3×105 using URANS k–ω and
LES Dyna–SM turbulence models. The structure of the flow was investigated using
iso-surfaces of the second invariant of the velocity gradient and three-dimensional path
lines. Several shedding vortex tubes were identified downstream of the balloons. The
dynamics of these vortex tubes was further illustrated through time series snapshots
containing vorticity lines on two-dimensional planes perpendicular to the flow direction.
The frequency of the shedding and the turbulent movements of the vortex tubes were
studiedthroughpowerspectrumanalysisoftheforcecoefficients. Inthesecondpart,the
flowproducedbytheburstingofballoonswasstudiedexperimentallyusingphotographs
taken by three cameras with speed of 60 frames per second at a resolution of 1080P.
It was observed that if a sufficiently large air-filled balloon quickly burst underwater, a
vortex ring bubble was generated. The effect of dimensionless surface tension on gen-
eral characteristics of the vortex ring bubble including rise velocity, rate of expansion,
circulation and trajectory was investigated. It was observed that as the dimensionless
surface tension increased, the rise velocity, the circulation and consequently the stabil-
ity of the vortex ring bubble increased; however, the rate of expansion tends toward
constant values. A semi-analytical model was also developed suggesting that the vortex
ring expansion is essentially due to the buoyancy force. An expression was also obtained
for the circulation in terms of the initial volume of the balloon and the depth at which
balloon bursts. Extending from the mentioned semi-analytical model, a perturbation
analysis was performed to find an expression for the radius of the buoyant vortex rings.
The radius equation includes two terms; the zeroth-order solution representing the ef-
fect of buoyancy, and the first-order perturbation correction describing the influence of
viscosity. The zeroth-order solution is an explicit function of time; the first-order per-
turbation modification, however, includes the drag coefficient which is unknown and of
interest. Fitting the photographically measured radius into the modified equation yields
the time history of the drag coefficient of the corresponding buoyant vortex ring.
To my late parents
vi
vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. David Ting and Dr. Rupp Carriveau
for their excellent guidance and support during my PhD program. The invaluable com-
ments and assistance from the committee members Dr. Shaohong Cheng, Dr. Vesselin
Stoilov, Dr. Biao Zhou and Dr. Roger Khayat are gratefully acknowledged. Technical
assistance from Mr. Andy Jenner is appreciated.
This work is made possible by the Ontario Trillium Foundation for an Ontario Trillium
Scholarship. The financial support from the Department of Mechanical, Automotive
and Materials Engineering in the form of Graduate Assistantships is also acknowledged.
Contents
Declaration of co-authorship and previous publication iii
Abstract v
Dedication vi
Acknowledgements vii
List of figures xii
List of tables xix
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Research Phases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.1 Phase I: Literature Review on Energy Storage Technologies . . . . 3
1.2.2 Phase II: Getting Familiar with CFD Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2.3 Phase III: Flow over a Single Balloon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2.4 Phase IV: Simulating Flow over Floral Units of Balloons . . . . . . 4
1.2.5 Phase V: A Balloon Bursting Underwater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2 Numerical Simulation of Flow past an Underwater Energy Storage
Balloon 8
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2 Computational Details and Boundary Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.3 Numerical Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3.1 LES Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3.2 URANS Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.3.3 Numerical Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.4 Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.5 Results and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.5.1 Structure of the Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.5.2 Force characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
viii
Contents ix
2.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3 Flow Past an Accumulator Unit of an Underwater Energy Storage
System: Three Touching Balloons in a Floral Configuration 40
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.2 Computational Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.3 Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.4 LES model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.5 Numerical Methodology and Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.6 Structure of the Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.7 Force Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.8 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4 FlowoverSubmergedEnergyStorageBalloonsinCloselyandWidely
Spaced Floral Configurations 59
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.2 Computational Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.3 Numerical Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.4 Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.5 Results and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.5.1 Structure of the Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.5.2 Force Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4.5.2.1 URANS Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4.5.2.2 LES Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
5 A Balloon Bursting Underwater 97
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.2 Buoyant vortex rings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.3 Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
5.3.1 Sullivan et al.’s model [8] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
5.3.2 Modified model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
5.4 The experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.5 Results and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
5.5.1 Circulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108