The Tennessee Section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

The Tennessee Section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics presents a luncheon meeting Friday, November 9th, 11:30-12:45, at UTSI, Room H-111 (map attached) With a presentation by Dr. Joseph Majdalani

“Recent Advances in Modeling Swirl Augmented Propulsion”

Lunch will consist of a mini buffet with the following items: meat loaf with special sauce, cheesy chicken pasta, mashed potatoes, green beans, and salad. The cost is $9.00 per person payable at the door. Please RSVP by 4:00 pm, Monday, November 5th to Dustin Crider, [email protected] , 931-454-3457.

ABSTRACT This talk will focus on the effective use of swirl in a variety of applications involving high-energy producing devices and propulsive systems such as the Vortex Injection Hybrid Rocket Engine (VIHRE), the self-cooled Vortex Combustion Cold Wall Chamber (VCCWC), the Vortex-Swept Hybrid Rocket Engine, the Liquid Detonation Pulse Engine, etc. Our discussion will extend to the modeling of high-speed compressible motions as well as atmospheric flows, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, waterspouts, etc. Special emphasis will be placed on modeling the VCCWC, a LOX-propane vortex-driven thrust engine that incorporates the fundamental features of a cyclone. The resulting bidirectional/bipolar vortex confines chemical reactions and hot combustion products to its core region, where the gaseous mixtures remain completely surrounded by an outer layer of freshly injected, low-temperature oxidizer. Naturally, the film-cooling effect that accompanies the oxidizer stream reduces thermal loading and overall engine weight. Furthermore, the spiraling motion of the reactants increases both mixing and fuel residence time to the extent of promoting higher combustion efficiency. The bidirectional vortex concept was first implemented in cyclone separators and later applied to hybrid and liquid thrust engines. Several recent breakthroughs in describing the observed helical behavior will be overviewed, and these will include new classes of complex-lamellar and Beltramian motions for vortex engine flowfields with arbitrary headwall injection. The talk will conclude with recent stability analyses that can accurately predict vorticoacoustic waveforms in a given combustor, and these will confirm the role of swirl as a stabilizing flow agent. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH JOSEPH C. (JOE) MAJDALANI, PHD, PE H.H. ARNOLD CHAIR OF EXCELLENCE IN ADVANCED PROPULSION PROFESSOR DEPT. OF MECHANICAL, AEROSPACE AND BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE SPACE INSTITUTE Dr. Majdalani received his PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Utah in 1995. Between 1997 and 2003, he served as Assistant and then Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI. In 2002, he received an NSF CAREER Award and joined the University of Tennessee Space Institute, serving as the Jack D. Whitfield Professor of High Speed Flows. In 2007, he was appointed H. H. Arnold Chair of Excellence in Advanced Propulsion. Dr. Majdalani’s research devotes itself to the theoretical and computational modeling of internal flow fields associated with energy and propulsion systems including injection and swirl-driven combustion chambers. His interests span thermo- acoustic instabilities, engine internal flowfields, vorticity dynamics, and singular perturbation theory. His research activities since 1997 have materialized in over 220 publications in journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings. His work on core flow modeling of liquid, solid, and hybrid rocket engines has led to the discovery of new solutions to describe cyclonic motions in self-cooled liquid and hybrid thrust engines, centrifuges, hurricanes, and other injection- driven flowfields. Recently, his work on compressible gas motions has required the development of a new framework for solving multi-dimensional high-speed flow problems. Dr. Majdalani is presently a Fellow of ASME, Associate Fellow of AIAA, Associate Editor of the International Journal of Energetic Materials and Chemical Propulsion (Begell House), AIAA Instructor for two short courses, and Chair of Education within the AIAA Hybrid Rocket Technical Committee.

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