We present a massively parallel GPU-accelerated solver for direct numerical simulations of transitional and turbulent flat-plate boundary layers and channel flows involving fluids in non-ideal thermodynamic states. While several high-fidelity solvers are currently available as open source, all of them are restricted to the ideal-gas region. In contrast, the CUBic Equation of state Navier-Stokes solver (CUBENS) can accurately model and simulate the non-ideal thermodynamics of single-phase compressible fluids in the vicinity of the vapor-liquid saturation line or the thermodynamic critical point. By employing high-order finite-difference schemes and convective terms in split, kinetic-energy-, and entropy-preserving form, the solver is numerically stable, and robust with minimal numerical dissipation, enabling it to capture the steep variations of non-ideal thermodynamic properties. For cost-effective high-fidelity simulations, in addition to MPI parallelization, CUBENS is GPU-accelerated using OpenACC directives for computation offloading, and asynchronous GPU-aware MPI for efficient GPU-GPU communication. Moreover, CUBENS is compatible with both NVIDIA and AMD GPU architectures, achieving significant performance results while ensuring energy-efficient simulations. For instance, using 64 NVIDIA A100 GPUs compared to 8192 CPUs at the same computational cost results in a speedup of approximately 130×. In multi-node and multi-GPU configurations ranging from 2 to 128 compute nodes (8 to 512 GPUs), a strong scaling efficiency of around 52% and a weak scaling efficiency of 0.88 with 1024³ points per GPU, corresponding to approximately 5 billion degrees of freedom, are achieved. The CUBENS solver is validated against selected cases from the literature, covering transitional to turbulent ideal and non-ideal flows up to the transonic regime. In particular, we demonstrate the solver's suitability and applicability for direct numerical simulations of transitional boundary layers with fluids at supercritical pressure and with buoyancy effects. The development of this high-fidelity solver offers the potential for future fundamental research in non-ideal compressible fluid dynamics. Program summary: Program Title: CUBic Equation of state Navier-Stokes (CUBENS) CPC Library link to program files: https://doi.org/10.17632/6jfy758gyv.1 Developer's repository link: https://github.com/pcboldini/CUBENS Licensing provisions: MIT Programming language: Fortran 90, OpenACC, MPI, Python, MATLAB Nature of problem: This code solves the three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations for non-ideal gas flows in a Cartesian domain, applicable to boundary layers and channels. Solution method: This code uses high-order central finite-differences with split-convective form, preserving kinetic energy and entropy (KEEP) and pressure-equilibrium-preserving (PEP) property, for spatial discretization. The time advancement is performed with a third-order Total Variation Diminishing low-storage Runge-Kutta scheme. Flow non-ideality is accounted for by cubic equations of state and complex transport-properties models. Alongside MPI parallelization, the solver is GPU-accelerated using OpenACC for computation offloading and CPU-GPU data transfer, along with GPU-aware MPI for GPU-GPU communication.

In this work we propose a novel method to ensure important entropy inequalities are satisfied semi-discretely when constructing reduced order models (ROMs) on nonlinear reduced manifolds. We are in particular interested in ROMs of systems of nonlinear hyperbolic conservation laws. The so-called entropy stability property endows the semi-discrete ROMs with physically admissible behaviour. The method generalizes earlier results on entropy-stable ROMs constructed on linear spaces. The ROM works by evaluating the projected system on a well-chosen approximation of the state that ensures entropy stability. To ensure accuracy of the ROM after this approximation we locally enrich the tangent space of the reduced manifold with important quantities. Using numerical experiments on some well-known equations (the inviscid Burgers equation, shallow water equations and compressible Euler equations) we show the improved structure-preserving properties of our ROM compared to standard approaches and that our approximations have minimal impact on the accuracy of the ROM. We additionally generalize the recently proposed polynomial reduced manifolds to rational polynomial manifolds and show that this leads to an increase in accuracy for our experiments.

Fluids at supercritical pressures exhibit large variations in density near the pseudo-critical line, such that buoyancy plays a crucial role in their fluid dynamics. Here, we experimentally investigate heat transfer and turbulence in horizontal hydrodynamically developed channel flows of carbon dioxide at 88.5 bar and 32.6∘C, heated at either the top or bottom surface to induce a strong vertical density gradient. In order to visualise the flow and evaluate its heat transfer, shadowgraphy is used concurrently with surface temperature measurements. With moderate heating, the flow is found to strongly stratify for both heating configurations, with bulk Richardson numbers Ri reaching up to 100. When the carbon dioxide is heated from the bottom upwards, the resulting unstably stratified flow is found to be dominated by the increasingly prevalent secondary motion of thermal plumes, enhancing vertical mixing and progressively improving heat transfer compared with a neutrally buoyant setting. Conversely, stable stratification, induced by heating from the top, suppresses the vertical motion, leading to deteriorated heat transfer that becomes invariant to the Reynolds number. The optical results provide novel insights into the complex dynamics of the directionally dependent heat transfer in the near-pseudo-critical region. These insights contribute to the reliable design of heat exchangers with highly property-variant fluids, which are critical for the decarbonisation of power and industrial heat. However, the results also highlight the need for further progress in the development of experimental techniques to generate reliable reference data for a broader range of non-ideal supercritical conditions.

The impact of intrinsic compressibility effects – changes in fluid volume due to pressure variations – on high-speed wall-bounded turbulence has often been overlooked or incorrectly attributed to mean property variations. To quantify these intrinsic compressibility effects unambiguously, we perform direct numerical simulations of compressible turbulent channel flows with nearly uniform mean properties. Our simulations reveal that intrinsic compressibility effects yield a significant upward shift in the logarithmic mean velocity profile that can be attributed to the reduction in the turbulent shear stress. This reduction stems from the weakening of the near-wall quasi-streamwise vortices. In turn, we attribute this weakening to the spontaneous opposition of sweeps and ejections from the near-wall expansions and contractions of the fluid, and provide a theoretical explanation for this mechanism. Our results also demonstrate that intrinsic compressibility effects play a crucial role in the increase in inner-scaled streamwise turbulence intensity in compressible flows, as compared with incompressible flows, which was previously regarded to be an effect of mean property variations alone.

Supercritical natural circulation loops (NCLs) promise passive cooling for critical systems like nuclear reactors and solar collectors, eliminating the need for mechanical pumps. However, instabilities similar to those seen in two-phase systems can emerge in supercritical NCLs, leading to undesirable oscillatory behaviour, marked by system-wide fluctuations in density, temperature, pressure, and flow rate. This study investigates the stability of NCLs at supercritical pressures (73.7≤p≤110.0bar) using CO₂ in an experimental setup with vertical cooling and vertically adjustable heaters to control convective flow rates and to oppose flow reversal. Oscillations were found to originate in the heater of the NCL, and demonstrated a high sensitivity to the thermodynamic state and proximity to the pseudo-critical line of the system. Increased mass flow rates and added resistance upstream of the heater suppressed the oscillations, while increased pressures and reduced heating rates dampened them. A static model which takes into account the non-ideality of the heat exchangers is introduced to assess the presence of multiple steady states. The system is concluded to be statically stable, and the oscillations are considered to be dynamically induced. In particular, the modulation of the NCL velocity by the traversal of the current oscillations in density is assumed to periodically re-incite non-ideality in the heater. These findings intend to refine our understanding of the stability boundaries in NCLs, to ensure a safer operation of prospective passive cooling and circulation systems employing fluids at supercritical pressure.

Heating in industrial processes is responsible for approximately 13% of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe. Switching from fossil-fuel based boilers to heat pumps can help mitigate the effect of global warming. The present work proposes novel high-temperature transcritical heat pump cycles targeted at heating air with a mass flow rate of 10 kg/s up to 200 °C for spray drying processes. Four low-GWP refrigerants, R1233zd(E), R1336mzz(Z), n-Butane, and Ammonia are considered as the candidate working fluids. The pressure ratio of the compressor is optimized to achieve a maximum coefficient of performance (COP) for the four working fluids. A shell & tube heat exchanger is considered as the gas cooler. Using a generalized version of the ϵ-NTU method, the gas cooler is sized and a second law analysis is conducted. Striking a balance between the first- and second-law performance and size of the gas cooler, the R1233zd(E) transcritical heat pump cycle with a COP of 3.6 is judged to be the most promising option.

This paper addresses the stability of plane Couette flow in the presence of strong density and viscosity stratifications. It demonstrates the existence of a generalised inflection point that satisfies the generalised Fjørtoft criterion of instability when a minimum of kinematic viscosity is present in the base flow. The characteristic scales associated with this minimum are identified as the primary controlling parameters of the associated instability, regardless of the type of stratification. To support this finding, analytical stability models are derived in the long-wave approximation using piecewise linear base flows. Numerical stability calculations are carried out to validate these models and to provide further information on the production of disturbance vorticity. All instabilities are interpreted as arising from the interaction between two vorticity waves. Depending on the type of stratification, these two waves are produced by different physical mechanisms. When both strong density and viscosity stratifications are present, we show that they result from the concurrent action of shear and inertial baroclinic effects. The stability models developed for simple fluid models ultimately shed light on a recently observed unstable mode in supercritical fluids (Ren et al., J. Fluid Mech., vol. 871, 2019, pp. 831–864), providing a quantitative prediction of the stability diagram and identifying the dominant mechanisms at play. Furthermore, our study suggests that the minimum of kinematic viscosity reached at the Widom line in these fluids is the leading cause of their instability. The existence of similar instabilities in different fluids and flows (e.g. miscible fluids) is finally discussed.

This paper presents numerical predictions of the flow field in the swirl-stabilized OP16 DLE combustor using hydrogen as a fuel. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations employing unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) and Wall Modelled Large Eddy Simulations (WMLES) are performed without including reaction mechanisms. The objective is to gain insights into scalar mixing predictions of the two approaches when hydrogen and air undergo shear-driven turbulent mixing. Accurate scalar mixing predictions are crucial in the combustors’ design process to assess the uniformity of fuel-air mixing as localized regions of high fuel concentrations can lead to increased NOx emissions and to identify locations with a propensity for Boundary Layer Flashback (BLF). Results are compared and analyzed in terms of time-averaged equivalence ratio, unmixedness and Turbulent Kinetic Energy (TKE) profiles. TKE predictions are lower in URANS, leading to significantly lower fuel-air mixing levels than WMLES, indicating differences in their predictions of shear-layer interactions in the mixing region and the swirl section of the combustor.

Experimental investigations into the characterization of vortices in hyperbolic funnels have shown efficient aeration properties. Certain regimes of vortices have been observed to exhibit high gas dissolution rates. This phenomenon has prompted inquiries into the underlying physical mechanisms at both micro and macroscopic scales. The present study employs computational fluid dynamics to numerically analyze the flow field organization inside these vortices, aiming to elucidate the observed high gas transfer rates. Transient simulations are performed on a three-dimensional radially structured hexahedral mesh, utilizing a multiphase Euler-Euler approach-based volume of fluid method for modeling, along with shear stress transport turbulence modeling based on k − ω equations with curvature correction. The evaluation of the two vortex regimes was conducted in terms of hydraulic retention time, water volume in the reactor, air-water interfacial area, and bulk mixing. Instabilities resembling Taylor vortices observed in Taylor-Couette flow systems emerge in the secondary flow field of these vortical structures, facilitating turbulent mixing. A qualitative analysis of the strength of these instabilities in terms of average vorticity per unit mass of water explains the high gas transfer efficiency. Despite high gas transfer rates, water exiting the funnel remains undersaturated under given operating conditions due to the short hydraulic retention time.

In the region close to the thermodynamic critical point and in the proximity of the pseudoboiling (Widom) line, strong property variations substantially alter the growth of modal instabilities, as revealed in Ren et al. [J. Fluid Mech. 871, 831 (2019)0022-112010.1017/jfm.2019.348]. Here, we study nonmodal disturbances in the spatial framework using an eigenvector decomposition of the linearized Navier-Stokes equations under the assumption of locally parallel flow. To account for nonideality, a new energy norm is derived. Several heat transfer scenarios at supercritical pressure are investigated, which are of practical relevance in technical applications. The boundary layers with the fluid at supercritical pressure are heated or cooled by prescribing the wall and free-stream temperatures so that the temperature profile is either entirely subcritical (liquidlike), supercritical (gaslike), or transcritical (across the Widom line). The free-stream Mach number is set to 10-3. In the nontranscritical regimes, the resulting streamwise-independent streaks originate from the lift-up effect. Wall cooling enhances the energy amplification for both subcritical and supercritical regimes. When the temperature profile is increased beyond the Widom line, a strong suboptimal growth is observed over very short streamwise distances due to the Orr mechanism. Due to the additional presence of transcritical Mode II, the optimal energy growth at large distances is found to arise from an interplay between lift-up and Orr mechanism. As a result, optimal disturbances are streamwise-modulated streaks with strong thermal components and with a propagation angle inversely proportional to the local Reynolds number. The nonmodal growth is put in perspective with modal growth by means of an N-factor comparison. In the nontranscritical regimes, modal stability dominates regardless of a wall-temperature variation. In contrast, in the transcritical regime, nonmodal N factors are found to resemble the imposition of an adverse pressure gradient in the ideal-gas regime. When cooling beyond the Widom line, optimal growth is greatly enhanced, yet strong inviscid instability prevails. When heating beyond the Widom line, optimal growth could be sufficiently large to favor transition, particularly with a high free-stream turbulence level.

The competitiveness of hydrogen as a sustainable energy carrier depends greatly on its transportation and storage costs. Liquefying hydrogen offers advantages such as enhanced purity, versatility, and higher density, yet current industrial liquefaction processes face efficiency and cost challenges. Although various large-scale and efficient liquefaction concepts exist in the literature, they often overlook the economic and technical viability of such plants. Here, we addresses this issue by establishing a framework for modeling a large-scale hydrogen liquefaction concept and conducting both technical and economic assessments, with a specific focus on 125 tonnes per day (TPD) high-pressure hydrogen Claude-cycle concept. The technical analysis involves preliminary designs of key process components, while the economic assessment utilizes Aspen Process Economic Analyzer. Our findings indicate that at an electricity price of €0.1/kWh, the Claude-cycle liquefier concept yields a specific liquefaction cost (SLC) of €1.55/kg_LH2. A sensitivity analysis was performed, which shows that electricity price has a significant influence on the economics. Further investigation on the compressors design shows that incorporating high-speed centrifugal compressors could reduce the SLC by 5.42% and potentially more. Scaling up to 250 and 500 TPD reveals further cost improvements, while cost projections indicate substantial declines as the technology matures. Ultimately, this paper presents novel cost-scaling and experience curves of hydrogen liquefaction technology, demonstrating the compelling economic viability of integrating large-scale hydrogen liquefaction into sustainable energy infrastructure.

This paper presents a machine learning methodology to improve the predictions of traditional RANS turbulence models in channel flows subject to strong variations in their thermophysical properties. The developed formulation contains several improvements over the existing Field Inversion Machine Learning (FIML) frameworks described in the literature. We first showcase the use of efficient optimization routines to automatize the process of field inversion in the context of CFD, combined with the use of symbolic algebra solvers to generate sparse-efficient algebraic formulas to comply with the discrete adjoint method. The proposed neural network architecture is characterized by the use of an initial layer of logarithmic neurons followed by hyperbolic tangent neurons, which proves numerically stable. The machine learning predictions are then corrected using a novel weighted relaxation factor methodology, that recovers valuable information from otherwise spurious predictions. Additionally, we introduce L2 regularization to mitigate over-fitting and to reduce the importance of non-essential features. In order to analyze the results of our deep learning system, we utilize the K-fold cross-validation technique, which is beneficial for small datasets. The results show that the machine learning model acts as an excellent non-linear interpolator for DNS cases well-represented in the training set. In the most successful case, the L-infinity modeling error on the velocity profile was reduced from 23.4% to 4.0%. It is concluded that the developed machine learning methodology corresponds to a valid alternative to improve RANS turbulence models in flows with strong variations in their thermophysical properties without introducing prior modeling assumptions into the system.

There was an omission in the original publication [1]. The authors showed SOTR values in a figure but did not mention how these values were calculated. As a consequence, the calculations based upon the SOTR also need to be more specific, which is why “the twisted regime of” has been added in front of “the hyperbolic funnel”. An addition has been made to the paper as Supplementary Information where this information has been added, Section 3, Paragraph 5: Figure 4 shows K_La and SOTR values (see Supplementary Information for details) dependent also as a function of flow rate. Average K_La values (for 20 °C) for air jet, impellers and paddle aerators [12] are shown for comparison. The plot shows that the K_La values obtained with the free surface vortex in a hyperbolically shaped funnel are considerably higher than those of the three commercial systems used for comparison, especially in the twisted regime. These high oxygen transfer rates are a consequence of the aforementioned combination of high area-to-volume ratios and possibly enhanced turbulence close to the interface. On the other hand, the SOTR values (up to 0.5 kg/h) [12] are comparable to air jet system and lower than those reported for impeller and paddle systems (between 1.0 and 2.5 kg/h) [12]. This is due to the short hydraulic retention times in the hyperbolic funnel (typically less than a minute). A possibility to increase the SOTR value is the application of a cascade of funnels which would multiply the HRT with a factor representing the number of funnels, whilst maintaining the desired flow regime and thus the K_La value. For practical applications the specific energy demand of such a cascade can be estimated as follows: The twisted regime of the hyperbolic funnel tested in this work has a specific energy demand of 0.01 kWh/kg O₂ (see Appendix A for calculation details). In comparison, the specific energy demands of mechanical aerators range from 0.42 to 0.83 kWh/kg O₂ [13] and the specific energy demands of air jets range from 0.74 to 1.0 kWh/kg O₂ [12]. However, the industrial applicability of this system depends on its scalability to higher flow rates in larger funnels on the one hand, and on the possibility to achieve the described regimes with liquids of different viscosities as found in wastewater streams on the other. Thus, while the potential improvements in the energy efficiency of the aeration process seem promising, further work is required for confirmation and to exclude negative impacts on the sludge characteristics and WWTP performances. The authors state that the scientific conclusions are unaffected. This correction was approved by the Academic Editor. The original publication has also been updated. Supplementary Materials: The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/w14050771/s1, The calculation method of SOTR values.

The steady state behavior of thermodynamically supercritical natural circulation loops (NCLs) is investigated in this work. Experimental steady state results with supercritical carbon dioxide are presented for reduced pressures in the range of 1.1-1.5, and temperatures in the range of 20-65 ^◦C. Distinct thermodynamic states are reached by traversing a set of isochors. A generalized equation for the prediction of the steady state is presented, and its performance is assessed using empirical data. Changes of mass flow rate as a result of changes of thermodynamic state, heating- and driving height are shown to be accurately captured by the proposed predictive equation. However, the enhanced viscous losses in the instrumentation of the loop and in the proximity of heat transfer equipment are shown to significantly limit the steady state flow rate. Subsequently, the findings are put forward in aid of the development of safe, novel supercritical natural circulation facilities.

Editorial

Isentropic processes in thermodynamics are fundamental to our understanding of numerous physical phenomena across different scientific and engineering fields. They provide a theoretical reference case for the evaluation of real thermodynamic processes and observations. Yet, as analytical relations for isentropic transformations in gas dynamics are limited to ideal gases, the inability to analytically describe isentropic processes for non-ideal gases is a fundamental shortcoming. This work presents generalised isentropic relations in thermodynamics based on the work by Kouremenos et al., where three isentropic exponents γPv, γTv and γPT are introduced to replace the ideal gas isentropic exponent γ to incorporate the departure from the non-ideal gas behaviour. The general applicability of the generalised isentropic relations is presented by exploring its connections to existing isentropic models for ideal gases and incompressible liquids. Generalised formulations for the speed of sound, the Bernoulli equation, compressible isentropic flow transformations, and isentropic work are presented thereafter, connecting previously disjoint theories for gases and liquids. Lastly, the generalised expressions are demonstrated for practical engineering examples, and their accuracy is discussed.

A transformation that relates a compressible wall-bounded turbulent flow with nonuniform fluid properties to an equivalent incompressible flow with uniform fluid properties is derived and validated. The transformation accounts for both variable-property and intrinsic compressibility effects, the latter being the key improvement over the current state of the art. The importance of intrinsic compressibility effects contradicts the renowned Morkovin's hypothesis.

Ren et al. (2019) recently studied the stability of the boundary layer flow over a flat plate for supercritical CO2. While only one unstable mode usually exists for boundary layer flows, the authors found an additional unstable mode, whose origin has so far not been identified. In the present work, we carry out a stability analysis in the general case of a fluid following the Van der Waals equation of state and flowing over a heated flat plate in the limit of zero Eckert number. In this framework, the second unstable mode is also recovered, ruling out an acoustic origin. From the Rayleigh equation derived in the presence of density gradients, a generalised inflection point (GIP) criterion of instability exists, similar to that of fully compressible flows. Inviscid stability calculations confirm the existence of an unstable mode in the presence of a GIP, which is linked to the additional second mode found at finite Reynolds numbers. A theoretical analysis is then carried out by approximating the momentum equation for a base flow exhibiting strong gradients of dynamic viscosity. It is shown that the origin of the GIP, and hence the additional unstable mode, is associated with a minimum of kinematic viscosity at the Widom line. The universality of this result beyond supercritical fluids is eventually discussed.