Novel energy conversion systems for power and propulsion will operate at increasingly higher pressures to operate at higher efficiencies. One of the major obstacles in successfully realizing these new technologies is the limited knowledge of hydrodynamic stability, compressible turbulence and turbulence-radiation interactions with fluids at high pressure, in particular in a region where strongly non-ideal gas effects are at play. Based on my own preliminary results (see next page), it appears that at certain conditions in the non-ideal regime, it is hardly possible to make a laminar flow turbulent. It is furthermore unknown how the strong fluid compressibility in the supercritical regime affects turbulent heat transfer. If the pressure and temperature are high enough, another currently ignored complexity emerges. Gases that at ambient conditions can be considered optically thin, become opaque and radiation has the potential to strongly interact with the fluid and possibly dramatically disrupt turbulence. However, laminar-turbulent transition, fluid compressibility and radiation greatly affect drag, heat transfer, flow separation and consequently affect efficiency, productivity and reliability of any flow device.
The goal of my research is to shed light on these critical, yet unexplored, phenomena by performing the first systematic study at the intersection of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics and radiation science.I will use a unique combination of advanced hydrodynamic stability analysis, novel numerical simulation tools designed for GPU accelerated computing facilities, and unprecedented experiments to optically investigate heated supercritical flows with infrared thermography.
