No abstract

Diaphragm tanks are a common type of pressurized tanks in which the diaphragm is used to separate the fuel part from the high-pressure part, compress the fuel in the tank, and reduce free space to avoid liquid fuel sloshing. The main purpose of the application of the diaphragm tanks is to ensure the continuous flow of pure fuel without the gas bubble into the spacecraft engine. In space mission, diaphragm tanks will experience a wide range of acceleration at different levels of filling. These conditions change the state of equilibrium between the volume of the gas and the fluid and move the diaphragm toward the discharge portion of the tank. As a result of this movement, the diaphragm curvature is changed and the structure collapses at rest, which is called folding. When large nonlinear folding occurs, there is potential for diaphragm damage through wear, rubbing, and excessive stress. Predicting diaphragm behavior in order to calculate a diaphragm’s susceptibility to corrosion, rupture, and surface strain is one of the major design challenges. In this study, new method is provided to analyze deformation of diaphragm tanks by using numerical techniques. Also, the investigation method is verified by using experimental methods. In this process, first a 3D numerical model is developed to investigate the inverse behavior of a hyper-elastic diaphragm by using ANSYS software and the results of the simulations are compared with the results of experimental tests in the same situation. After validation, a second case study is performed to survey the effect of reducing diaphragm thickness according to the strain energy and natural frequency behavior of the diaphragm in different fill levels. The results of this study showed that numerical simulations are capable of reconstructing diaphragm inversion properties with good accuracy. In addition, the numerical model can detect the proper thickness for the diaphragm. In the last section, algorithm and software for optimal automatic modeling of diaphragm tanks are proposed.

Full-cone spray is quite important in spray cooling and catalytic combustion applications; however, it is not extensively studied. Besides, the liquid spray is relatively a non-uniform structure especially along longitudinal axis which includes different sizes and distribution of droplets. The few published experimental studies are limited to calculate some of the spray characteristics on a certain plane located downstream of the nozzle exit. Therefore, the spray parameters representing fluid structure, droplets mean diameter, and their distribution in different cross sections from nozzle exit are considered in this study. Accordingly, a jet-swirl atomizer with pressure-swirl full-cone spray is investigated where all important full-cone spray characteristics are considered at different planes from nozzle exit. The spray images are obtained with a shadowgraph technique and are analyzed to obtain the Sauter mean diameter (SMD), D10, and droplet size distribution along with the spray structure, spray cone angle, and discharge coefficient. The experimental results are verified based on the pre-published numerical studies on the same atomizer. The experimental and numerical results show good agreement. Moreover, the results show that the SMD is increased by moving away from center of spray to its edges, and the droplets number density is increased in central regions. The increased droplets number density leads to the greater external forces which create smaller droplets. In contrast, larger particles exist in peripheral parts due to the less droplets concentration. Furthermore, and far away from the exit nozzle, the SMD values are decreased due to the increased aerodynamic forces and oscillations. The droplets dispersion including spray density in radial and axial directions is also observed using spray density images.