Publications

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A multifunctional reactor is a chemical engineering device that exploits enhanced heat and mass transfer to promote production of a desired chemical, combining more than one unit operation in a single system. The main component of the reactor system under study here is a vertical column containing packing material through which liquid(s) and gas flow cocurrently downward. Under certain conditions, a range of hydrodynamic regimes can be achieved within the column that can either enhance or inhibit a desired chemical reaction. To study such reactors in a controlled laboratory environment, two experimental facilities were constructed at Sandia National Laboratories. One experiment, referred to as the Two-Phase Experiment, operates with two phases (air and water). The second experiment, referred to as the Three-Phase Experiment, operates with three phases (immiscible organic liquid and aqueous liquid, and nitrogen). This report describes the motivation, design, construction, operational hazards, and operation of the both of these experiments. Data and conclusions are included.

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Digital image correlation (DIC) and the tremendous advances in optical imaging are beginning to revolutionize explosive and high-strain rate measurements. This paper presents results obtained from metallic hemispheres expanded at detonation velocities. Important aspects of sample preparation and lighting of the image will be presented that are key considerations in obtaining images for DIC with frame rates at 1-million frames/second. Quantitative measurements of the case strain rate, expansion velocity and deformation will be presented. Furthermore, preliminary estimations of the measurement uncertainty will be discussed with notes on how image noise and contrast effect the measurement of shape and displacement. The data are then compared with analytical representations of the experiment.

A novel multiphase shock tube to study particle dynamics in gas-solid flows has been constructed and tested. Currently, there is a gap in data for flows having particle volume fractions between the dusty and granular regimes. The primary purpose of this new facility is to fill that gap by providing high quality data of shock-particle interactions in flows having dense gas particle volume fractions. Towards this end, the facility aims to drive a shock into a spatially isotropic field, or curtain, of particles. Through bench-top experimentation, a method emerged for achieving this challenging task that involves the use of a gravity-fed contoured particle seeder. The seeding method is capable of producing fields of spatially isotropic particles having volume fractions of about 1 to 35%. The use of the seeder in combination with the shock tube allows for the testing of the impingement of a planar shock on a dense field of particles. The first experiments in the multiphase shock tube have been conducted and the facility is now operational.

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The thrust from a multi-cycle, pulse detonation engine operating at practical flight altitudes will vary with the surrounding environment pressure. We have carried out the first experimental study using a detonation tube hung in a ballistic pendulum arrangement within a large pressure vessel in order to determine the effect that the environment has on the single-cycle impulse. The air pressure inside the vessel surrounding the detonation tube varied between 100 and 1.4 kPa while the initial pressure of the stoichiometric ethylene-oxygen mixture inside the tube varied between 100 and 30 kPa. The original impulse model (Wintenberger et al., Journal of Propulsion and Power, Vol. 19, No. 1, 2002) was modified to predict the observed increase in impulse and blow down time as the environment pressure decreased below one atmosphere. Comparisons between the impulse from detonation tubes and ideal, steady flow rockets indicate incomplete expansion of the detonation tube exhaust, resulting in a 37% difference in impulse at a pressure ratio (ratio of pressure behind the Taylor wave to the environment pressure) of 100.