Image Theses and Dissertations Computational Study of Free Jets Emanating from Circular and Lobed Orifice-Lattice Boltzmann Method The Lattice Boltzmann method is an effective computational fluid dynamics tool to study complex flows. Unlike conventional numerical schemes based on discretization of macroscopic continuum equations, the Lattice Boltzmann method is based on particles and mesoscopic kinetic equations. Single-Relaxation Time Lattice Boltzmann Method (SRTLBM) with Smagorinsky LES model is applied to simulate high Reynolds number jet flows of single and multiphase flows emanating. The multi-block approach is implemented to refine the mesh when the high resolution is needed in the region around the core jet. View Item
Image Theses and Dissertations A Calibration Procedure for Measuring the Thermal Conductivity of Molten Salts at Elevated Temperatures View Item
Image Theses and Dissertations Computational study of flow past arrays of plates in the vicinity of surfaces Flows past bluff bodies are encountered in many engineering applications. The bluff body situated in the flow experience a significant amount of pressure drag force. Therefore, it is important to predict flow conditions around bluff bodies when designing bridges, platforms, pipelines near seabed, offshore structures, and hydropower systems. In several engineering applications, structures could often be placed near surfaces. Transient flows past rectangular plates in the vicinity of surfaces are investigated in this study. View Item
Image Theses and Dissertations Computational Study of Seawater Desalination Using Hollow Fiber Vacuum Membrane Distillation. Computational fluid dynamics simulations were conducted to study the performance of the vacuum membrane distillation on hollow fiber membrane module to serve the seawater desalination sector. The membrane thickness of the hollow fiber membrane is seen in a wide range in the published studies which brings the research attention to address its effect. Therefore, a study was conducted to test the different membrane thickness of the hollow fiber membrane on the module performance. Two different configurations of a single hollow fiber membrane module were investigated. View Item
Image Theses and Dissertations Computational Study of Water Desalination Using Forward Osmosis Forward Osmosis is a natural phenomenon that takes places across a semi-permeable membrane when there is a concentration difference across the membrane. Pure water permeates to the highly concentrated channel until the concentration across the membrane equilibrates. In water desalination applications, the same principle is applied. Spiral-wound membrane, flat sheet, or hollow fiber module are typical configurations in forward osmosis desalination modules. View Item
Image Theses and Dissertations Experimental Study on Using Supercritical CO2 to Extract Rare Earth Elements from Acid Mine Drainage Rare earth elements (REEs) are valuable raw materials for various applications in modern high technology industries. For most countries, the majority of REEs are imported from abroad. Therefore, developing an alternative method to produce REEs is significant to the national security of those countries. The extraction of selected REEs from acid mine drainage (AMD) by supercritical CO2 (sCO2) was investigated in this study. The solubility of different ligands in sCO2 has significant impact on the extraction efficiency of REEs. View Item
Image Theses and Dissertations Structural Analysis of an Archimedes Screw and a Kinetic Hydro Turbine Finite Element Analysis (FEA) can be a great tool for analyzing the structural integrity of any mechanical design. Paired with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) the forces can be evaluated on a hydro turbine allowing for such an analysis. In this case, two micro hydro turbines were analyzed, an Archimedes Screw design, in the case of an available head, and a hydrokinetic design, aiming at extracting the kinetic energy of a river. View Item
Image Theses and Dissertations Direct Numerical Simulation of Rayleigh-Bénard Convection of Two Immiscible Fluids-Level Set Method A finite volume numerical method is introduced to perform the direct numerical simulation for two-phase immiscible and incompressible fluids. The Navier-Stokes equation is discretized by the staggered mesh spatially and advected temporally with the 4th order Runge-Kutta scheme. CFL conditions involving the effect from the convective term, viscous term, stiff source term and heat transfer are applied to meet the stringent limitation on the time step. Energy equation is coupled with the Navier-Stokes equation when the study of heat transfer is included. View Item
Image Theses and Dissertations A Study of the Prediction of Ammonium Bisulfate Formation Temperature by Artificial Intelligence Ammonium bisulfate (ABS) is an acidic deposit that can form on the metal elements of air preheaters in power boilers, leading to unit operational issues. As a byproduct of the Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) systems for nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions control, ABS could result in unit efficiency deterioration, even unit outage. ABS formation temperature is an important factor in controlling the issues associated with ABS fouling problems. If the ABS formation temperature could be monitored, the ABS deposition location could be identified. View Item
Image Faculty Publications Analysis of an encapsulated phase change material-based energy storage system for high-temperature applications View Item
Image Faculty Publications Long-ranged Protein-glycan Interactions Stabilize von Willebrand Factor A2 Domain from Mechanical Unfolding Abstractvon Willebrand Factor (vWF) is a large multimeric protein that binds to platelets and collagen in blood clotting. vWF A2 domain hosts a proteolytic site for ADAMTS13 (A Disintegrin and Metalloprotease with a ThromboSpondin type 1 motif, member 13) to regulate the size of vWF multimers. This regulation process is highly sensitive to force conditions and protein-glycan interactions as the process occurs in flowing blood. There are two sites on A2 domain (N1515 and N1574) bearing various N-linked glycan structures. View Item
Image Faculty Publications Label-free focusing of viral particles under a temperature gradient coupled with continuous swirling flow A microfluidic device employing a temperature field and engineered swirling is shown to enrich nanoparticles and virus under continuous flow. View Item
Image Faculty Publications Flow Simulations Using Two Dimensional Thermal Lattice Boltzmann Method Lattice Boltzmann method is implemented to study hydrodynamically and thermally developing steady laminar flows in a channel. Numerical simulation of two-dimensional convective heat transfer problem is conducted using two-dimensional, nine directional D2Q9 thermal lattice Boltzmann arrangements. The velocity and temperature profiles in the developing region predicted by Lattice Boltzmann method are compared against those obtained by ANSYS-FLUENT. View Item
Image Theses and Dissertations Simulation of Nox reduction in power plant flue gas Abstract Power plant generates electricity as well as high temperature waste heat. NOx is main pollutant in power plant flue gas. NOx reduction reaction is expected to happen in given duct section. Selective non-catalytic reduction (SNCR) method is selected to control NOx level. SNCR requires no modification on duct geometry and this method is more cost-effective compared to other NOx reduction systems. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique is employed to simulate flue gas flow and mass and heat transports with an injection of droplets. View Item
Image Theses and Dissertations Activating and Testing of Anthracite Coal for Elemental Hg Adsorption in Simulated Flue Gas To explore non-energy study uses of coal, an approach of anthracite coal activation and its Hg capture capacity was investigated to establish the feasibility of using anthracite for Hg emissions adsorption in the flue gas of coal-fired power plants. This research project was performed in two stages: an anthracite sample activation stage and a Hg adsorption stage. In the first step, anthracite coal produced by Blaschak Coal Corporation was activated by mixing it with potassium hydroxide (KOH) powder and heated to high temperature. View Item
Image Theses and Dissertations Development of the Single-Relaxation-Time Lattice Boltzmann Method for Application to Thermal Fluid Flows This work investigates the single-relaxation-time Lattice Boltzmann Method and how to develop it into a full hydrodynamic and thermal modeling scheme. First the single-relaxation time isothermal Lattice Boltzmann Method is outlined, beginning with the fundamentals of the lattice model and then proceeding through the necessary governingequations for the two-dimensional, nine-directional lattice. The governing equations are then presented in a discretized form to be used for simulation, followed by treatment ofboundary conditions. View Item
Image Theses and Dissertations Numerical Simulation of Gas Separation by Hollow Fiber Membrane Numerical analyses are performed for reverse osmosis gas separation modules consisting of hollow fiber membranes. Computational fluid dynamic simulations are conducted to study steady state flow and mass transport in three-dimensional separation modules. The fluid is a binary mixture of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). The mixture flows in a direction parallel to the membrane axis. The separation module consists of an inline and a staggered arrangement of hollow fibers with two different spacing. View Item
Image Theses and Dissertations Computational Study of Desalination by Membranes Water desalination by membranes constitutes the majority of the low-quality water purication systems that extends across many different techniques. This study considers transport phenomena in reverse osmosis (RO) and vacuum membrane distillation (VMD) modules using computational techniques. Reverse osmosis is a pressure-driven separation method using semi-permeable membranes featuring nanoporous structures. View Item
Image Theses and Dissertations Experimentation with Synthetic Material Disks for Mercury Capture Using an On-Line Mercury Analyzer A mercury detection system was built and tested to help assess the mercury absorption ability of synthetic disks, made of Kapton polyimide film, under simulated flue gas conditions at different temperature levels. These synthetic disks would be part of a continuous mercury monitoring system developed by UHV, Inc. and the Lehigh University Energy Research Center. Evaluation of the disks was based on mercury absorption efficiency, calculated from the difference in mercury concentration before and after placing the discs into the detection system. View Item
Image Theses and Dissertations Computational Study of Water Desalination Using Direct Contact Membrane Distillation Computational fluid dynamics simulations were conducted to study the unit performance of direct contact membrane distillation for seawater desalination process in three-dimensional modules. A parametric study was conducted to assess the effects of the mem View Item
Image Theses and Dissertations Conformational changes of von Willebrand Factor multimer subject to extensional flows The von Willebrand Factor (vWF) is a large multimeric protein in the blood that aids in blood clotting. It activates the clotting cascade at specific time and specific place, which is one of the human body's masterpieces in targeted molecular manipulation. Hydrodynamic forces trigger conformational changes of vWF, by which its potency and reactivity are regulated. In this thesis, inspiration is taken from novel findings in vWF experiments. The present study aims to describe the behaviors in this process within the context of polymer science. View Item
Image Theses and Dissertations Steady State and Transient Computational Study of Multiple Hydrokinetic Turbines Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations have been conducted for different configurations of pre-designed multiple hydrokinetic turbines. The turbines are modeled physically within the fluid domain instead of low fidelity actuator lines or actuator disk modeling approaches. The turbulence model, k-ω Shear Stress Transport (SST) was employed to resolve turbulent flow field. The primary focus of this study is to investigate transient behavior of multiple turbines and providing solutions to enhance downstream turbine performance in close proximity to the upstream turbine wake. View Item
Image Faculty Publications Prediction of Sub-Monomer A2 Domain Dynamics of the von Willebrand Factor by Machine Learning Algorithm and Coarse-Grained Molecular Dynamics Simulation AbstractWe develop a machine learning tool useful for predicting the instantaneous dynamical state of sub-monomer features within long linear polymer chains, as well as extracting the dominant macromolecular motions associated with sub-monomer behaviors of interest. We employ the tool to better understand and predict sub-monomer A2 domain unfolding dynamics occurring amidst the dominant large-scale macromolecular motions of the biopolymer von Willebrand Factor (vWF) immersed in flow. View Item