Publications by authors named "Paolo Oresta"

In this paper, an assessment of the uncertainty affecting a hybrid procedure (experimental/numerical) is carried out to validate it for industrial applications, at the least. The procedure in question serves to depict 3D incompressible flow fields by using 2D measurements of it and computing the third velocity component by means of the continuity equation. A quasi-3D test case of an incompressible flow has been inspected in the wake of a NACA 0012 airfoil immersed in a forced flow of water running in a rectangular open channel.

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The effect of particles falling under gravity in a weakly turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard gas flow is studied numerically. The particle Stokes number is varied between 0.01 and 1 and their temperature is held fixed at the temperature of the cold plate, of the hot plate, or the mean between these values.

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Boiling is an extremely effective way to promote heat transfer from a hot surface to a liquid due to numerous mechanisms, many of which are not understood in quantitative detail. An important component of the overall process is that the buoyancy of the bubble compounds with that of the liquid to give rise to a much-enhanced natural convection. In this article, we focus specifically on this enhancement and present a numerical study of the resulting two-phase Rayleigh-Bénard convection process in a cylindrical cell with a diameter equal to its height.

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Numerical results for kinetic and thermal energy dissipation rates in bubbly Rayleigh-Bénard convection are reported. Bubbles have a twofold effect on the flow: on the one hand, they absorb or release heat to the surrounding liquid phase, thus tending to decrease the temperature differences responsible for the convective motion; but on the other hand, the absorbed heat causes the bubbles to grow, thus increasing their buoyancy and enhancing turbulence (or, more properly, pseudoturbulence) by generating velocity fluctuations. This enhancement depends on the ratio of the sensible heat to the latent heat of the phase change, given by the Jakob number, which determines the dynamics of the bubble growth.

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The heat transfer mechanism in Rayleigh-Bénard convection in a liquid with a mean temperature close to its boiling point is studied through numerical simulations with pointlike vapor bubbles, which are allowed to grow or shrink through evaporation and condensation and which act back on the flow both thermally and mechanically. It is shown that the effect of the bubbles is strongly dependent on the ratio of the sensible heat to the latent heat as embodied in the Jakob number Ja. For very small Ja the bubbles stabilize the flow by absorbing heat in the warmer regions and releasing it in the colder regions.

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