| 1. |
- Pérez Ràfols, Francesc, et al.
(author)
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On compressible and piezo-viscous flow in thin porous media
- 2018
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In: Proceedings of the Royal Society. Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. - : The Royal Society Publishing. - 1364-5021 .- 1471-2946. ; 474:2209
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this paper, we study flow through thin porous media as in, e.g. seals or fractures. It is often useful to know the permeability of such systems. In the context of incompressible and iso-viscous fluids, the permeability is the constant of proportionality relating the total flow through the media to the pressure drop. In this work, we show that it is also relevant to define a constant permeability when compressible and/or piezo-viscous fluids are considered. More precisely, we show that the corresponding nonlinear equation describing the flow of any compressible and piezo-viscous fluid can be transformed into a single linear equation. Indeed, this linear equation is the same as the one describing the flow of an incompressible and iso-viscous fluid. By this transformation, the total flow can be expressed as the product of the permeability and a nonlinear function of pressure, which represents a generalized pressure drop.
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| 2. |
- Pérez-Ràfols, Francesc, et al.
(author)
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On the flow through plastically deformed surfaces under unloading : A spectral approach
- 2018
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In: Proceedings of the Institution of mechanical engineers. Part C, journal of mechanical engineering science. - : Sage Publications. - 0954-4062 .- 2041-2983. ; 232:5, s. 908-918
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This study considers flow through the gap left between two surfaces during unloading, in other words, when an applied load is gradually reduced after loading to a state where plastic deformation occurs. In particular, the permeability of the gap is studied. It was found that a substantial reduction of the applied load is required before the permeability starts to increase significantly. The explanation for this phenomenon is given by the combination of components with different wavelengths present in the surface. Components with long wavelengths deform elastically and those with shorter wavelengths may also deform plastically. We found that plastic deformation acts to keep the permeability nearly constant at the beginning of the unloading and elastic spring-back is responsible for the rapid increase at lower loads. This principle constitutes a basis for the strategy that was developed in order to predict the load at which the rapid increase of permeability starts.
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| 3. |
- Perez Rafols, Francesc, 1990-
(author)
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Two-scale stochastic modelling and analysis of leakage through metal-to-metal seals
- 2018
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- A seal is a commonly used machine element whose function is to preventthe flow of a fluid from a high to a low pressure region. Metal-to-metalseals, in particular, are used whenever extreme conditions prevent theuse of less expensive rubber seals. Situations where such extreme condi-tions may be encountered are found, for example, in oil wells and nuclearpower plants. In such applications, the failure of a metal-to-metal sealcan become catastrophic, as it might mean the leakage of hazardousfluids to the environment. In order to minimize the risk, it is critical tounderstand the mechanisms controlling the seal’s performance and,if possible, be able to predict capability to prevent leakage on before-hand. Not surprisingly, the surface topography plays a crucial role hereand therefore requires careful consideration when conducting studies ofthis kind. Indeed, it has been shown that even very small details in thetopography (of size of the order of micrometres) can have a large effecton the performance of the whole seal (of size of the order of centimetresor larger). Another complicating factor is the topography’s stochas-tic nature, which makes even the identification of the relevant detailschallenging. Modelling is, in this context, a desirable approach, as itprovides the possibility to easily zoom in those fine details as well asisolate individual parameters. Moreover, it can provide for a predictionon the expected leakage.This work focuses primarily on the development of a model suitablefor studying the mechanisms controlling the performance of metal-to-metal seals and to enable prediction of leakage. To accomplish this, amodel that follows a two-scale approach is proposed. More precisely,the small details in the topography are considered in a local problemconnected to a highly resolved local-scale domain, while the componentlevel features are considered in a global problem allowing for a coarsegrid discretisation of the corresponding global-scale domain. During the present work it was also found that realistic results can only be obtainedif the model explicitly considers the surface topography’s stochastic na-ture. The model was first developed for liquids and was based on theassumption of incompressible and iso-viscous flow. Further work, withthe objective to enable studies of more complex type of flow situations,resulted in a versatile transformation translating results for incompress-ible and iso-viscous to compressible and piezo-viscous fluids and viceversa. This means that, the flow of gases and other more complex fluidscan be studied by combining the model for the simplistic incompressibleand iso-viscous flow with this newfound transformation.Using the model developed, the sealing performance of metal-to-metal seals during load cycling, i.e., by gradually increasing the load toa certain value and then releasing it again, is studied. The scope of thisstudy is to assess how the plastic deformation that the metal surfacesundergoes during the loading phase can affect the leakage during unload-ing. It is shown that this results in a change of the original topographythat may lead to a better sealing performance during unloading. Themain result obtained is, however, that given the right conditions, the ap-plied load can be released considerably (even down to half of the reachedbefore starting the unloading) with only a small increase in leakage asa result. This shows the seal’s capability to prevent leakage evenif an unexpected reduction of load occurs and is therefore is a valuabledescription of the robustness of the seal.
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| 4. |
- Ràfols, Francesc Pérez, 1990-, et al.
(author)
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An Enhanced Stochastic Two-Scale Model for Metal-to-Metal Seals
- 2018
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In: Lubricants. - : MDPI. - 2075-4442. ; 6:4
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Leakage in static metal-to-metal seals is predominantly determined by the topography of the contacting surfaces. The topography consists of features that span the entire range from its carefully engineered geometry down to micro-sized surface asperities. The mesh density necessary to fully resolve all the features, in this large span of length scales, generates too many degrees of freedom for a direct numerical approach to be applicable. Some kind of sophistication, either incorporated in the mathematical model or in the numerical solution procedure or even a combination of both is therefore required. For instance, in a two-scale model, the geometrical features can be addressed in the global-scale model, while the features belonging to length scales smaller than a given cut-off value are addressed in the local-scale model. However, the classical two-scale approaches do not explicitly address the stochastic nature of the surfaces, and this has turned out to be a requirement in order to obtain quantitative predictions of leakage in metal-to-metal seals. In this work, we present a continued development of an already existing two-scale model, which incorporates a stochastic element. The novelty lies in the way we characterise the permeability at the local scale and how this is used to build a more efficient and useful approach
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| 5. |
- Ràfols, Francesc Pérez, 1990-, et al.
(author)
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On the loading and unloading of metal-to-metal seals : A two-scale stochastic approach
- 2018
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In: Proceedings of the Institution of mechanical engineers. Part J, journal of engineering tribology. - : Sage Publications. - 1350-6501 .- 2041-305X. ; 232:12, s. 1525-1537
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- During operation, the mating surfaces of a metal-to-metal seal typically undergo significant plastic deformation, which in turn can have beneficial effect on its performance. In previous studies, it has, for instance, been shown that plastic deformation can provide for better sealing during unloading. Those studies did, however, only consider flow through unrealistically small domains. Therefore, it is possible that this might be a size effect, which would not be apparent in a real situation with a much larger domain. In this paper, we develop a model which can handle real-sized seal domains at the same time as fine details of the surface topography. More precisely, we construct a two-scale model, in which the global scale represents the seal domain and where the influence of the fine details at the local scale are represented by a stochastic element. By means of this stochastic two-scale model, we show that the beneficial effect associated with the plastic deformation persists also when real-sized seal domains are considered.
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