scholarly journals CFD investigation on the performance analysis of Tesla turbine

2021 ◽  
Vol 850 (1) ◽  
pp. 012026
Author(s):  
J Kevin Joseph ◽  
R Jeyanthinathan ◽  
R Harish

Abstract A Tesla turbine is a bladeless turbine in which fluid flows in the direction of the centripetal path. It uses fluid properties such as Boundary layer & adhesion of fluid on a series of discs keyed to a shaft. The initial cost and maintenance cost of the Tesla turbine is very low. Our project’s main motive is to improve the performance of a Tesla turbine by changing various parameters such as disc diameter and disc rotating speed through the CFD simulation software using water as a working fluid. The CAD model is designed using Ansys design modeler, meshing is performed using Ansys meshing and post processing is carried out in Ansys fluent. The numerical simulations were carried out using Ansys Fluent which is based on the finite volume method and the changes that occurred in the pressure and velocities are investigated. The parametric study is performed by varying the turbine disc speed. By performing CFD simulations, total pressure contour and velocity magnitude contours are plotted and it is found that pressure and velocity are maximum when the clearance between disc and turbine casing is lesser and at higher turbine disc speeds. The power output of the Tesla turbine is also plotted for various rpm where higher rpm gives maximum power output. The results from the present study would be useful in designing an efficient Tesla turbine with improved performance.

Author(s):  
Liju Su ◽  
Ramesh K. Agarwal

Supersonic steam ejectors are widely used in many industrial applications, for example for refrigeration and desalination. The experimental evaluation of the flow field inside the ejector is relatively difficult and costly due to the occurrence of shock after the velocity of the steam reaches over the sonic level in the ejector. In this paper, numerical simulations are conducted to investigate the detailed flow field inside a supersonic steam (water vapor being the working fluid) ejector. The commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) flow solver ANSYS-Fluent and the mesh generation software ANSYS-ICEM are used to predict the steam performance during the mixing inside the ejector by employing two turbulence models, the k-ω SST and the k-ε realizable models. The computed results are validated against the experimental data. The effects of operating conditions on the efficiency of the ejector such as the primary fluid pressure and condenser pressure are studied to obtain a better understanding of the mixing process and entrainment. Velocity contours, pressure plots and shock region analyses provide a good understanding for optimization of the ejector performance, in particular how to increase the entrainment ratio.


2018 ◽  
Vol 178 ◽  
pp. 05014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrzej Baier ◽  
Łukasz Grabowski ◽  
Łukasz Stebel ◽  
Mateusz Komander ◽  
Przemysław Konopka ◽  
...  

Numerical analysis of drag values of an electric race car's body. Silesian Greenpower is a student organization specializing in electric race car design. One of the most important issues during the design is reducing the vehicle drag to minimum and is done, mainly, by designing a streamline car body. The aim of this work was to design two electric cars bodies with different shape in Siemens NX CAD software, next a finite elements mesh was created and implemented into the ANSYS Workbench 16.1 software. Afterwards an aerodynamic analysis was carried out, using the finite element method (FEM). Simulations and calculations have been performed in ANSYS Fluent: CFD Simulation software. Computer simulation allowed to visualize the distribution of air pressure on and around car, the air velocity distribution around the car and aerodynamics streamline trajectory. The results of analysis were used to determine the drag values of electric car and determine points of the highest drag. In conclusion car body representing lower drag was appointed. The work includes theoretical introduction, containing information about finite element method, ANSYS and Siemens NX software and also basic aerodynamics laws.


Author(s):  
Wenyang Shao ◽  
Xiaofang Wang ◽  
Jinguang Yang ◽  
Huimin Liu ◽  
Zhenjun Huang

The Supercritical Carbon Dioxide (SCO2) Brayton cycle has been getting more and more attentions all over the world in recent years for its high cycle efficiency and compact components. The compressor is one of the most important components in the cycle. Different from traditional working fluid, SCO2 has a risk of condensation at the impeller inlet because of the particular properties near the critical point. In order to determine the possibility of the condensation, a concept called “Condensation Margin (CM)” suited for SCO2 is introduced. It is associated with the total and saturated thermodynamic conditions. A design parameter called velocity ratio at the impeller inlet (IVR) is defined to control the state of working fluid at impeller inlet based on CM. In terms of different constraints and design requirements, such as impeller efficiency, operating range and processing technic, especially in small size cases, the design parameters at the impeller outlet are explored by establishing a function of outlet width, the number of blades, rotating speed, outlet tangential velocity coefficient and outlet meridional velocity coefficient. A preliminary design result of a low-flow-coefficient SCO2 centrifugal compressor is presented as an example of the application of the design parameters exploration results; then CFD simulation is performed, and consistent results are obtained compared with exploration results.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana C. Ferreira ◽  
Senhorinha F. C. F. Teixeira ◽  
Ricardo F. Oliveira ◽  
José C. Teixeira

Abstract An alpha-Stirling configuration was modelled using a Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD), using ANSYS® software. A Stirling engine is an externally heated engine which has the advantage of working with several heat sources with high efficiencies. The working gas flows between compression and expansion spaces by alternate crossing of, a low-temperature heat exchanger (cooler), a regenerator and a high-temperature heat exchanger (heater). Two pistons positioned at a phase angle of 90 degrees were designed and the heater and cooler were placed on the top of the pistons. The motion of the boundary conditions with displacement was defined through a User Defined Function (UDF) routine, providing the motion for the expansion and compression piston, respectively. In order to define the temperature differential between the engine hot and the cold sources, the walls of the heater and cooler were defined as constant temperatures, whereas the remaining are adiabatic. The objective is to study the thermal behavior of the working fluid considering the piston motion between the hot and cold sources and investigate the effect of operating conditions on engine performance. The influence of regenerator matrix porosity, hot and cold temperatures on the engine performance was investigated through predicting the PV diagram of the engine. The CFD simulation of the thermal engine’s performance provided a Stirling engine with 760W of power output. It was verified that the Stirling engine can be optimized when the best design parameters combination are applied, mostly the regenerator porosity and cylinders volume, which variation directly affect the power output.


2012 ◽  
Vol 614-615 ◽  
pp. 515-519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chao Wei Chang ◽  
Jen Chieh Chang ◽  
Tzu Chen Hung ◽  
Yung Shin Tseng

Organic Rankine cycles (ORCs) could recover low-grade heat to useful energy. The expander is a key element in ORC systems. The expander efficiency is about 35% to 40% in the experiment. This research investigates the transient thermal-hydraulic behavior of 2-D scroll expander using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach. The working fluid was assumed to behave like ideal gas. The verification has been compared by mass flow rate between experiment data and CFD simulation. Finally, pitch of the scroll geometry has been selected as the parameter for sensitivity study based on the condition of no change in overall volume. The pressure-volume (P-V) behavior and volumetric efficiency with rotating speed diagram have been discussed on various scroll geometry.


Designs ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Bianchi ◽  
Sham Rane ◽  
Fabio Fatigati ◽  
Roberto Cipollone ◽  
Ahmed Kovacevic

The paper presents an extensive investigation of a small-scale sliding vane rotary expander operating with R245fa. The key novelty is in an innovative operating layout, which considers a secondary inlet downstream of the conventional inlet port. The additional intake supercharges the expander by increasing the mass of the working fluid in the working chamber during the expansion process; this makes it possible to harvest a greater power output within the same machine. The concept of supercharging is assessed in this paper through numerical computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations which are validated against experimental data, including the mass flow rate and indicated pressure measurements. When operating at 1516 rpm and between pressures of 5.4 bar at the inlet and 3.2 bar at the outlet, the supercharged expander provided a power output of 325 W. The specific power output was equal to 3.25 kW/(kg/s) with a mechanical efficiency of 63.1%. The comparison between internal pressure traces obtained by simulation and experimentally is very good. However, the numerical model is not able to account fully for the overfilling of the machine. A comparison between a standard and a supercharged configuration obtained by CFD simulation shows that the specific indicated power increases from 3.41 kW/(kg/s) to 8.30 kW/(kg/s). This large power difference is the result of preventing overexpansion by supercharging. Hence, despite the greater pumping power required for the increased flow through the secondary inlet, a supercharged expander would be the preferred option for applications where the weight of the components is the key issue, for example, in transport applications.


Author(s):  
Liju Su ◽  
Ramesh K. Agarwal ◽  
Subhodeep Banerjee

Supersonic steam ejectors are widely used in many industrial applications, for example for refrigeration and desalination. The experimental evaluation of the flow field inside the ejector is relatively difficult and costly due to the occurrence of shock after the velocity of the steam reaches over the sonic level in the ejector. In this paper, numerical simulations are conducted to investigate the detailed flow field inside a supersonic steam (water vapor being the working fluid) ejector. The commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) flow solver ANSYS-Fluent and the mesh generation software ANSYS-ICEM are used to predict the steam performance during the mixing inside the ejector by employing two turbulence models, the k-ω SST and the k-ε realizable models. The computed results are validated against the experimental data. The effects of operating conditions on the efficiency of the ejector such as the primary fluid pressure and condenser pressure are studied to obtain a better understanding of the mixing process and entrainment. Velocity contours, pressure plots and shock region analyses provide a good understanding for optimization of the ejector performance, in particular how to increase the entrainment ratio.


2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (1A) ◽  
pp. 88-104
Author(s):  
Anwar S. Barrak ◽  
Ahmed A. M. Saleh ◽  
Zainab H. Naji

This study is investigated the thermal performance of seven turns of the oscillating heat pipe (OHP) by an experimental investigation and CFD simulation. The OHP is designed and made from a copper tube with an inner diameter 3.5 mm and thickness 0.6 mm and the condenser, evaporator, and adiabatic lengths are 300, 300, and 210 mm respectively.  Water is used as a working fluid with a filling ratio of 50% of the total volume. The evaporator part is heated by hot air (35, 40, 45, and 50) oC with various face velocity (0.5, 1, and 1.5) m/s. The condenser section is cold by air at temperature 15 oC. The CFD simulation is done by using the volume of fluid (VOF) method to model two-phase flow by conjugating a user-defined function code (UDF) to the FLUENT code. Results showed that the maximum heat input is 107.75 W while the minimum heat is 13.75 W at air inlet temperature 35 oC with air velocity 0.5m/s. The thermal resistance decreased with increasing of heat input. The results were recorded minimum thermal resistance 0.2312 oC/W at 107.75 W and maximum thermal resistance 1.036 oC/W at 13.75W. In addition, the effective thermal conductivity increased due to increasing heat input.  The numerical results showed a good agreement with experimental results with a maximum deviation of 15%.


2020 ◽  
Vol 310 ◽  
pp. 00039
Author(s):  
Kamila Kotrasova ◽  
Vladimira Michalcova

The numerical simulation of flow process and heat transfer phenomena demands the solution of continuous differential equation and energy-conservation equations coupled with the continuity equation. The choosing of computation parameters in numerical simulation of computation domain have influence on accuracy of obtained results. The choose parameters, as mesh density, mesh type and computation procedures, for the numerical diffusion of computation domain were analysed and compared. The CFD simulation in ANSYS – Fluent was used for numerical simulation of 3D stational temperature flow of the computation domain.


2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (7) ◽  
pp. 640-648 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Kaminsky ◽  
K. Dumont ◽  
H. Weber ◽  
M. Schroll ◽  
P. Verdonck

The aim of this study was to validate the 2D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) results of a moving heart valve based on a fluid-structure interaction (FSI) algorithm with experimental measurements. Firstly, a pulsatile laminar flow through a monoleaflet valve model with a stiff leaflet was visualized by means of Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). The inflow data sets were applied to a CFD simulation including blood-leaflet interaction. The measurement section with a fixed leaflet was enclosed into a standard mock loop in series with a Harvard Apparatus Pulsatile Blood Pump, a compliance chamber and a reservoir. Standard 2D PIV measurements were made at a frequency of 60 bpm. Average velocity magnitude results of 36 phase-locked measurements were evaluated at every 10° of the pump cycle. For the CFD flow simulation, a commercially available package from Fluent Inc. was used in combination with in-house developed FSI code based on the Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) method. Then the CFD code was applied to the leaflet to quantify the shear stress on it. Generally, the CFD results are in agreement with the PIV evaluated data in major flow regions, thereby validating the FSI simulation of a monoleaflet valve with a flexible leaflet. The applicability of the new CFD code for quantifying the shear stress on a flexible leaflet is thus demonstrated. (Int J Artif Organs 2007; 30: 640–8)


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