Numerical Investigation of Air/Water and Hydrogen/Diesel Flow Across Tube Bundles With Baffles

2017 ◽  
Vol 139 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego N. Venturi ◽  
Waldir P. Martignoni ◽  
Dirceu Noriler ◽  
Henry F. Meier

Two-phase flows across tube bundles are very commonly found in industrial heat exchange equipment such as shell and tube heat exchangers. However, recent studies published in the literature are generally performed on devices where the flow crosses the tube bundle in only a vertical or horizontal direction, lacking geometrical fidelity with industrial models, and the majority of them use air and water as the working fluids. Also, currently, experimental approaches and simulations are based on very simplified models. This paper reports the simulation of a laboratory full-scale tube bundle with a combination of vertical and horizontal flows and with two different baffle configurations. Also, it presents a similarity analysis to evaluate the influence of changing the fluids to hydrogen and diesel in the operational conditions of the hydrotreating. The volume of fluid (VOF) approach is used as the interface phenomena are very important. The air/water simulations show good agreement with classical correlations and are able to show the stratified behavior of the flow in the horizontal regions and the intermittent flow in the vertical regions. Also, the two baffle configurations are compared in terms of volume fraction and streamlines. When dealing with hydrogen/diesel flow using correlations and maps made for air/water, superficial velocity is recommended as similarity variable when a better prediction of the pressure drop is needed, and the modified superficial velocity is recommended for prediction of the volume-average void fraction and the outlet superficial void fraction.

Author(s):  
In-Cheol Chu ◽  
Heung June Chung ◽  
Young Jung Yun

Fluid-elastic instability characteristics in an air-water two-phase cross-flow have been experimentally investigated using two different arrangements of cantilevered straight tube bundles. Rotated triangular array tube bundle is for the supplementary test of the existing work, and normal square array tube bundle is for the investigation of fluid-elastic instability in higher p/d condition. The present paper provides the experimental results of the tube vibration response, hydrodynamic mass, damping ratio, and fluid-elastic instability. As the two-phase gap velocity increased, the fluidic-elastic instability occurred in the lift direction and a strongly coupled tube motion was found. The damping ratio was very dependent on the void fraction, as in the previous works. For a low void fraction flow, the fluid-elastic instability could be predicted by using Connors’ equation. However, the fluid-elastic instability in a high void fraction flow was quite different. The transition between the two fluid-elastic instability regions almost coincided with the flow regime transition criteria from a continuous bubbly flow to an intermittent flow.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (7) ◽  
pp. 2088
Author(s):  
Wael Ahmed ◽  
Adib Fatayerji ◽  
Ahmed Elsaftawy ◽  
Marwan Hassan ◽  
David Weaver ◽  
...  

Evaluating the two-phase flow parameters across tube bundles is crucial to the analysis of vibration excitation mechanisms. These parameters include the temporal and local variation of void fraction and phase redistribution. Understanding these two-phase parameters is essential to evaluating the stability threshold of tube bundle configurations. In this work, capacitance sensor probes were designed using finite element analysis to ensure high sensor sensitivity and optimum response. A simulation-based approach was used to calibrate and increase the accuracy of the void fraction measurement. The simulation results were used to scale the normalized capacitance and minimize the sensor uncertainty to ±5%. The sensor and required conditioning circuits were fabricated and tested for measuring the instantaneous void fraction in a horizontal triangular tube bundle array under both static and dynamic two-phase flow conditions. The static calibration of the sensor was able to reduce the uncertainty to ±3% while the sensor conditioning circuit was able to capture instantaneous void fraction signals with frequencies up to 2.5 kHz.


2002 ◽  
Vol 124 (2) ◽  
pp. 144-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. J. Pettigrew ◽  
C. E. Taylor ◽  
V. P. Janzen ◽  
T. Whan

The results of a series of tests describing the vibration behavior of several rotated triangular tube bundles subjected to two-phase cross flows are presented. Tube bundles with a pitch-to-diameter ratio of approximately 1.5 were tested over a broad range of void fractions and mass fluxes. Fluidelastic instability, random turbulence excitation, hydrodynamic mass, two-phase damping and local void-fraction were investigated. Well-defined fluidelastic instabilities were observed in continuous two-phase flow regimes. However, intermittent two-phase flow regimes had a dramatic effect on fluidelastic instability leading to lower than expected threshold flow velocities for instability. This effect was more pronounced in Freon two-phase flow than in air-water, and appeared well correlated to the transition between continuous and intermittent flow regimes. Generally, random turbulence excitation forces were much lower in Freon than in air-water. Although very dependent on void fraction, as expected, damping was quite similar in air-water and Freon.


1989 ◽  
Vol 111 (4) ◽  
pp. 488-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. E. Taylor ◽  
I. G. Currie ◽  
M. J. Pettigrew ◽  
B. S. Kim

An extensive experimental program was carried out to study the vibration behavior of tube bundles subjected to two-phase cross-flow. Turbulence-induced excitation is discussed in Part 3 of this series of three papers. Random vibration response to turbulence-induced excitation is a significant vibration mechanism in heat exchanger tube bundles subjected to two-phase cross-flow. The vibration responses of centrally located tubes in four tube bundle configurations subjected to air-water cross-flow was measured. The results are presented in the form of a normalized forced-excitation spectrum which can be used as a design guideline over a void fraction range from 25 percent to 99 percent and over a practical range of flow rates. The data are further analyzed to determine the dependence of the vibration response on Reynolds number, void fraction and frequency. Measurements taken on a single tube, a row of tubes and on tubes having varying end conditions were used to assist in interpreting the bundle data.


Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 1355
Author(s):  
Claire Dubot ◽  
Cyrille Allery ◽  
Vincent Melot ◽  
Claudine Béghein ◽  
Mourad Oulghelou ◽  
...  

Predicting the void fraction of a two-phase flow outside of tubes is essential to evaluate the thermohydraulic behaviour in steam generators. Indeed, it determines two-phase mixture properties and affects two-phase mixture velocity, which enable evaluating the pressure drop of the system. The two-fluid model for the numerical simulation of two-phase flows requires interaction laws between phases which are not known and/or reliable for a flow within a tube bundle. Therefore, the mixture model, for which it is easier to implement suitable correlations for tube bundles, is used. Indeed, by expressing the relative velocity as a function of slip, the void fraction model of Feenstra et al.and Hibiki et al. developed for upward cross-flow through horizontal tube bundles is introduced and compared. With the method suggested in this paper, the physical phenomena that occur in tube bundles are taken into consideration. Moreover, the tube bundle is modelled using a porous media approach where the Darcy–Forchheimer term is usually defined by correlations found in the literature. However, for some tube bundle geometries, these correlations are not available. The second goal of the paper is to quickly compute, in quasi-real-time, this term by a non-intrusive parametric reduced model based on Proper Orthogonal Decomposition. This method, named Bi-CITSGM (Bi-Calibrated Interpolation on the Tangent Subspace of the Grassmann Manifold), consists in interpolating the spatial and temporal bases by ITSGM (Interpolation on the Tangent Subspace of the Grassmann Manifold) in order to define the solution for a new parameter. The two developed methods are validated based on the experimental results obtained by Dowlati et al. for a two-phase cross-flow through a horizontal tube bundle.


Author(s):  
W. G. Sim ◽  
W. Mureithi Njuki

An approximate analytical model for upward two-phase cross-flow through horizontal bundles, to predict drag coefficient on a cylinder and two-phase Euler number, has been developed. To verify the model, two sets of experiments were performed for various pitch mass fluxes of air-water mixture with void fraction. The experiments were undertaken with rotated triangular array of cylinders. The pitch to diameter ratio is 1.5 and the cylinder diameter 38 mm. The void fraction model proposed by Feenstra et al. (2000) is utilized to estimate the void fraction for the cross-flow in the tube bundle. An important variable on the drag coefficient is the two-phase friction multiplier. An empirical formulation of non dimensional pressure drop (Euler number) for single phase flow in tube bundles was proposed by Zukauskas et al. (1988) and two-phase friction multiplier in duct flow was formulated by various researchers. Considering the formulations, the present model was developed. It is found that Marchaterre’s model (1961) for two-phase friction multiplier is applicable to air-water mixtures. The analytical results agree well with experimental drag coefficients and Euler numbers in air-water mixtures for a sufficiently wide range of pitch mass fluxes and qualities. This model will allow researcher to provide analytical estimates of the drag coefficient, which is related to two-phase damping.


Author(s):  
Azmahani Sadikin ◽  
David A. McNeil ◽  
Khalid H. Barmadouf

Two-phase flow on the shell side of a shell and tube heat exchanger is complex. Several studies have produced flow pattern maps that show surprising differences in flow regime boundaries for data sets that contain relatively small variations in fluid and flow properties. Despite this, correlations for void fraction and pressure drop are sufficiently accurate to allow the thermal-fluid design of heat exchangers to be completed. However, these correlations are based on experimental data taken from tube bundles containing tubes with diameters less than 20 mm. This study examines their applicability to tube bundles containing tubes with a diameter of 38 mm. Results for void fraction and pressure drop are presented for air-water flows near atmospheric pressure. The results were obtained for flows through a thin-slice, in-line tube bundle containing 10 rows. The tube bundle contained a central column of tubes with half tubes placed on the shell wall to simulate the presence of other columns. The tubes were 38 mm in diameter and 50 mm long with a pitch to diameter ratio of 1.32. Previous studies have shown that the void fraction in a shell-side, gas-liquid flow becomes constant after only a few rows. Thus, the void fraction was only measured at one location. A single-beam, gamma-ray densitometer was used to measure void fractions near row 7 in the maximum gap between the rows. Corresponding pressure drops were obtained between rows 3 and 10. Data are presented for a mass flux range of 25–688 kg/m2s and a gas mass fraction range of 0.0005–0.6. The measurements are shown to compare reasonably well with predictions from correlations available in the open literature. This shows that these methods can be used for tube-bundles containing larger diameter tubes. Some elements of a heat-exchanger design require a more complex analysis. For example, tube vibration calculations require the distribution of void and phase velocity along the tube length. Such analysis can be provided by multiphase computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations. CFD approaches to modelling these flows require empirical inputs for the drag coefficient and the force on the fluid by the tubes. These are deduced from the measured data. The wall forces are shown to scale well with increased tube diameter, however, caution is required when selecting the drag coefficients.


Author(s):  
Joaquin E. Moran ◽  
David S. Weaver

An experimental study was conducted to investigate damping and fluidelastic instability in tube arrays subjected to two-phase cross-flow. The purpose of this research was to improve our understanding of these phenomena and how they are affected by void fraction and flow regime. The working fluid used was Freon 11, which better models steam-water than air-water mixtures in terms of vapour-liquid mass ratio as well as permitting phase changes due to pressure fluctuations. The damping measurements were obtained by “plucking” the monitored tube from outside the test section using electromagnets. An exponential function was fitted to the tube decay trace, producing consistent damping measurements and minimizing the effect of frequency shifting due to fluid added mass fluctuations. The void fraction was measured using a gamma densitometer, introducing an improvement over the Homogeneous Equilibrium Model (HEM) in terms of density and velocity predictions. It was found that the Capillary number, when combined with the two-phase damping ratio (interfacial damping), shows a well defined behaviour depending on the flow regime. This observation can be used to develop a better methodology to normalize damping results. The fluidelastic results agree with previously presented data when analyzed using the HEM and the half-power bandwidth method. The interfacial velocity is suggested for fluidelastic studies due to its capability for collapsing the fluidelastic data. The interfacial damping was introduced as a tool to include the effects of flow regime into the stability maps.


Author(s):  
Sarra Zoghlami ◽  
Cédric Béguin ◽  
Stéphane Étienne

To reduce the damage caused by induced vibrations due to two-phase cross flow on tube bundles in heat exchangers, a deep understanding of the different sources of this phenomenon is required. For this purpose, a numerical model was previously developed to simulate the quasi periodic forces on the tube bundle due to two-phase cross flow. An Euler-Lagrange approach is adopted to describe the flow. The Euler approach describes the continuous phase (liquid) using potential flow. The dispersed phase is assumed to have no interaction on liquid flow. Based on visual observation, static vortices behind the tube are introduced. The Lagrange approach describes the dispersed phase (gas). The model allows bubbles to split up or to coalesce. The forces taken into account acting on the bubbles are the buoyancy, the drag and induced drag, the added mass and induced added mass and impact force (bubble-bubble and bubble-tube). Forces taken into account acting on the tubes are impact forces and induced drag and added mass forces. This model allows us to obtain quasi periodic force on tube induced by two-phase cross flow of relative good magnitude and frequency contains. The model still needs improvement to bring us closer to experimental data of force, for example by introducing a dependency between the void ratio and the intensity of the vortex and by taking into account the bubbles deformation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 321 ◽  
pp. 01002
Author(s):  
Claire Dubot ◽  
Vincent Melot ◽  
Claudine Béghein ◽  
Cyrille Allery ◽  
Clément Bonneau

Being able to predict the void fraction is essential for a numerical prediction of the thermohydraulic behaviour in steam generators. Indeed, it determines two-phase mixture density and affects two-phase mixture velocity which enable to evaluate the pressure drop of heat exchanger, the mass transfer and heat transfer coefficients. In this study, the flow is modelled by coupling Ansys Fluent with an in-house code library where a CFD porous media approach is implemented. In this code, the two-phase flow has been modelled so far using the Eulerian model. However, this two-phase model requires interaction laws between phases which are not known and/or reliable for a flow within a tube bundle. The aim of this paper is to use the mixture model, for which it is easier to implement suitable correlations for tube bundles. By expressing the relative velocity, as a function of slip, the void fraction model of Feenstra et al. developed for upward cross-flow through horizontal tube bundles is introduced. With this method, physical phenomena that occur in tube bundles are taken into consideration in the mixture model. The developed approach is validated based on the experimental results obtained by Dowlati et al.


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