scholarly journals A Hybrid Numerical Methodology Based on CFD and Porous Medium for Thermal Performance Evaluation of Gas to Gas Micro Heat Exchanger

Micromachines ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danish Rehman ◽  
Jojomon Joseph ◽  
Gian Luca Morini ◽  
Michel Delanaye ◽  
Juergen Brandner

In micro heat exchangers, due to the presence of distributing and collecting manifolds as well as hundreds of parallel microchannels, a complete conjugate heat transfer analysis requires a large amount of computational power. Therefore in this study, a novel methodology is developed to model the microchannels as a porous medium where a compressible gas is used as a working fluid. With the help of such a reduced model, a detailed flow analysis through individual microchannels can be avoided by studying the device as a whole at a considerably less computational cost. A micro heat exchanger with 133 parallel microchannels (average hydraulic diameter of 200 μ m) in both cocurrent and counterflow configurations is investigated in the current study. Hot and cold streams are separated by a stainless-steel partition foil having a thickness of 100 μ m. Microchannels have a rectangular cross section of 200 μ m × 200 μ m with a wall thickness of 100 μ m in between. As a first step, a numerical study for conjugate heat transfer analysis of microchannels only, without distributing and collecting manifolds is performed. Mass flow inside hot and cold fluid domains is increased such that inlet Reynolds number for both domains remains within the laminar regime. Inertial and viscous coefficients extracted from this study are then utilized to model pressure and temperature trends within the porous medium model. To cater for the density dependence of inertial and viscous coefficients due to the compressible nature of gas flow in microchannels, a modified formulation of Darcy–Forschheimer law is adopted. A complete model of a double layer micro heat exchanger with collecting and distributing manifolds where microchannels are modeled as the porous medium is finally developed and used to estimate the overall heat exchanger effectiveness of the investigated micro heat exchanger. A comparison of computational results using proposed hybrid methodology with previously published experimental results of the same micro heat exchanger showed that adopted methodology can predict the heat exchanger effectiveness within the experimental uncertainty for both cocurrent and counterflow configurations.

Author(s):  
Y.-H. Ho ◽  
M. M. Athavale ◽  
J. M. Forry ◽  
R. C. Hendricks ◽  
B. M. Steinetz

A numerical study of the flow and heat transfer in secondary flow elements of the entire inner portion of the turbine section of the Allison T-56/501D engine is presented. The flow simulation included the interstage cavities, rim seals and associated main path flows, while the energy equation also included the solid parts of the turbine disc, rotor supports, and stator supports. Solutions of the energy equations in these problems usually face the difficulty in specifications of wall thermal boundary conditions. By solving the entire turbine section this difficulty is thus removed, and realistic thermal conditions are realized on all internal walls. The simulation was performed using SCISEAL, an advanced 2D/3D CFD code for predictions of fluid flows and forces in turbomachinery seals and secondary flow elements. The mass flow rates and gas temperatures at various seal locations were compared with the design data from Allison. Computed gas flow rates and temperatures in the rim and labyrinth seal show a fair 10 good comparison with the design calculations. The conjugate heat transfer analysis indicates temperature gradients in the stationary intercavity walls, as well as the rotating turbine discs. The thermal strains in the stationary wall may lead to altered interstage labyrinth seal clearances and affect the disc cavity flows. The temperature, fields in the turbine discs also may lead to distortions that can alter the rim seal clearances. Such details of the flow and temperature fields are important in designs of the turbine sections to account for possible thermal distortions and their effects on the performance. The simulation shows that the present day CFD codes can provide the means to understand the complex flow field and thereby aid the design process.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Muhammad Ishaq ◽  
Khalid Saifullah Syed ◽  
Zafar Iqbal ◽  
Ahmad Hassan

A DG-FEM based numerical investigation has been performed to explore the influence of the various geometric configurations on the thermal performance of the conjugate heat transfer analysis in the triangular finned double pipe heat exchanger. The computed results dictate that Nusselt number in general rises with values of the conductivity ratio of solid and fluid, for the specific configuration parameters considered here. However, the performance of these parameters shows strong influence on the conductivity ratio. Consequently, these parameters must be selected in consideration of the thermal resistance, for better design of heat exchanger.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2088 (1) ◽  
pp. 012004
Author(s):  
D V Brezgin ◽  
K E Aronson ◽  
F Mazzelli ◽  
A Milazzo

Abstract In this paper, the test supersonic ejector with conjugate heat transfer in solid bodies has been studied numerically. An extensive numerical campaign by means of open-source SU2 solver is performed to analyze the fluid dynamics of the ejector flowfield accounting for the heat conduction in solids. The fluid domain simulation is carried out by employing compressible RANS treatment whilst the heat distribution in solids is predicted by simultaneous solving the steady heat conduction equation. The working fluid is R245fa and all simulations are performed accounting for real gas properties of the refrigerant. Experimental data against numerical results comparison showed close agreement both in terms mass flow rates and static pressure distribution along the walls. Within the CFD trials, the most valuable flow parameters at a wall vicinity are compared: distribution across the boundary layer of the temperature and the turbulent kinetic energy specific dissipation rate, boundary layer displacement and momentum thicknesses. A comprehensive analysis of the simulation results cases with adiabatic walls against cases with heat permeable walls revealed the actual differences of the flow properties in the wall vicinity. However, the ejector performance has not changed noticeably while accounting for the heat conduction in solids.


2021 ◽  
pp. 266-266
Author(s):  
Ceren Hasgül ◽  
Gülşah Çakmak

In this study, the effect of the design on the heat transfer is numerically investigated by using the "wavy inner tube" in a double-pipe heat exchanger. A wavy inner tube was used in the design to give a turbulent effect to the fluid along the inner tube of a double tube heat exchanger. In numerical study, ANSYS 12.0 Fluent code program was used, and the basic protection equations were solved for steady-state, three-dimensional and turbulent flow conditions. The study was examined at Reynolds numbers ranging from 2700 to 5300. The obtained results were compared with the experimental data performed under the same conditions. As a result of this comparison, after it was seen that the results obtained from the numerical analysis and the experimental results were compatible with each other, the wave number of the inner tube was increased and analyzed with the ANSYS fluent code program. When the data obtained as a result of the analyzes were evaluated, it was seen that the highest heat transfer was obtained from the 16 wave tube heat exchanger, which has the highest number of waves and under counter flow conditions. The increase in heat transfer increased by 270% compared to the straight tube.


Author(s):  
Jiajun Xu ◽  
Musa Acar ◽  
Naresh Poudel ◽  
Jaime Rios ◽  
Thanh N. Tran

In this study, a numerical study has been performed on the two-phase heat transfer of a new nanostructured heat transfer fluid: Water-in-Polyalphaolefin (PAO) Nanoemulsion Fluid inside a mini-channel heat exchanger using ANSYS FLUENT. Nanoemulsion fluids are liquid suspensions of nanosized droplets, which are part of a broad class of colloidal dispersions. The nanoemulsion fluid can be formed spontaneously by self-assembly, in which these nanodroplets are in fact swollen micelles. To simplify the complexity of the numerical model, the nanoemulsion fluid was then treated as a homogenous fluid during single-phase and only the water vaporizes during the phase change. The volume of fraction (VOF) model with Pressure-Velocity coupling based Semi Implicit Method for Pressure Linked Equations (SIMPLE) iterative algorithm is employed to solve the continuity, momentum, energy equations in two dimensional domains. The thermophysical properties of the nanoemulsion fluid were measured and used for the current simulation. The results were verified using the experimental results and has shown good agreement. This study has demonstrated the feasibility of simplyig the simulation of flow boiling heat transfer of this new heat transfer fluid through treating it as a homogenous fluid during single-phase convective heat transfer and separating the vapor phase of the nano-micelles during flow boiling. This study has also shown that this Water-in-PAO nanoemulsion could function as a good and alternative conventional working fluid in heat transfer applications.


Author(s):  
Naresh Poudel ◽  
Musa Acar ◽  
Thanh Tran ◽  
Jiajun Xu

In this paper, both experimental and numerical studies have been performed on the convective boiling heat transfer of the Ethanol-in-Polyalphaolefin (PAO) Nanoemulsions inside a heat exchanger of twelve 1mm diameter mini-channels that was subjected to a uniform heat flux at its outer surface. The heat transfer characteristics and the pressure drop of the Ethanol/PAO nanoemulsion was studied experimentally, meanwhile, the volume of fraction (VOF) model with Pressure-Velocity coupling based Semi Implicit Method for Pressure Linked Equations (SIMPLE) iterative algorithm is employed to simulate the same experimental conditions numeircally. The results reveal that the convective boiling heat transfer coefficient of the nanoemulsion can be greatly enhanced upon the nucleation of ethanol nanodroplets inside, in which a maximum 50% enhancement compared to pure PAO base fluid can be achieved under current test conditions. However, the thermal conductivity and viscosity of the nanoemulsions has an insignificant effect on convective boiling heat transfer coefficient based on the experimental results. The ANSYS FLUENT simulation results also agree well with the experimental data. The Ethanol-in-PAO nanoemulsion could function as a good alternative conventional working fluid in two phase heat transfer applications.


2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prasert Prapamonthon ◽  
Huazhao Xu ◽  
Zhaoqing Ke ◽  
Wenshuo Yang ◽  
Jianhua Wang

This is a numerical study of thermal barrier coating (TBC) and turbulence on leading edge (LE) cooling of a guide vane. Numerical results were carried out using 3D CFD with conjugate heat transfer analysis. Important phenomena were revealed. (1) TBC is effective in the LE region especially when free stream turbulence (Tu) increases. (2) At each Tu, TBC near the hub of the vane provides the most effective protection and at the highest Tu, TBC improves overall cooling effectiveness there by about 25%. (3) Near the exits of film hole, TBC may have negative effect, because of heat transfer impedance from the solid structure into the mixing fluid between mainstream and cooling air emitted from film holes.


Author(s):  
Leonardo Nettis ◽  
Fabio De Bellis ◽  
Luciano A. Catalano ◽  
Roberto Verzicco

The improvement of both heat recovery Joule-Brayton cycles and closed cycle (externally fired) gas turbine plants is strongly limited by the availability of high efficiency heat exchangers. In such a scenario, a non conventional heat exchanger was recently proposed; this device employs falling solid particles to perform heat transfer between two separate gas flows and was designed with a 1D model neglecting conduction within the particles. Although experimental reliability of this assumption was already obtained, there is no proof available of the quantitative effect introduced by the above mentioned simplification. In this work, Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) of a solid particle immersed in a gas flow has been performed in order to further validate the hypothesis of negligible conduction and to enhance the design of the proposed heat exchanger. Unsteady Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT) has been used to predict the final temperature of the solid sphere for Reynolds numbers ranging from 30 to nearly 300, the computational grid being generated with the Immersed Boundary (IB) technique. A validation of the study is presented, together with grid independence and boundary independence assessment. The results fully confirmed the worthiness of the initial assumption, with a 1.4% maximum error for high Reynolds conditions (large diameter particles) with respect to the 1D model. Additionally, the code has been employed to explore the influence both of several particles disposed in a row and of the distance between successive particles.


Author(s):  
M Gupta ◽  
K S Kasana ◽  
R Vasudevan

Longitudinal vortices have a great capability of disrupting the growth of boundary layers and bring about the heat transfer enhancement between the fluid and its neighbouring surface. The potential of a winglet pair type vortex generator for the heat transfer enhancement in a plate fin heat exchanger, with triangular fins as inserts, is numerically evaluated in this article. The rectangular winglet pair is mounted on the triangular fins. The numerical computations are performed by solving an unsteady, three-dimensional Navier—Stokes equation, and an energy equation by using the modified MAC method. Air is taken as the working fluid. This study shows the flow structure and the performance of the winglet pair in improving the heat transfer. The computations are performed at Re=200 and placing the winglet at an angle of attack, β=20°. The results show that the heat transfer is increased by 13 per cent, even at the exit, with the winglet pair. The heat transfer enhancement with a winglet pair for different Re=200—500 and Pr=0.71 and for varying heights of the winglet pair is also predicted.


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