New Dimensionless Correlations for the Evaluation of the Thermal Resistances of a District Heating Twin Pipe System

The heat losses from pre-insulated double-pipe district heating (DH) systems buried in a homogeneous soil are studied numerically. The study is conducted using the diameter of the pipes and their distance, the size of the insulation, the thermal conductivity ratio between the insulation and the soil, as well as the burial depth of the double-pipe system, as controlling parameters. A computational code based on a control-volume formulation of the finite-difference method has been developed using the open-source framework OpenFOAM with the purpose to compute the heat transfer rate across adjacent solid regions with different thermophysical properties. The main scopes of the study are: (a) to investigate in what measure the geometry and the relative position of the warm and cold pipes, as well as the temperature imbalance, the burial depth and the physical properties of both the insulation and the soil, affect the heat losses; (b) to analyze the existence of an optimal configuration of the DH system by the thermal resistance enhancement viewpoint; and (c) to develop accurate correlating equations for the evaluation of the thermal resistance existing between each pipe and its surroundings, useful for practical thermal engineering applications.

A Review of Models for Estimation of Moisture Evaporation Rate from Clothes Inside a Clothes Dryer

Heat pump tumble dryers, air-vented dryers and condenser dryers are widely used as clothes dryers. Clothes dryers use hot air to absorb moisture from textiles to get them dry after a wash by passing drying air through the drum. To simulate the drying process of clothes in the drum and to obtain the moisture evaporation rate, it is necessary to use an accurate model to predict the moisture transfer coefficient from the textile to the air in the drum as well as the mass transfer area between the drying air and the textile. In this study, a comprehensive review of the literature on the prediction of the moisture evaporation rate inside the drum of a clothes dryers was conducted. It was found that researchers generally used constant values, fitting models, dimensionless correlations, and Chilton–Colburn analogy to predict the area–mass transfer coefficient. Moreover, few researchers used the effectiveness model for the prediction of moisture evaporation rate. The comprehensive review of the literature showed that all of the previous models for prediction of the moisture evaporation rate have some limitations in terms of generality or accuracy. Therefore, the development of a new accurate model for prediction of the moisture evaporation rate inside the drum of clothes dryers is crucial.

Assessment of a Simpler Friction Factor in an Algebraic Solution for Adiabatic Coiled Capillary Tubes

In this work, the performance of an existing algebraic solution for adiabatic coiled capillary tubes, in subcritical cycles, is investigated. However, the C-M&N friction factor, commonly used, was replaced by Schmidt friction factor, which is less complex. Two existing dimensionless correlations were also evaluated for comparison. To assess the effect of altering the friction factor, experimental data collected in the literature were used as reference. Analyzing the present results and that with C-M&N friction factor, it was observed that adopting the Schmidt friction factor does not cause a relevant impact on the solution. The deviations of the predicted versus experimental mass flow rates were comprised in a range between –8% and 12%, with average deviation (AD), absolute average deviation (AAD) and root mean square (RMS) error of –0.1%, 2.7% and 3.4%, respectively. The empirical correlations presented unsatisfactory results, with maximum deviation around 40%. Therefore, it was concluded that using the Schmidt friction factor is adequate to reduce the complexity of the algebraic solution and to maintain the accuracy.

Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow Characteristics in a Heat Exchanger Tube Fitted With Inserts

The aim of this study is to simulate and analyze the heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics for a tube of a heat exchanger fitted with inserts. The purpose of these inserts is to increase the heat transfer rate and improve the thermal performance of the heat exchanger. In this study, several types of tube inserts are simulated via a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solver. These insert types are presented as a single tube fitted with twisted tapes (TTs), twisted tapes with rod (TTR), and helical twisted tapes (HTT) with rod. To assess the performance of each insert type, the CFD results are presented in dimensionless form such as the Nusselt number (Nu), friction factor (f), and performance evaluation criteria (PEC). Additionally, useful dimensionless correlations are developed and presented in this paper to predict the performance of the heat exchanger over a wide range of Reynolds number and tape twist ratio. To ensure accurate CFD results, grid independence test and model validation study against previously reported experimental data were performed.

Dimensional analysis on forest fuel bed fire spread

A dimensional analysis was performed to correlate the fuel bed fire rate of spread data previously reported in the literature. Under wind condition, six pertinent dimensionless groups were identified, namely dimensionless fire spread rate, dimensionless fuel particle size, fuel moisture content, dimensionless fuel bed depth or dimensionless fuel loading density, dimensionless wind speed, and angle of inclination of fuel bed. Under no-wind condition, five similar dimensionless groups resulted. Given the uncertainties associated with some of the parameters used to estimate the dimensionless groups, the dimensionless correlations using the resulting dimensionless groups correlate the fire rates of spread reasonably well under wind and no-wind conditions.

Assessment of Dimensionless Correlations for Prediction of Refrigerant Mass Flow Rate Through Capillary Tubes — A Review

Capillary tubes are widely used as expansion devices in small-capacity refrigeration systems. Since the refrigerant flow through the capillary tubes is complex, many researchers presented empirical dimensionless correlations to predict the refrigerant mass flow rate. A comprehensive review of the dimensionless correlations for the prediction of refrigerants mass flow rate through straight and coiled capillary tubes depending on their geometry and adiabatic or diabatic capillary tubes depending on the flow configurations has been discussed. A comprehensive review shows that most of previous dimensionless correlations have problems such as discontinuity at the saturated lines or ability to predict the refrigerant mass flow rate only for the capillary tube subcooled inlet condition. The correlations suggested by Rasti et al. and Rasti and Jeong appeared to be general and continuous and these correlations can be used to predict the refrigerant mass flow rate through all the types of capillary tubes with wide range of capillary tube inlet conditions including subcooled liquid, two-phase mixture, and superheated vapor conditions.