Optimization of Hot-Water Drilling in Ice with Near-Bottom Circulation

Hot-water drilling in ice with near-bottom circulation is more advantageous than traditional hot-water drilling with all-over borehole circulation in terms of power consumption and weight. However, the drilling performance of this type of drill has been poorly studied. Initial experiments showed that drilling with single-orifice nozzles did not proceed smoothly. To achieve the best drilling performance, nozzles with different orifice numbers and structures are evaluated in the present study. The testing results show that a single-orifice nozzle with a 3 mm nozzle diameter and a nine-jet nozzle with a forward angle of 35° had the highest rate of penetration (1.7–1.8 m h−1) with 5.6–6.0 kW heating power. However, the nozzles with backward holes ensured a smoother drilling process and a larger borehole, although the rate of penetration was approximately 13% slower. A comparison of the hollow and solid thermal tips showed that under the same experimental conditions, the hollow drill tip had a lower flow rate, higher outlet temperature, and higher rate of penetration. This study provides a prominent reference for drilling performance prediction and drilling technology development of hot-water drilling in ice with near-bottom circulation.

MODELING AND MEASUREMENT OF PARTICULATE MATTER (PM) COLLECTION FROM BOILER EXHAUST GAS IN ELECTROSTATIC WATER SPRAYING SCRUBBER

Boiler exhaust gas consists of many components that cause air pollution, such as: particulate matter (PM), SOx, NOx, COx, etc. These pollutants normally are mixed. To eliminate them, an electrostatic water spraying scrubber is used, depending on a coal fuel used for combustion source in the furnace. For PM, new guidelines will be changed from the existing 10 to 2.5 microns within the next few years. The scrubber is widely used for the collection of PM from industrial exhausts because of its low equipment and maintenance costs combined with operational safety and high collection efficiency. This study presents computed and experimented results of PM collection efficiency in an electrostatic water spraying scrubber. In this scrubber electric attraction between charged PM and charged water droplet improves PM collection considerably over conventional scrubber. Computed model takes into account initial liquid momentum, hydrodynamic and electric forces. The effects of operating parameters, such as gas velocity, applied voltage, charge to-mass ratio on PM collection efficiency within the scrubber, were also investigated. Computed results are in good agreement with the experimental data obtained in the laboratory. Compared to inertial scrubbers, the electrostatic water spraying scrubbers can operate at lower flow rate, but total collection efficiency is over 98% of all PM sizes.

Identifying occult bladder outlet obstruction in women with detrusor-underactivity-like urodynamic profiles

Voiding dysfunction can result from detrusor underactivity (DU), bladder outlet obstruction (BOO), or both. Conceptually, women with high-pressure low-flow urodynamic profiles are diagnosed with BOO without DU. However, the possibility of BOO is often neglected in women with DU-like (low-pressure low-flow) urodynamic (UDS) profiles. By reviewing the videourodynamic studies (VUDS) of 1678 women, our study identified the key factors suggesting urodynamic BOO (determined by radiographic evidence of obstruction) in women with DU-like UDS profiles (Pdet.Qmax < 20 cmH2O and Qmax < 15 mL/s). In 355 women with DU-like UDS profiles, there were 70 (19.7%) with BOO and 285 (80.3%) without BOO. The BOO group had predominantly obstructive symptoms. The BOO group showed significantly decreased bladder sensation, lower detrusor pressure (Pdet.Qmax), lower flow rate (Qmax), smaller voided volume, and larger post-voiding residual (PVR) compared to the non-BOO group. In multivariate analysis, volume at first sensation, Qmax, PVR, and detrusor overactivity (DO) remained independent factors for BOO. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) areas for the parameters were largest for PVR (area = 0.786) and Qmax (area = 0.742). The best cut-off points were 220 mL for PVR and 4 mL/s for Qmax. Our findings provide simple indicators for BOO in women with DU.

Study on the effect of pore-scale heterogeneity and flow rate during repetitive two-phase fluid flow in microfluidic porous media

Various energy recovery, storage, conversion, and environmental operations may involve repetitive fluid injection and, thus, cyclic drainage-imbibition processes. We conducted an experimental study for which polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based micromodels were fabricated with three different levels of pore-space heterogeneity (coefficient of variation, where COV = 0, 0.25, and 0.5) to represent consolidated and/or partially consolidated sandstones. A total of ten injection-withdrawal cycles were applied to each micromodel at two different flow rates (0.01 and 0.1 mL/min). The experimental results were analyzed in terms of flow morphology, sweep efficiency, residual saturation, the connection of fluids, and the pressure gradient. The pattern of the invasion and displacement of nonwetting fluid converged more readily in the homogeneous model (COV = 0) as the repetitive drainage-imbibition process continued. The overall sweep efficiency converged between 0.4 and 0.6 at all tested flow rates, regardless of different flow rates and COV in this study. In contrast, the effective sweep efficiency was observed to increase with higher COV at the lower flow rate, while that trend became the opposite at the higher flow rate. Similarly, the residual saturation of the nonwetting fluid was largest at COV = 0 for the lower flow rate, but it was the opposite for the higher flow rate case. However, the Minkowski functionals for the boundary length and connectedness of the nonwetting fluid remained quite constant during repetitive fluid flow. Implications of the study results for porous media-compressed air energy storage (PM-CAES) are discussed as a complementary analysis at the end of this manuscript.Supplementary material: Figures S1 and S2 https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5276814.Thematic collection: This article is part of the Energy Geoscience Series collection available at: https://www.lyellcollection.org/cc/energy-geoscience-series

Dripping, Jetting and Regime Transition of Droplet Formation in a Buoyancy-Assisted Microfluidic Device

Buoyancy-assisted droplet formation in a quiescent continuous phase is an effective technique to produce highly monodispersed droplets, especially millimetric droplets. A comprehensive study combining visualization experiment and numerical simulation was carried out to explore the underlying physics of single droplet generation in a buoyancy-assisted microfluidic device. Typical regimes, including dripping and jetting, were examined to gain a deep insight into the hydrodynamic difference between the regimes. Particularly, the transition from dripping regime to jetting regime was investigated to give an in-depth understanding of the transitional behaviors. The effects of interfacial tension coefficient on the droplet size and formation regimes are discussed, and a regime diagram is summarized. The results show that oscillation of the interface in dripping regimes after detachment is caused by the locally accelerated fluid during the neck pinching process. Droplet formation patterns with the characteristics of both dripping regime and jetting regime are observed and recognized as the transitional regime, and the interface oscillation lasts longer than that in dripping regime, implying intensive competition between interfacial tension and inertial force. Reducing interfacial tension coefficient results in the dripping-to-jetting transition occurring at a lower flow rate of the dispersed phase. The regime diagram indicates that only the inertial force is the indispensable condition of triggering the transition from dripping to jetting.

Fluctuation of Inducer Recirculation Stemming From Diffuser Stall in Centrifugal Turbomachinery Near Surge Condition

This work investigates the unsteady fluctuation of inducer recirculation stemming from the diffuser stall that occurs near the surge condition. Experiments and unsteady numerical simulation were utilized for the investigation. Inducer recirculation is known to occur near the surge occurrence flow rate, where the flow rate has a positive slope of the performance curve and the recirculation extends to the upstream of the impeller inlet when decreasing the flow rate more. However, few papers have investigated the unsteady phenomenon of the recirculation, even though the surge is what causes it. Clarifying the recirculation phenomenon is essential in terms of expanding the operation range to the lower flow rate for centrifugal turbomachinery. This was our motivation for investigating the unsteady oscillation phenomenon of the inducer recirculation. We investigated a single-stage centrifugal blower with the maximum pressure rise ratio of 1.2 and focused on the flow rates near surge occurrence. The blower was equipped with an open type centrifugal impeller, a vane-less diffuser, and a scroll casing. The blower performance and pressure time-history data were obtained by experiments. Unsteady simulations using large eddy simulation (LES) were conducted to investigate the flow field in the blower for each flow rate. The obtained performance curve showed that the positive slope of the pressure rise at the lower flow rate was due to the impeller stall and that the inducer recirculation extending upstream of the suction pipe near the slope of the curve was flat. LES analysis revealed that this inducer recirculation had two typical fluctuation peaks, one at 20% of the rotation frequency and the other at 95%. We also found that the stall cell at the impeller inlet propagated in the circumferential direction and swirled at almost the same frequency as the impeller rotation. In addition, the fluctuation at the diffuser derived from the diffuser rotating stall propagated to the suction pipe.

Numerical Analysis of Flat Plate Solar Air Heater Integrated With an Array of Pin Fins on Absorber Plate for Enhancement in Thermal Performance

This paper presents a three-dimensional numerical analysis of a flat plate solar air heater in the presence of a pin fin array using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software tool ansys fluent 16.2. The effect of geometric parameters of pin fins as well as the flow Reynolds number (4000–24,000) on the effective efficiency is evaluated. The longitudinal pitch (PL) of pin fin array is varied as 30 mm, 40 mm, and 50 mm and the diameter (Dw) is varied as 1.0 mm, 1.6 mm, and 2.2 mm. The results show that the presence of pin fins generate considerable enhancement in fluid turbulence as well as heat transfer area to a maximum extent of about 53.8%. The maximum average increase in instantaneous thermal efficiency is found to be about 14.2% higher as compared with the base model for the fin diameter of 2.2 mm and a longitudinal pitch value of 30 mm. In terms of effective efficiency, the pin fin array exhibits significant enhancement, especially at lower flow rate conditions. Finally, the effective efficiency of the pin fin array is compared with the previous work of authors involving spherical turbulators and sinewave corrugations on the absorber plate. The results show that the pin fin array exhibits a relatively superior effective efficiency to a maximum extent of about 73% for lower flow rate conditions.

Sediment Flushing from Reservoir and Ecological Impacts

Dams cause a sediment transport trapping phenomenon and the effects can be the reduction of reservoirs operations, the decreasing of the storage, a channel erosion of the downstream watercourse and habitats pauperization. A possible method used to preserve the reservoir volume and the sediment continuity downstream the dam is to operate sediment flushing. In this work, the sediment flushing phenomena and its impact on morphology and ecology is investigated. In particular two possible flushing strategies are proposed. The two strategies differ for the flow rate, sediment concentration and event duration. The results are obtained using an original CFD model developed at the University of Trento. The CFD model has the possibility to simulate the erosion and deposition phenomena and to calculate the severity of the ill effects (SEV parameter) for juvenile and adult Salmonids. The results showed that the two strategies have very different effects on morphology and habitat. The strategy that involve lower flow rate and concentration with higher event duration, seems to minimize the deposition phenomena and the effects on the habitat.

Experimental Study on Net Flow Rate Generation Inside Closed Loop Mechanical Circulatory System Using Impedance Pump

This present study focused on the performance of net flow rate inside closed loop mechanical circulatory system with single and double pinching impedance pumps which generates a unidirectional flow of fluid around closed loop of soft viscoelastic tubing. The experimental setup consisted of viscoelastic tubing connected between two ends of rigid tube which was compressed rhythmically or squeezed asymmetrically at various frequencies by motorized pinching. Hence, net flow of fluid around the tubing can occur without valves. Experiment was done on two different fluid, namely Newtonian and Non-Newtonian. Result showed that the flow rate inside closed loop system for non-Newtonian fluid and Newtonian fluid were in good agreement with each other. Single pinching showed a lower flow rate compared to double pinching at higher frequency. The results could be used as a model for a new Mechanical Circulatory Support System used by cardiac patients. Factors influencing the performance of valveless impedance pump was also explained.

Thermal degradation kinetics of sugars under typical processing conditions found in Brazilian sugar and ethanol factories

The thermal profile of juice from clarification to syrup including the transfer pipes in a Brazilian sugar mill was determined to estimate the sugar losses through kinetics. Two cane juice flow rates (100% and 60% of maximum) were studied under technical conditions. At the maximum cane juice flow rate and considering only the evaporation set, the total thermal hydrolysis of sucrose and degradation of total sugar as invert sugar, TSAI, were 1.09% and 0.32%, respectively. Including clarification with its residence time of 70 min, losses increased to 1.67% and 0.53%, respectively. At the lower flow rate, losses were 0.99% and 0.30%, respectively and increased to 1.58% and 0.51%, respectively taking clarification into account. The tools used in this work are widely applied in the food industry to optimize thermal processes to achieve maximum retention of nutrients and shelf life of products.