Review on the Performance Evaluation of Thermal Exchangers using Different Baffle Designs

The thermal performance of a heat exchanger depends upon various parameters like inlet temperature of hot fluid, type of hot fluid, type of cold fluid, the shape of baffles, the material of baffles, baffles angle, and property of ribs. Basically fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics largely depend upon the Reynolds number (Re). Reynolds number is basically the ratio of inertia force to viscous force. Re is only the factor by which we can decide whether the fluid is laminar or turbulent in shell and tube type of heat exchanger. The heat exchanger is an adiabatic device in which heat is transferred from one fluid to another fluid across a plate surface. In this paper, we have introduced some special types of triangular baffles with rectangular channels. The purpose of this apparatus is to enhance the performance of the heat exchanger. Heat exchangers, nowadays, are one of the most important heat & mass transfer apparatuses in industries like oil refining; heat treatment plants, electric power generation, etc. are long service life.

Axial and Nonaxial Migration of Red Blood Cells in a Microtube

Human red blood cells (RBCs) are subjected to high viscous shear stress, especially during microcirculation, resulting in stable deformed shapes such as parachute or slipper shape. Those unique deformed RBC shapes, accompanied with axial or nonaxial migration, cannot be fully described according to traditional knowledge about lateral movement of deformable spherical particles. Although several experimental and numerical studies have investigated RBC behavior in microchannels with similar diameters as RBCs, the detailed mechanical characteristics of RBC lateral movement—in particular, regarding the relationship between stable deformed shapes, equilibrium radial RBC position, and membrane load—has not yet been fully described. Thus, we numerically investigated the behavior of single RBCs with radii of 4 μm in a circular microchannel with diameters of 15 μm. Flow was assumed to be almost inertialess. The problem was characterized by the capillary number, which is the ratio between fluid viscous force and membrane elastic force. The power (or energy dissipation) associated with membrane deformations was introduced to quantify the state of membrane loads. Simulations were performed with different capillary numbers, viscosity ratios of the internal to external fluids of RBCs, and initial RBC centroid positions. Our numerical results demonstrated that axial or nonaxial migration of RBC depended on the stable deformed RBC shapes, and the equilibrium radial position of the RBC centroid correlated well with energy expenditure associated with membrane deformations.

Sorting of Poly-disperse Particle by Entrapment using Liquid Carrier System

A thin viscous layer is found over a substrate when it is immersed in a polymer solution. The layer thickness depends on the polymer and solvent type, their volume fraction, and the substrate. If the liquid solution contains particles, they are entrapped on the viscous polymer layer, acting as the binder. The trade-off between the viscous force and the centrifugal force on the particle determines the entrapment. Furthermore, the size of entrained particles are dictated by the binder concentration of the solution., A particle filtration technique is presented using the entrapment phenomenon from a poly-disperse mixture. A dimensionless number called the entrapment factor is introduced to correlate the particle entrapment with various parameters. By changing the entrapment factor, three distinct entrapment regimes are achieved and explained from a poly-disperse mixture. The experimental result shows that entrapped particles become larger as the factor increases, which can be controlled with multiple parameters of the dipping process. The proposed technique can lead to a filtration process of the wide-range poly-disperse particle mixture over the capillary filtration processes.

A stretchable micromixer with enhanced performance for intermediate Reynolds numbers

Chemical reactions in microscale require good mixing at a relatively low flowrate. However, mixing in microscale faces the major challenge of stable laminar flow associated with the low Reynolds number, the relative ratio between inertial force and viscous force. For low Reynolds numbers of less than unity, mixing occurs due to molecular diffusion. For high Reynolds number of more than several tens, chaotic advection enhances mixing. However, in the intermediate regime, mixing is not efficient. This paper reports a stretchable micromixer with dynamically tuneable channel dimensions. Periodically stretching the device changes the channel geometry and the curvature induced secondary Dean flows. The dynamically evolving secondary and main flows in the mixing channel result in chaotic advection and enhance mixing. The concept was demonstrated in a stretchable micromixer with a serpentine channel. We evaluated the performance of this stretchable micromixer both experimentally and numerically. At the intermediate range of Reynolds numbers from 4 to 17, the periodically stretched micromixer showed a better mixing efficiency than the non-stretched counterpart. Therefore, our stretchable micromixer is a potential candidate for applications where precious reagents need to be mixed at relatively low flow rate conditions.

A stretchable micrometer with enhanced performance for intermediate Reynolds numbers

Chemical reactions in microscale require good mixing at a relatively low flowrate. However, mixing in microscale faces the major challenge of stable laminar flow associated with the low Reynolds number, the relative ratio between inertial force and viscous force. For low Reynolds numbers of less than unity, mixing occurs due to molecular diffusion. For high Reynolds number of more than several tens, chaotic advection enhances mixing. However, in the intermediate regime, mixing is not efficient. This paper reports a stretchable micromixer with dynamically tuneable channel dimensions. Periodically stretching the device changes the channel geometry and the curvature induced secondary Dean flows. The dynamically evolving secondary and main flows in the mixing channel result in chaotic advection and enhance mixing. The concept was demonstrated in a stretchable micromixer with a serpentine channel. We evaluated the performance of this stretchable micromixer both experimentally and numerically. At the intermediate range of Reynolds numbers from 4 to 17, the periodically stretched micromixer showed a better mixing efficiency than the non-stretched counterpart. Therefore, our stretchable micromixer is a potential candidate for applications where precious reagents need to be mixed at relatively low flow rate conditions.

Pt/CNT Micro-Nanorobots Driven by Glucose Catalytic Decomposition

Swimming micro-nanorobots have attracted researchers’ interest in potential medical applications on target therapy, biosensor, drug carrier, and others. At present, the experimental setting of the swimming micro-nanorobots was mainly studied in pure water or H2O2 solution. This paper presents a micro-nanorobot that applied glucose in human body fluid as driving fuel. Based on the catalytic properties of the anode and cathode materials of the glucose fuel cell, platinum (Pt) and carbon nanotube (CNT) were selected as the anode and cathode materials, respectively, for the micro-nanorobot. The innovative design adopted the method of template electrochemical and chemical vapor deposition to manufacture the Pt/CNT micro-nanorobot structure. Both the scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) were employed to observe the morphology of the sample, and its elements were analyzed by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). Through a large number of experiments in a glucose solution and according to Stoker’s law of viscous force and Newton’s second law, we calculated the driving force of the fabricated micro-nanorobot. It was concluded that the structure of the Pt/CNT micro-nanorobot satisfied the required characteristics of both biocompatibility and motion.

Harmonic Passive Motion Paradigm

Humans can robustly interact with external dynamics that are not yet fully understood. This work presents a hierarchical architecture of semi-autonomous controllers that can control the redundant kinematics of the limbs during dynamic interaction, even with delays comparable to the nervous system. The postural optimisation is performed via a non-linear mapping of the system kineto-static properties, and it allows independent control of the end-effector trajectories and the arms stiffness. The proposed architecture is tested in a physical simulator in the absence of gravity, presence of gravity, and with gravity plus a viscous force field. The data indicates that the architecture can generalise the motor strategies to different environmental conditions. The experiments also verify the existence of a deterministic solution to the task-separation principle. The architecture is also compatible with Optimal Feedback Control and the Passive Motion Paradigm. The existence of a deterministic mapping implies that this task could be encoded in neural networks capable of generalisation of motion strategies to affine tasks.

An Improved Particle Number-Based Oil Spill Model Using Implicit Viscosity in Marine Simulator

Improving the physical realism of oil spill scenes in marine simulators can further enhance the emergency response capabilities of officials in charge and crew members and help reduce losses caused by oil spill disasters. In order to uniformly simulate the spreading, drift, breakup, and merging of oil spills at sea, we propose an improved divergence-free position-based fluid (DFPBF) framework based on the particle number density model. In our DFPBF framework, the governing equations for oil spills and ocean are discretized by Lagrangian particles, and the incompressibility of oil spills and ocean is ensured by solving the divergence-free velocity constraint solver and constant density constraint solver. In order to stably simulate the fate and transport of oil spills with higher viscosity, we introduce an implicit viscosity solution scheme for our DFPBF framework. The implicit solver uses a splitting concept to decouple viscosity solve and adopts an implicit scheme to discretize the integration of viscous force. Moreover, our DFPBF framework can ensure a divergence-free velocity field before applying the implicit viscosity scheme, which avoids the undesired bulk viscosity effects. The simulation results show that our DFPBF framework can stably simulate oil spills of various viscosities, especially high-viscosity crude oils.

Deformation characteristics of a single bubble in immiscible fluids

In order to investigate characteristics of bubble deformation in immiscible fluids, the bubble shape change during the interface and the relationship between aspect ratio(E) and dimensionless number of forces is obtained. A three-dimensional model is established and the free-floating behavior of a single bubble in immiscible fluids is numerically simulated by phase-field method. The simulation results are in good agreement with experimental results. The research shows that, in the lower liquid, the relationship between E and We, Ta, Re is distributed between two intersecting lines. In the upper liquid, the relationship between E and We, Ta, Re is distributed between two parallel lines. Comparing the bubble deformation and the influence of the forces. Compared with gravity, the inertial force plays a leading role in the bubble shape in the lower liquid and upper liquid. Compared with the viscous force, the surface tension dominates the bubble shape in the lower liquid.