Laminar Fully-Developed Flow in a Microchannel With Patterned Ultrahydrophobic Walls

Microfluidic transport is finding increasing application in a number of emerging technologies. At these scales, classical analysis shows that the required fluid driving pressure is inversely proportional to the hydraulic diameter to the fourth power. Consequently, generating fluid motion at these physical scales is a challenge. There is thus considerable incentive for developing strategies to reduce the frictional resistance to fluid flow. A novel approach recently proposed is fabrication of micro-ribs and cavities in the channel walls which are treated with a hydrophobic coating. This reduces the surface contact area between the flowing liquid and the solid wall, yielding walls with no-slip and shear-free regions at the microscale. The shear-free regions consist of a liquid-vapor meniscus above the cavities between micro-ribs. Reductions in the flow resistance are thus possible. This paper reports results of an analytical and experimental investigation of the laminar, fully-developed flow in a parallel plate microchannel whose walls are microengineered in this fashion. The micro-ribs and cavities are oriented parallel to the flow direction. The channel walls are modeled in an idealized fashion, with the shape of liquid-vapor meniscus approximated as flat and characterized by vanishing shear stress. Predictions are presented for the friction factor-Reynolds number product as a function of relevant governing dimensionless parameters. Comparisons are made between the smooth-wall classical channel flow results and predictions for the microengineered channel walls. Results show that significant reductions in the frictional pressure drop are possible. Reductions in frictional resistance increase as the channel hydraulic diameter and/or micro-rib width are reduced. The frictional pressure drop predictions are in good agreement with experimental measurements made at dynamically similar conditions, with greater deviation observed with increasing relative size of the shear-free regions.

Second Law and Energy Loss Analysis in a Turbulent Flow Through a Nozzle Type Duct

Amount of heat transfer is the primary concern in a heat exchanger design. The amount of energy that has been destroyed during the heat exchange process has been investigated by introducing a new dimensionless number. Analyises of simpler systems are often useful to understand more important features of complex pattern forming processes in various field of science and technology. The entropy generation have been studied by use of new dimensionless number . This number defined as the ratio of total energy loss to total heat transfer across the duct length. The temperature dependence on the viscosity is taken into consideration and results have been derived for various L/D ratio, nozzle angles and inlet temperature.

Thermal Transport in Nanocrystalline Materials

In this work, thermal transport in nanocrystalline materials is studied using large-scale equilibrium molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. Nanocrystalline materials with different grain sizes are studied to explore how and to what extent the size of nanograins affects the thermal conductivity and specific heat. Substantial thermal conductivity reduction is observed and the reduction is stronger for nanocrystalline materials with smaller grains. On the other hand, the specific heat of nanocrystalline materials shows little change with the grain size. The simulation results are compared with the thermal transport in individual nanograins based on MD simulation. Further discussions are provided to explain the fundamental physics behind the observed thermal phenomena in this work.

Heat and Moisture Transport Through the Micro-Climate Air Annulus of the Clothing-Skin System Under Periodic Motion

A dynamic thermal model is developed using the 2D cylinder model of Ghaddar et al [1] of ventilated fabric-skin system where a microclimate air annulus separates an outer cylindrical fabric boundary and an inner human body solid boundary for closed and open apertures. The cylinder model solves for the radial, and angular flow rates in the microclimate air annulus domain where the inner cylinder is oscillating within an outer fixed cylinder of porous fabric boundary. The 2-D cylinder model is further developed in the radial and angular directions to incorporate the heat and moisture transport from the inner cylinder when the fabric touches the skin boundary at repetitive finite intervals during the motion cycle. The touch model is based on a lumped fabric transient approach based on the fabric dry and evaporative resistances at the localized touch regions at the top and bottom of points of the cylinder. The film coefficients at the inner cylinder are needed for the model simulation. Experiments are conducted in an environmental chamber under controlled conditions to measure the mass transfer coefficient at the skin to the air annulus separating the wet skin and the fabric in the cylindrical geometry. In addition, experiments have also been conducted at ventilation frequencies of 30, 40, and 60 rpm to measure the sensible heat loss from the inner cylinder to validate the predictions of sensible and latent heat losses of the 2-D ventilation model for the two cases when fabric is in contact with the skin surface and when no contact is present for close aperture. The model prediction of time-averaged steady-periodic sensible heat loss agreed well with the experimentally measured values. A parametric study is performed to predict sensible and latent heat losses from the system by ventilation at different frequencies, fabric skin contact times during the motion cycle measured by a dimensionless amplitude parameter (ζ = amplitude/mean annular spacing). The rate of heat loss increases with increased ventilation frequency at fixed ζ. The latent heat loss in the contact region increases by almost 40% due to increase in fabric temperature during contact. The sensible heat loss decreases between 3% at f = 60 rpm, and 5% at f = 25 rpm in the contact region due to higher air temperature and lack of heat loss by radiation during the contact between fabric and skin.

Experimental Analysis of Opposing Flow in Mixed Convection in a Channel With an Open Cavity Below

In this paper mixed convection in an open cavity with a heated wall bounded by a horizontal unheated plate is investigated experimentally. The cavity has the heated wall on the opposite side of the forced inflow. The results are reported in terms of wall temperature profiles of the heated wall and flow visualization for Reynolds number (Re) from 100 to 2000 and Richardson number (Ri) in the range 4.3–6400; the ratio between the length and the height of cavity (L/D) is in the range 0.5–2.0 and the ratio between the channel and cavity height (H/D) is equal to 1.0. The present results show that at the lowest investigated Reynolds number the surface temperatures are lower than the corresponding surface temperature for Re = 2000, at same the ohmic heat flux. The flow visualization points out that for Re = 1000 there are two nearly distinct fluid motions: a parallel forced flow in the channel and a recirculation flow inside the cavity. For Re = 100 the effect of a stronger buoyancy determines a penetration of thermal plume from the heated plate wall into the upper channel. Moreover, the flow visualization points out that for lower Reynolds numbers the forced motion penetrates inside the cavity and a vortex structure is adjacent to the unheated vertical plate. At higher Reynolds number the vortex structure has a larger extension at same L/D value.

Experimental Investigations of the Adsorption of NH3 on Silica Gel-Based Adsorbent

The silica gel-water working pair has been commonly used for commercial adsorption chillers due to the environmental benign refrigerant and low desorption temperature (less than 85°C). However, the application has been constrained due to the vacuum working condition and Ice point. This motivates researchers to investigate alternative working pairs. The silica gel-based adsorbents - ammonia working pairs have been found to be the most promising alternative. The isotherms and heats of adsorption of the working pair are essential to be investigated for designing the adsorption reactor and predicting the chiller performance. A novel sensor-gas calorimeter has been used to simultaneously measure the adsorption isotherm and heats of adsorption. The experimental results for adsorption of ammonia on the pure silica gel and silica gel treated with different weight percentage of calcium chlorine are presented.

Heat Transfer in Cavities Having a Fixed Amount of Solid Material

This work compares two different approaches for obtaining numerical solutions for laminar natural convection within a square cavity, which is filled by a fixed amount of a solid conducting material. The first model considered, namely, porous-continuum model, is based on the assumption that the solid and the fluid phases are seen as the same medium, over which volume-averaged transport equations apply. Secondly, a continuum model is considered to solve the momentum equations for the fluid phase that would resemble a conjugate heat transfer problem in both the solid and the void space. In the continuum model, the solid phase is composed of square obstacles, equally spaced within the cavity. In both models, governing equations are numerically solved using the finite volume method. The average Nusselt number at the hot wall, obtained from the porous-continuum model, for several Darcy numbers, are compared with those obtained with the second approach, namely the continuum model, with different number of obstacles. When comparing the two methodologies, this study shows that the average Nusselt number calculated for each approach for the same Ram differs between each other and that this discrepancy increases as the Darcy number decreases, in the porous-continuum model, or the number of blocks increases and their size decreases, in the continuum model. A correlation is suggested to modify the macroscopic thermal expansion coefficient in order to match the average Nusselt numbers calculated by the two models for Ram = const = 104 and Da ranging from 1.2060×10−4 to 1.

Effect of Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow in a CVD Reactor on the Densification Rate of Carbon Brakes

The effect of heat transfer and fluid flow on the densification rate of carbon brake substrates inside a chemical vapor deposition reactor is investigated using non-Boussinesq equations. These equations are valid for large temperature variations and low Mach number flows. Surface to surface radiation between the reactor walls and the brake substrates is considered, where all surfaces are treated as gray and diffuse, while the gas is assumed to be non-participating. A Brinkman model has been used for the flow within the brake substrates. Moreover, implementation of a simple kinetic mechanism is included to account for chemical reactions.

Mixed Convection in Air in an Open Ended Cavity With a Moving Plate Parallel to the Cavity Open Surface

In this study, a numerical investigation of mixed convection in air in an open ended cavity, with a moving plate parallel to the cavity open surface, is carried out. The moving plate has a constant velocity, whereas a vertical plate of the open cavity is heated at uniform heat flux. All the other walls are adiabatic. The numerical analysis is obtained by means of the commercial code FLUENT. Two configurations, assisting and opposing, are analyzed. In the assisting configuration, natural convection is supported by the plate motion, whereas, in the opposing configuration, natural convection and plate motion have opposing effects. The effect of different geometrical parameters, heat flux and moving plate velocity are analyzed. Results in terms of heated plate and moving plate temperature profiles are presented and simple monomial correlation equations for both the configurations are proposed between the terms Nu/Re0.6 and Ri.

Reduction of Gaseous Emission From Turbine Combustor

A study of spray combustion with porous inserts was performed using an on-axis fuel used in a concentric Jet-A. Combustion performance was evaluated by measuring exhaust emissions and gaseous temperatures for different operating conditions with and without ceramic foam inserts. The results indicated that the enhanced heat transfer in the flame zone could reduce nitrogen oxides and unburned hydrocarbon emissions. Placing a second porous layer downstream could yield further reductions in both emissions. The results for different firing rates and equivalence ratios revealed the residence time in the porous layer is an important factor in controlling the combustor performance.