Flow boiling heat transfer of R134a,R236fa and R245fa in a horizontal 1.030 mm circular channel

This research focuses on acquiring accurate flow boiling heat transfer data and flow pattern visualization for three refrigerants, R134a, R236fa and R245fa in a 1.030 mm channel. We investigate trends in the data, and their possible mechanisms, for mass fluxes from 200 to 1600 kg/m²s, heat fluxes from 2.3 kW/m² to 250 kW/m² at T_sat = 31 °C and ΔT_sub from 2 to 9 K. The local saturated flow boiling heat transfer coefficients display a heat flux and a mass flux dependency but no residual subcooling influence. The changes in heat transfer trends correspond well with flow regime transitions. These were segregated into the isolated bubble (IB) regime, the coalescing bubble (CB) regime, and the annular (A) regime for the three fluids. The importance of nucleate boiling and forced convection in these small channels is still relatively unclear and requires further research.     

Laminar flow of power-law fluids past a rotating cylinder

In this work, the continuity and momentum equations have been solved numerically to investigate the flow of power-law fluids over a rotating cylinder. In particular, consideration has been given to the prediction of drag and lift coefficients as functions of the pertinent governing dimensionless parameters, namely, power-law index (1 ≥ n ≥ 0.2), dimensionless rotational velocity (0 ≤ α ≤ 6) and the Reynolds number (0.1 ≤ Re ≤ 40). Over the range of Reynolds number, the flow is known to be steady. Detailed streamline and vorticity contours adjacent to the rotating cylinder and surface pressure profiles provide further insights into the nature of flow. Finally, the paper is concluded by comparing the present numerical results with the scant experimental data on velocity profiles in the vicinity of a rotating cylinder available in the literature. The correspondence is seen to be excellent for Newtonian and inelastic fluids.     

Electroviscous effect on non-Newtonian fluid flow in microchannels

Understanding non-Newtonian flow in microchannels is of both fundamental and practical significance for various microfluidic devices. A numerical study of non-Newtonian flow in microchannels combined with electroviscous effect has been conducted. The electric potential in the electroviscous force term is calculated by solving a lattice Boltzmann equation. And another lattice Boltzmann equation without derivations of the velocity when calculating the shear is employed to obtain flow field. The simulation of commonly used power-law non-Newtonian flow shows that the electroviscous effect on the flow depends significantly on the fluid rheological behavior. For the shear thinning fluid of the power-law exponent n < 1, the fluid viscosity near the wall is smaller and the electroviscous effect plays a more important role. And its effect on the flow increases as the ratio of the Debye length to the channel height increases and the exponent n decreases. While the shear thickening fluid of n > 1 is less affected by the electroviscous force, it can be neglected in practical applications.     

A numerical study of the longitudinal thermoconvective rolls in a mixed convection flow in a horizontal channel with a free surface

This paper presents a numerical study of three-dimensional laminar mixed convection within a liquid flowing on a horizontal channel heated uniformly from below. The upper surface is free and assumed to be flat. The coupled Navier–Stokes and energy equations are solved numerically by the finite volume method taking into account the thermocapillary effects (Marangoni effect). When the strength of the buoyancy, thermocapillary effects and forced convective currents are comparable (Ri ⋍ O(1) and Bd = Ra/Ma ⋍ O(1)), the results show that the development of instabilities in the form of steady longitudinal convective rolls is similar to those encountered in the Poiseuille–Rayleigh–Bénard flow. The number and spatial distribution of these rolls along the channel depend on the flow conditions. The objective of this work is to study the influence of parameters, such as the Reynolds, Rayleigh and Biot numbers, on the flow patterns and heat transfer characteristics. The effects of variations in the surface tension with temperature gradients (Marangoni effect) are also considered.     

Non-Newtonian flow in microporous structures under the electroviscous effect

Single phase non-Newtonian microporous flow combined with the electroviscous effect is investigated in the pore-scale under conditions of various rheological properties and electrokinetic parameters. The lattice Boltzmann method is employed to solve both the electric potential field and flow velocity field. The simulation of commonly used power-law non-Newtonian flow shows that the electroviscous effect on the flow depends on both the fluid rheological behavior and pore surface area ratio significantly. For the shear thinning fluid with power-law exponent n < 1, the fluid viscosity near the wall is smaller and the electrovicous effect plays a more important role compared to the Newtonian fluid and shear thickening fluid. The high pore surface area ratio in the porous structure increases the electroviscous force and the induced flow resistance becomes important even to the flow of Newtonian and shear thickening fluids.     

Resolving the stratification discrepancy of turbulent natural convection in differentially heated air-filled cavities. Part III: A full convection–conduction–surface radiation coupling

The present study concerns an air-filled differentially heated cavity of 1 m × 0.32 m × 1 m (width × depth × height) subject to a temperature difference of 15 K and is motivated by the need to understand the persistent discrepancy observed between numerical and experimental results on thermal stratification in the cavity core. An improved experiment with enhanced metrology was set up and experimental data have been obtained along with the characteristics of the surfaces and materials used. Experimental temperature distributions on the passive walls have been introduced in numerical simulations in order to provide a faithful prediction of experimental data. By means of DNS using spectral methods, heat conduction in the insulating material is first coupled with natural convection in the cavity. As heat conduction influences only the temperature distribution on the top and bottom surfaces and in the near wall regions, surface radiation is added to the coupling of natural convection with heat conduction. The temperature distribution in the cavity is strongly affected by the polycarbonate front and rear walls of the cavity, which are almost black surfaces for low temperature radiation, and also other low emissivity walls. The thermal stratification is considerably weakened by surface radiation. Good agreement between numerical simulations and experiments is observed on both time-averaged fields and turbulent statistics. Treating the full conduction–convection–radiation coupling allowed to confirm that experimental wall temperatures resulted from the coupled phenomena and this is another way to predict correctly the experimental results in the cavity.     

Flow of dilute to semi-dilute polystyrene solutions through a benchmark 8:1 planar abrupt micro-contraction

We have studied the flow of thermodynamically ideal solutions of a high molecular weight (M_w = 6.9 MDa) atactic polystyrene in the θ solvent dioctyl phthalate (aPS in DOP) through a micro-fabricated 8:1 planar abrupt contraction geometry. The channel is much deeper than most micro-scale geometries, providing an aspect ratio of 16:1 and a good approximation to 2D flow in the narrow channel. The solutions span a range of concentration 0.03 wt.% < c < 0.6 wt.%, encompassing the dilute to semi-dilute regimes and providing a range of fluid viscosities and relaxation times such that we achieve a range of Weissenberg numbers (8.7 < Wi < 1562) and Reynolds numbers (0.07 < Re < 11.2), giving elasticity numbers between 31 < El < 295. We study the flow using a combination of micro-particle image velocimetry (μ-PIV) to characterize the flow field, pressure measurements to evaluate the non-Newtonian viscosity, and birefringence measurements to assess macromolecular strain. Flow field observations reveal three broad flow regimes characterized by Newtonian-like flow, unstable flow and vortex growth in the upstream salient corners. Transitions between the flow regimes scale with Wi, independent of El, indicating the dominance of elastic over inertial effects in all the fluids. Transitions in the flow field are also reflected by transitions in the relative viscosity (determined from the pressure drop) and the macromolecular strain (determined from birefringence measurements). The strain through the 8:1 contraction saturates at a value of ～4–5 at high Wi. The results of these experiments broaden the limited set of literature on flow through micro-fluidic planar contractions and should be of significant value for optimizing lab-on-a-chip design and for comparison with modeling studies with elasticity dominated fluids.     

Non Newtonian annular alloy solidification in mould

The annular solidification of an aluminium–silicon alloy in a graphite mould with a geometry consisting of horizontal concentric cylinders is studied numerically. The analysis incorporates the behavior of non-Newtonian, pseudoplastic (n?=?0.2), Newtonian (n?=?1), and dilatant (n?=?1.5) fluids. The fluid mechanics and heat transfer coupled with a transient model of convection diffusion are solved using the finite volume method and the SIMPLE algorithm. Solidification is described in terms of a liquid fraction of a phase change that varies linearly with temperature. The final results make it possible to infer that the fluid dynamics and heat transfer of solidification in an annular geometry are affected by the non-Newtonian nature of the fluid, speeding up the process when the fluid is pseudoplastic.     

Experimental and numerical investigation on air-side performance of fin-and-tube heat exchangers with various fin patterns

Air-side heat transfer and friction characteristics of five kinds of fin-and-tube heat exchangers, with the number of tube rows (N = 12) and the diameter of tubes (D_o = 18 mm), have been experimentally investigated. The test samples consist of five types of fin configurations: crimped spiral fin, plain fin, slit fin, fin with delta-wing longitudinal vortex generators (VGs) and mixed fin with front 6-row vortex-generator fin and rear 6-row slit fin. The heat transfer and friction factor correlations for different types of heat exchangers were obtained with the Reynolds numbers ranging from 4000 to 10000. It was found that crimped spiral fin provides higher heat transfer and pressure drop than the other four fins. The air-side performance of heat exchangers with the above five fins has been evaluated under three sets of criteria and it was shown that the heat exchanger with mixed fin (front vortex-generator fin and rear slit fin) has better performance than that with fin with delta-wing vortex generators, and the slit fin offers best heat transfer performance at high Reynolds numbers. Based on the correlations of numerical data, Genetic Algorithm optimization was carried out, and the optimization results indicated that the increase of VG attack angle or length, or decrease of VG height may enhance the performance of vortex-generator fin. The heat transfer performances for optimized vortex-generator fin and slit fin at hand have been compared with numerical method.     

Comparative study of forced convection of a power-law fluid in a channel with a built-in square cylinder

A detailed comparison between the lattice Boltzmann method and the finite element method is presented for an incompressible steady laminar flow and heat transfer of a power-law fluid past a square cylinder between two parallel plates. Computations are performed for three different blockage ratios (ratios of the square side length to the channel width) and different values of the power-law index n covering both pseudo-plastic fluids (n < 1) and dilatant fluids (n > 1). The methodology is validated against the exact solution. The local and averaged Nusselt numbers are also presented. The results show that the relatively simple lattice Boltzmann method is a good alternative to the finite element method for analyzing non-Newtonian fluids.     

Laminar,transitional and turbulent annular flow of drag-reducing polymer solutions

Mean and rms axial velocity-profile data obtained using laser Doppler anemometry are presented together with pressure-drop data for the flow through a concentric annulus (radius ratio κ = 0.506) of a Newtonian (a glycerine–water mixture) and non-Newtonian fluids—a semi-rigid shear-thinning polymer (a xanthan gum) and a polymer known to exhibit a yield stress (carbopol). A wider range of Reynolds numbers for the transitional flow regime is observed for the more shear-thinning fluids. In marked contrast to the Newtonian fluid, the higher shear stress on the inner wall compared to the outer wall does not lead to earlier transition for the non-Newtonian fluids where more turbulent activity is observed in the outer wall region. The mean axial velocity profiles show a slight shift (～5%) of the location of the maximum velocity towards the outer pipe wall within the transitional regime only for the Newtonian fluid.     

Instability of channel flow of a shear-thinning White–Metzner fluid

We consider the inertialess planar channel flow of a White–Metzner (WM) fluid having a power-law viscosity with exponent n. The case n = 1 corresponds to an upper-convected Maxwell (UCM) fluid. We explore the linear stability of such a flow to perturbations of wavelength k⁻¹. We find numerically that if n < n_c ≈ 0.3 there is an instability to disturbances having wavelength comparable with the channel width. For n close to n_c, this is the only unstable disturbance. For even smaller n, several unstable modes appear, and very short waves become unstable and have the largest growth rate. If n exceeds n_c, all disturbances are linearly stable. We consider asymptotically both the long-wave limit which is stable for all n, and the short-wave limit for which waves grow or decay at a finite rate independent of k for each n.The mechanism of this elastic shear-thinning instability is discussed.     

Criteria for the appearance of recirculating and non-stationary regimes behind a cylinder in a viscoplastic fluid

The appearance of a recirculation zone and the formation of non-stationary vortices behind a cylinder in the unconfined flow of a Herschel–Bulkley fluid have been studied by numerical simulation. The Herschel–Bulkley constitutive equation was regularised by using the Papanastasiou model. Special attention was paid to determining the numerical parameters and comparing them to existing results. The influence of the Oldroyd number and power-law index on flow morphology and, in particular, on the unyielded zones was studied over a wide spectrum (0 ≤ Od ≤ 10) and (0.3 ≤ n ≤ 1.8). It was seen that the greater the Oldroyd number, the greater the critical Reynolds numbers and Strouhal number for the two flow regimes. The influence of the power-law index is more complex.     

Nonaxisymmetric interaction of a spherical radiator in a fluid-filled permeable borehole

The Biot theory of poroelasticity along with the proper cylindrical/spherical wave-field transformations are used to investigate general (nonaxisymmetric) harmonic radiation from a spherical surface vibrating at the center of a fluid-filled circular cylindrical cavity embedded within a fluid-saturated porous elastic formation. This configuration, which is a realistic idealization of an acoustic logging tool suspended in a fluid-filled borehole, is of practical importance with a multitude of possible applications in seismic engineering and geophysics. The analytical results are illustrated with numerical examples in which the spherical source suspended at the center of a water-filled borehole embedded within water-saturated soils of distinct frame properties (i.e., soft or stiff soils), is excited in vibrational modes of various orders. The basic acoustic and elastic field quantities such as the resistive/reactive components of the modal acoustic radiation impedance load as well as the radial displacement and stress components induced within the surrounding formation for a pulsating (n = 0), an oscillating (n = 1), and a quadrupole-like (n = 2) spherical source are evaluated and discussed for representative values of the parameters characterizing the system. Special attention is paid to the effects of source excitation frequency, size, surface velocity profile, and internal impedance as well as soil type on the modal impedance values and the displacement/stress amplitudes. Limiting cases are considered and fair agreements with well-known solutions are obtained.     

Argon K-shell and bound-free emission from OMEGA direct-drive implosion cores

We discuss calculations of synthetic spectra for the interpretation and analysis of K-shell and bound-free emission from argon-doped deuterium-filled OMEGA direct-drive implosion cores. The spectra are computed using a model that considers collisional-radiative atomic kinetics, continuum-lowering, detailed Stark-broadened line shapes, line overlapping, and radiation transport effects. The photon energy range covers the moderately optically thick n = 3 → n = 1 and n = 4 → n = 1 line transitions in He- and H-like Ar, their associated satellite lines in Li- and He-like Ar, and several radiative recombination edges. At the high-densities characteristic of implosion cores, the radiative recombination edges substantially shift to lower energies thus overlapping with several line transitions. We discuss the application of the spectra to spectroscopic analysis of doped implosion cores.     

Lattice Boltzmann simulation of the convective heat transfer from a stream-wise oscillating circular cylinder

In this paper, we studied the convective heat transfer from a stream-wise oscillating circular cylinder. Two dimensional numerical simulations are conducted at Re = 100–200, A = 0.1–0.4 and F = f_o/f_s = 0.2–3.0 with the aid of the lattice Boltzmann method. In particular, detailed attentions are paid on the extensive numerical results elucidating the influence of oscillation frequency, oscillation amplitude and Reynolds number on the time-average and RMS value of the Nusselt number. Over the ranges of conditions considered herein, the heat transfer characteristics are observed to be influenced in an intricate manner by the value of the oscillation frequency (F), oscillation amplitude (A) and Reynolds number (Re). Firstly, the heat transfer is enhanced when the cylinder oscillates stream-wise with small amplitude and low frequency, while it will be reduced by large amplitude and high frequency. Secondly, the average Nusselt number (Nu (ave)) decreases against the increasing value of oscillation frequency, while the RMS value of the Nusselt number, Nu (RMS), displays an opposite trend. Third, we obtained a similar frequency effect on the heat transfer over the range of Reynolds numbers investigated in this paper. In addition, detailed analyses on phase portraits, energy spectrum are also made.     

Conjugate turbulent heat transfer in a square cavity with a solar control coating deposited to a vertical semitransparent wall

This paper presents a numerical study of the conjugate heat transfer (natural convection, surface thermal radiation and conduction) in a square cavity with turbulent flow. The cavity has one vertical isothermal wall, two horizontal adiabatic walls and one vertical semitransparent wall with a selective coating applied to the inner side to control the solar radiation transmission. Later on the semitransparent wall is replaced with another one without the selective coating. The mathematical model for the turbulent flow in the cavity was solved using the finite volume method. The system had the following conditions: the uniform temperature in the isothermal wall was 21 °C, the external ambient temperature was fixed at 35 °C and on the semitransparent wall the direct normal solar irradiation of 750 W/m² was considered constant. The Rayleigh number was varied in the range of 10⁹ ? Ra ? 10¹² by changing the lengths of the cavity from 0.70 m to 6.98 m, respectively. The results show that, even though the air temperature of the cavity with the solar control film coating semitransparent wall (case A) is higher compared with the one without solar film coating (case B), the total amount of heat going through the cavity is lower compared to the one going through the cavity without solar control film. The total amount of energy transferred to the air in cavity for the case A was 41.98% less than for the case B. A set of correlations for the Nusselt number was obtained for both cases considering the conjugate heat transfer.     

New contributions on laminar flow of inelastic non-Newtonian fluid in the two-dimensional symmetric expansion: Creeping and slowly moving flow conditions

The steady flow of generalized Newtonian fluid in a two-dimensional 1:3 sudden expansion was studied numerically. Finite volume method was applied to solve the momentum equations along with the continuity equation and the Power law rheological model within the laminar flow regime for a range of Reynolds number and Power law index values. The values of generalized Reynolds number, based on physical and rheological properties, upstream channel height and bulk velocity, were varied between 0.0001 ≤ Re_gen ≤ 10, while the Power law index values mapped the 0.60 ≤ n ≤ 1.40 range, allowing for the investigation of both shear-thinning and shear-thickening effects at creeping as well as slowly moving fluid flow conditions. We report accurate results of a systematic study with a focus on most important characteristics of recirculating fluid flow in the downstream section of sudden expansion geometry. It is shown that for the creeping flow regime there exist finite sized redevelopment length, extra pressure drop (Couette correction) and recirculation zones (also called as Moffatt vortices) that are influenced by the non-Newtonian viscous behaviour.     

Unsteady gravity-driven slender rivulets of a power-law fluid

Unsteady gravity-driven flow of a thin slender rivulet of a non-Newtonian power-law fluid on a plane inclined at an angle α to the horizontal is considered. Unsteady similarity solutions are obtained for both converging sessile rivulets (when 0 < α < π/2) in the case x < 0 with t < 0, and diverging pendent rivulets (when π/2 < α < π) in the case x > 0 with t > 0, where x denotes a coordinate measured down the plane and t denotes time. Numerical and asymptotic methods are used to show that for each value of the power-law index N there are two physically realisable solutions, with cross-sectional profiles that are ‘single-humped’ and ‘double-humped’, respectively. Each solution predicts that at any time t the rivulet widens or narrows according to |x | ^{(2N+1)/2(N+1)} and thickens or thins according to |x | ^N/(N+1) as it flows down the plane; moreover, at any station x, it widens or narrows according to |t | ^?N/2(N+1) and thickens or thins according to |t | ^?N/(N+1). The length of a truncated rivulet of fixed volume is found to behave according to |t | ^N/(2N+1).     

Experimental quantification of the plastic blunting process for stage II fatigue crack growth in one-phase metallic materials

The plastic blunting process during stage II fatigue crack growth was studied in pure polycrystalline Ni to investigate effects of strain localization and inelastic behavior on the kinematics of crack advance. Correlations were obtained between strain fields ahead of a fatigue crack, crack advance per cycle and crack growth kinetics. Strain fields were quantified using a combination of in situ loading experiments, scanning electron microscopy and digital image correlation for 8 < ΔK < 20 MPa m^1/2 and a fixed load ratio of 0.1. Results indicate that strain localized along a dominant deformation band, which was usually crystallographic and carried mostly pure shear for large loads and was of mixed character for lower loads. Instances of double deformation bands were observed, with bands acting either in a simultaneous or alternating fashion. It was found that the area integral of the opening strain for values larger than a given threshold, an “integrated” strain, had a power-law relationship with ΔK, with the exponent approximately equal to the Paris exponent (m). Therefore, the crack growth rate was proportional to the integrated strain. An analysis based on this correlation and the presence of dominant shear bands indicated that the integrated strain is related to the accumulated displacement in the band. This, in turn, is proportional to the product of the cyclic plastic zone radius and the average shear strain ahead of the tip, which represents a basic length scale for plastic blunting. Assumptions on the load dependence of these quantities, based on their observed spatial variation, allowed estimating $m=2\left(1+\frac{1}{1+n^{\prime }}\right)$, where n′ is the cyclic hardening exponent (0 < n′ < 1). This gives 3 < m < 4, which accounts for about 50% of the observed values of m between 1.5 and 6 for a wide variety of metallic materials.