Optimization of a stepped circular pin-fin array to enhance heat transfer performance

A Stepped circular pin-fin array is formulated numerically and optimized with Kriging metamodeling technique to enhance heat transfer performance. The problem is defined by two non-dimensional geometric design variables composed of height of the channel, height of smaller diameter part of the pin-fins, and smaller diameter of the pin-fins, to maximize heat transfer rate compromising with friction loss. Ten designs generated by Latin hypercube sampling were evaluated by three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes solver and the evaluated objectives were used to construct the surrogate model. The predictions of objective function by Kriging model at optimum point show reasonable accuracy in comparison with the values calculated by RANS analysis. Optimum shape of pin-fins strongly depends on the weighting factor which measures importance of the friction loss term in the objective function. The thermal performances are much higher than that of the straight pin-fin at sampling optimum points with different weighting factors.     

On flow structure, heat transfer and pressure drop in varying aspect ratio two-pass rectangular channel with ribs at 45°

To increase the thermal efficiency of gas turbines, inlet temperature of gas is increased. This results in the requirement of cooling of gas turbine blades and vanes. Internal cooling of gas turbine blades and vanes is one of several options. Two-pass channels are provided with ribs to enhance heat transfer at the expense of an increased pressure drop. The space in the blade is limited and requires channels with small aspect ratios. Numerical simulations have been performed to investigate heat transfer, flow field and pressure loss in a two-pass channel equipped with 45° ribs with aspect ratio (W_in/H) equal to 1:3 in the inlet pass and 1:1 in the outlet pass with both connected together with a 180° bend. The results are compared with a higher aspect ratio channel (W_in/H = 1:2, inlet pass). In the ribbed channel, a decrease in pressure drop was observed with a decrease in the aspect ratio of the channel. The smaller aspect ratio channel not only allows using more cooling channels in the blade, but also results in more heat transfer enhancement. The divider-to-tip wall distance (W_el) has influence on the pressure drop, as well as on the heat transfer enhancement at the bend and outlet pass. Heat transfer decreases with decrease in aspect ratio of the inlet pass of the two-pass channel. With increase in divider-to-tip wall distance, heat transfer tries to attain a constant value.     

Effect of EHD on heat transfer enhancement during two-phase condensation of R-134a at high mass flux in a horizontal smooth tube

In this study, effect of electrohydrodynamic (EHD) on the condensation heat transfer enhancement and pressure drop of pure R-134a are experimentally investigated. The test section is a 2.5 m long counterflow double tube heat exchanger with refrigerant flowing in the inner tube and cooling water flowing in the annulus. The inner tube is made from smooth horizontal copper tubing of 9.52 mm outer diameter. The electrode is made from stainless steel wire of 1.47 mm diameter. The test runs are performed at average saturated temperatures ranging between 40 and 60°C, mass flux ranging between 200 and 600 kg/m² s, heat flux ranging between 10 and 20 kW/m² and applied voltage at 2.5 kV. For the presence of the electrode, the experimental results indicate that the maximum heat transfer enhancement ratio is around 30% while the maximum increase in pressure drop is about 25%.     

Influence of heating load on heat transfer characteristics in micro-pin-fin arrays

Experimental investigations were carried out to explore the convective heat transfer in micro pin-fins with different aspect ratios, and the influence of heating load on Nusselt numbers in micro pin-fins with liquid water as working fluid were investigated. The mechanism of convective heat transfer in micro pin-fins at different heating load were studied by 3-D numerical investigations, and the relationships of thermal physical properties change, the end wall effect and axial thermal conduction with Nu numbers in micro pin-fins were analysed. It was found that the thickness of boundary layer was decreased as much as 33.3 % attributed to the destructive effect of thermal physical properties change, and convective heat transfer in the micro pin-fin channel was more than 20 % enhanced by the flow disturbance caused by the increase of temperature difference. The discrepancy of Nu in micro pin-fin channel with different aspect ratios reached 34.59 %, and this discrepancy was reduced by the increase of heating load. The maximum value of impact factors of dynamic viscosity and thermal conductivity on the Nu in micro-pin-fins reached 25.02 and 7.68 %, respectively.     

Turbulent heat transfer characteristics and pressure drop in swirling flow at upstream and downstream of an abrupt expansion

This investigation is aimed at studying the heat transfer characteristics and pressure drop for turbulent airflow in a sudden expansion pipe equipped with propeller swirl generator. The investigation is performed for the Reynolds number ranging from 10,000 to 41,000 under a uniform heat flux condition. The experiments are conducted for three locations for the propeller fan upstream the sudden expansion and three locations downstream the sudden expansion (N = 5 blades and blade angle of 45°). The influences of using a freely rotating propeller on heat transfer enhancement and pressure drop are reported. The experimental results indicate that inserting the propeller downstream of the tube provides considerable improvement of the heat transfer rate higher than inserting the propeller upstream the tube. The increase in pressure drop resulting from using the propeller upstream is found to be higher than the downstream swirler. The maximum performance enhancement for the downstream swirler is about 326% while it is about 213% for upstream one. Correlations for relative mean Nusselt number and enhancement performance are presented for different fan locations and different Reynolds numbers.     

Numerical simulations of heat transfer distribution of a two-pass square channel with V-rib turbulator and bleed holes

The blade tip region in gas turbine encounters high thermal loads due to temperature difference and hence efforts for high durability and safe operations are essential. Improved and robust methods of cooling are required to downgrade heat transfer rate to turbine blades. The blade tip regions, which are exposed to high gas flow, suffers high local thermal load which are due to external tip leakage. Jet impingement, pin cooling etc. are techniques used for cooling blades. A more usual way is to use serpentine passage with 180-degree turn. In this study, numerical simulation of heat transfer distribution of a two-pass square channel with rib turbulators and bleed holes were done. Periodical rib turbulators and bleed holes were used in the channel. The ribs arrangement were 60 degree V rib, 60 degree inverted V ribs, combination of 60 degree V rib at inlet and 60 inverted V rib at outlet section and combination of Inverted V at inlet and V rib at the outlet. The results were numerically computed using Fluent with Reynolds number of 12,500 and 28,500. Turbulence models used for computations were k-ω-SST and RSM. Temperature based and shear stress based techniques were used for heat transfer distribution prediction. The results for 60 degree V rib, 60 degree inverted V ribs were compared with the experimental results for validation of the results obtained. Detailed distribution shows distinctive peaks in heat transfer around bleed holes and rib turbulator. Comparisons of the overall performance of the models with different orientation of rib turbulator are presented. It is found that due to the combination of 60 degree inverted V rib in inlet and 60 V rib in outlet with bleed holes provides better heat treatment. It is suggested that the use of rib turbulator with bleed holes provides suitable for augmenting blade cooling to achieve an optimal balance between thermal and mechanical design requirements.     

Detached eddy simulation of blade trailing-edge cutback cooling performance at various ejection slot angles

Detached eddy simulation (DES) has been carried out to study a three-dimensional trailing-edge (TE) cutback turbine blade model with five rows of staggered circular pin-fin arrays inside the cooling passage, in order to evaluate the cooling performance in relation to coolant ejection slot angle. Simulations were performed by adopting a shear-stress transport k-ω turbulence model, and the effects of three different ejection slot angles 5°, 10° and 15° were investigated in terms of the characteristics of adiabatic film-cooling effectiveness, coefficient of discharge, and vortex shedding frequencies, respectively. The results obtained have shown that the TE cutback blade cooling with a 5° coolant ejection slot angle produced a better heat transfer coefficient than the other two ejection slot angles tested. The distributions of adiabatic film-cooling effectiveness along the cutback walls were found to be sensitive to the coolant ejection slot angle, e.g. the increase of ejection slot angle to 15° yielded near unity of cooling effectiveness along the entire breakout walls, whereas the decrease of ejection slot angle caused a drastic decay of cooling effectiveness after the maximum effectiveness has been reached. Of the three angles studied, a TE cutback blade model with a 15° ejection slot angle produced an optimum film-cooling effectiveness. In the breakout region, vortex shedding was observed along the shear layer between the hot gas and the coolant airflow. The shedding frequencies were evaluated to be 2.93, 2.21, and 2.18 kHz for the ejection slot angles of 5°, 10° and 15°, respectively. The findings from this study could be useful to improve existing TE cutback turbine blade design to achieve optimum film-cooling performance.     

The pressure drop characteristics of air–water bubbling flow for evaporative heat transfer

This paper presents a study on a novel water bubbling layer pressure drop and heat transfer experiment that was conducted to investigate the characteristics of pressure drop of air flow across the water bubbling layer. The attempt was to reduce the pressure drop while maintaining a higher value of the heat transfer coefficient. This type of heat transfer between water and merged tubes has potential application in evaporative cooling. To achieve the goal the pressure drop should be reduced by decreasing the bubble layer thickness through the water pump circulation. Pressure drops of air passing through the perforated plate and the water bubbling layer were measured for different heights of water bubbling layer, hole-plate area ratio of the perforated plate and the air velocity through the holes. Experimental data show that the increase of water bubbling layer height and air velocity both increase the pressure drop while the effect of the hole-plate area ratio of the perforated plate on the heat transfer coefficient is relatively complex. The measurements showed that even at a considerably lower height of water bubbling layer the heat transfer coefficient can exceed 5,000 W/m²-K. The heat transfer coefficients of 30 mm high water bubbling layer are higher than that of other higher water bubbling layers tested in the experiments     

Effect of streamwise spacing on periodic and random unsteadiness in a bundle of short cylinders confined in a channel

While flow across long tube bundles is considered classical data, pin-fin arrays made up of short tubes have become a growing topic of interest for use in cooling gas turbine airfoils. Data from the literature indicate that decreasing streamwise spacing increases heat transfer in pin-fin arrays; however, the specific mechanism that causes increased heat transfer coefficients remains unknown. The present work makes use of time-resolved PIV to quantify the effects of streamwise spacing on the turbulent near wake throughout various pin-fin array spacings. Specifically, proper orthogonal decomposition was used to separate the (quasi-) periodic motion from vortex shedding and the random motion from turbulent eddies. Reynolds number flow conditions of 3.0?×?10³ and 2.0?×?10⁴, based on pin-fin diameter and velocity at the minimum flow area, were considered. Streamwise spacing was varied from 3.46 pin diameters to 1.73 pin diameters while the pin-fin height-to-diameter ratio was unity and the spanwise spacing was held constant at two diameters. Results indicated that (quasi-) periodic motions were attenuated at closer streamwise spacings while the level of random motions was not strongly dependent on pin-fin spacing. This trend was observed at both Reynolds number conditions considered. Because closer spacings exhibit higher heat transfer levels, the present results imply that periodic motions may not contribute to heat transfer, although further experimentation is required.     

Large area impingement spray cooling from multiple normal and inclined spray nozzles

An inclined spray chamber with four multiple nozzles to cool a 1 kW 6U electronic test card has been designed and tested in this study. The multiple inclined sprays can cover the same heated surface area as that with the multiple normal sprays but halve the volume of the spray chamber. The spray cooling system used R134a as a working fluid in a modified refrigeration cycle. It is observed that increasing mass flow rate and pressure drop across the nozzles improved the heat transfer coefficient with a maximum enhancement of 117 %, and reduced the maximum temperature difference at the heated surface from 13.8 to 8.4 °C in the inclined spray chamber with a heat flux of 5.25 W/cm², while the heat transfer coefficient of the normal spray increased with a maximum enhancement of 215 % and the maximum temperature difference decreased from 10.8 to 5.4 °C under similar operating conditions. We conclude that the multiple inclined sprays could produce a higher heat transfer coefficient but with an increase in non-uniformity of the surface temperature compared with the multiple normal sprays.     

Detailed heat transfer measurements inside straight and tapered two-pass channels with rib turbulators

Most of the studies on gas turbine blade internal channels have focused on constant cross-sectional areas from entrance to turn. Gas turbine blades are typically tapered from hub to tip to reduce thermal loading. These channels exist inside high-performance turbine blades for providing effective cooling to the blade external surface, which is exposed to high-temperature gas flow. Heat transfer measurements are presented for both the straight and tapered square channels including the turn region with and without rib turbulators. The straight channels will have a uniform square cross-section area of 5.08×5.08 cm². For the tapered channels, the square cross-sectional area reduces from entrance into the first pass (5.08×5.08 cm²) to the 180° turn (2.54×2.54 cm²) and then expands from turn to exit in the second pass (5.08×5.08 cm²). The heat transfer results for tapered channels are compared with results for straight channels. Results show that heat transfer in tapered smooth channels is enhanced significantly due to flow acceleration in the first pass, a combination of taper and turn and flow deceleration in the second pass. Overall, the tapered channels significantly produce higher heat transfer enhancements compared to the Dittus–Boelter correlation for fully developed flow especially in the after-turn region. Based on the results from this study, the heat transfer inside tapered channels in the after-turn region cannot be predicted by calculating local Reynolds numbers and using straight channel heat transfer correlations. However, the first pass Nusselt number enhancement distributions are similar for both straight and tapered channels when normalized using the local Nusselt number based on local Reynolds number. The difference in the after-turn region between the straight and tapered channels is reduced with the addition of rib turbulators.     

Multi-objective optimization of a dimpled channel for heat transfer augmentation

Staggered arrays of dimples printed on opposite surfaces of a cooling channel is formulated numerically and optimized with hybrid multi-objective evolutionary algorithm and Pareto optimal front. As Pareto optimal front produces a set of optimal solutions, the trends of objective functions with design variables are predicted by hybrid multi-objective evolutionary algorithm. The problem is defined by three non-dimensional geometric design variables composed of dimpled channel height, dimple print diameter, dimple spacing, and dimple depth, to maximize heat transfer rate compromising with pressure drop. Twenty designs generated by Latin hypercube sampling were evaluated by Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes solver and the evaluated objectives were used to construct Pareto optimal front through hybrid multi-objective evolutionary algorithm. The optimum designs were grouped by k-means clustering technique and some of the clustered points were evaluated by flow analysis. With increase in dimple depth, heat transfer rate increases and at the same time pressure drop also increases, while opposite behavior is obtained for the dimple spacing. The heat transfer performance is related to the vertical motion of the flow and the reattachment length in the dimple.     

Experimental investigation of chimney-enhanced natural convection in hexagonal honeycombs

The natural convective heat transfer performance of an aluminum hexagonal honeycomb acting as a novel heat sink for LED cooling is experimentally investigated. The concept of adding an adiabatic square chimney extension for heat transfer enhancement is proposed, and the effects of chimney shape, height, and diameter are quantified. The average N u_av of a heated honeycomb with straight chimney is significantly higher than that without chimney, and the enhancement increases with increasing chimney height. At a given chimney height, honeycombs with divergent chimneys perform better than those with convergent ones. For a fixed divergent angle, the N u_av number increases monotonically with increasing chimney height. In contrast, with the convergent angle fixed, there exists an optimal chimney height to achieve maximum heat transfer.     

Condensation of steam on the surface of hard coated copper discs

At atmospheric pressure filmwise (FWC) and dropwise (DWC) condensation have been studied on the surface of copper discs which were coated by silicon-modified amorpheous hydrogenated carbon (a-C?:?H-Si) films of different thickness. On vertically oriented surfaces the DWC heat transfer coefficients were found to be larger by a factor of about 10 than the FWC coefficients which follow as function of surface subcooling temperature quite well Nusselt’s theory. Varying the angle of surface inclination, the DWC coefficient decreased down to about 40% of the vertical-surface values for 180° (face down orientation). The mean value for all inclination angles between 30° and 180° was calculated to be 87.6% of the maximum value for the 90°-orientation. Partly coating of the copper surface indicates a strong heat transfer enhancement of DWC over FWC even for relative small coated parts (e.g., 19%-coating yields an enhancement by a factor 2.3 for a cooling water flow rate of 4?m³/h). The diamond like properties of the a-C?:?H-coatings promise long stand times and thus application also in real technical condensation systems.     

Heat transfer,pressure drop and flow patterns during flow boiling of R407C in a horizontal microfin tube

The heat transfer, pressure drop and flow patterns during flow boiling of R407C in a horizontal microfin tube have been investigated. The microfin tube is made of copper with a total fin number of 55 and a helix angle of 15°. The fin height is 0.24 mm and the inner tube diameter at fin root is 8.95 mm. The test tube is 1 m long. It is heated electrically. The experiments have been performed at saturation temperatures between −30°C and +10°C. The mass flux was varied between 25 and 300 kg/m²/s, the heat flux from 20,000 W/m² down to 1,000 W/m². The vapour quality was kept constant at 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7 at the inlet and 0.8, 1.0 at the outlet, respectively. The measured heat transfer coefficient is compared with the correlations of Cavallini et al., Shah as well as Zhang et al. Cavallini’s correlation contains seven experimental constants. After fitting these constants to our measured values, the correlation achieves good agreement. The measured pressure drop is compared to the correlations of Pierre, Kuo and Wang as well as Müller-Steinhagen and Heck. The best agreement is achieved with the correlation of Kuo and Wang. Almost all values are calculated within an accuracy of ±30%. The flow regimes were observed. It is shown, that changes in the flow regime affect the heat transfer coefficient significantly.     

Flow structure, heat transfer and pressure drop in varying aspect ratio two-pass rectangular smooth channels

Two-pass channels are used for internal cooling in a number of engineering systems e.g., gas turbines. Fluid travelling through the curved path, experiences pressure and centrifugal forces, that result in pressure driven secondary motion. This motion helps in moving the cold high momentum fluid from the channel core to the side walls and plays a significant role in the heat transfer in the channel bend and outlet pass. The present study investigates using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), the flow structure, heat transfer enhancement and pressure drop in a smooth channel with varying aspect ratio channel at different divider-to-tip wall distances. Numerical simulations are performed in two-pass smooth channel with aspect ratio W_in/H = 1:3 at inlet pass and W_out/H = 1:1 at outlet pass for a variety of divider-to-tip wall distances. The results show that with a decrease in aspect ratio of inlet pass of the channel, pressure loss decreases. The divider-to-tip wall distance (W_el) not only influences the pressure drop, but also the heat transfer enhancement at the bend and outlet pass. With an increase in the divider-to-tip wall distance, the areas of enhanced heat transfer shifts from side walls of outlet pass towards the inlet pass. To compromise between heat transfer and pressure drop in the channel, W_el/H = 0.88 is found to be optimum for the channel under study.     

Augmented heat transfer and pressure drop of strip-type inserts in the small tubes

An experiment is carried out to investigate the characteristics of the augmentation of heat transfer and pressure drop by different strip-type inserts in small tube having an inside diameter of 2.0 mm. The effects of the imposed wall heat flux, mass flux, strip inserts with various configurations (heights, widths, pitches) on the measured augmentative heat transfer and pressure drop are examined in detail. In order to obtain insight into the fluid flow phenomena, flow visualization was also made to observe the detailed fluid flow characteristics of the present tubes inserted with strip-type inserts. In addition, comparisons are made with a plain tube having the same length, heat transfer area and experimental conditions. The measured heat transfer coefficients and pressure drops for this small pipe are also emphasized to compare with those for larger pipes. Furthermore, in order to compare results from the different configurations of strip-type inserts, several enhancement factors and performance ratios are defined to account for the effects of augmentation. Moreover, correlation equations for the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop of the present study are proposed.The financial support extended by the National Science Council of the Republic of China through grant No. NSC-89-2212-E-230-004.     

A study on the flow field and local heat transfer performance due to geometric scaling of centrifugal fans

Scaled versions of fan designs are often chosen to address thermal management issues in space constrained applications. Using velocity field and local heat transfer measurement techniques, the thermal performance characteristics of a range of geometrically scaled centrifugal fan designs have been investigated. Complex fluid flow structures and surface heat transfer trends due to centrifugal fans were found to be common over a wide range of fan aspect ratios (blade height to fan diameter). The limiting aspect ratio for heat transfer enhancement was 0.3, as larger aspect ratios were shown to result in a reduction in overall thermal performance. Over the range of fans examined, the low profile centrifugal designs produced significant enhancement in thermal performance when compared to that predicted using classical laminar flow theory. The limiting non-dimensional distance from the fan, where this enhancement is no longer apparent, has also been determined. Using the fundamental information inferred from local velocity field and heat transfer measurements, selection criteria can be determined for both low and high power practical applications where space restrictions exist.     

Thermal and hydraulic performance of a three-phase fluidized bed cooling tower

An experimental study was made of the thermal and hydraulic characteristics of a three-phase fluidized bed cooling tower. The experiments were carried out in a packed tower of 200 mm diameter and 2.5 m height. The packing used was spongy rubber balls 12.7 mm in diameter and with a density of 375 kg/m³. The tower characteristic was evaluated. The air-side pressure drop and the minimum fluidization velocity were measured as a function of water/air mass flux ratio (0.4–2), static bed height (300–500 mm), and hot water inlet temperature (301–334 K).

The experimental results indicate that the tower characteristics KaV/L increases with increases in the bed static height and hot water inlet temperature and with decreases in the water/air mass flux ratio. It is also shown that the air-side pressure drop increases very slowly with increases in air velocity. The minimum, fluidization velocity was found to be independent of the static bed height.

The data obtained were used to develop a correlation between the tower characteristics, hot water inlet temperature, static bed height, and the water/air mass flux ratio. The mass transfer coefficient of the three-phase fluidized bed cooling tower is much higher than that of packed-bed cooling towers with higher packing height.     

A study on the flow field and local heat transfer performance due to geometric scaling of centrifugal fans

Scaled versions of fan designs are often chosen to address thermal management issues in space constrained applications. Using velocity field and local heat transfer measurement techniques, the thermal performance characteristics of a range of geometrically scaled centrifugal fan designs have been investigated. Complex fluid flow structures and surface heat transfer trends due to centrifugal fans were found to be common over a wide range of fan aspect ratios (blade height to fan diameter). The limiting aspect ratio for heat transfer enhancement was 0.3, as larger aspect ratios were shown to result in a reduction in overall thermal performance. Over the range of fans examined, the low profile centrifugal designs produced significant enhancement in thermal performance when compared to that predicted using classical laminar flow theory. The limiting non-dimensional distance from the fan, where this enhancement is no longer apparent, has also been determined. Using the fundamental information inferred from local velocity field and heat transfer measurements, selection criteria can be determined for both low and high power practical applications where space restrictions exist.