Experiments on thermal characteristics of a natural circulation loop with latent heat energy storage under cyclic pulsed heat load

 An experimental investigation has been made of thermal characteristics of a rectangular, annular single-phase natural circulation loop with the inner tube filled with a solid–liquid phase change material (PCM) under cyclic pulsating heat load. A rectangular, annular loop of 150 cm in height and 75 cm in width was constructed with an annular gap of 0.6 cm, within which water was filled. The inner tube of the annular loop was filled with a PCM (n-Eicosene) or air. Under the cyclic pulsating heat load, temperature field within the water-filled annular loop with PCM- or air-filled inner tube was found to evolve into a steady periodic variation for the range of parameters considered. The water temperature and/or its fluctuating amplitude along the heated or cooled sections of the loop with the PCM-filled inner tube were found to be markedly lower than those measured in the loop with the air-filled inner tube under the identical conditions. On the other hand, along the insulated sections of the loop a somewhat minute difference in temporal variations of the water temperatures exists between the loops with PCM- and air-filled inner tube. In addition, at the outer wall along the cooled section, a time-periodic variation of temperature was detected in synchronizing with the pulsating heat load. Parametric effects of varying amplitude and time-period of the pulsating heat input, as well as of varying the inlet coolant temperature of the cooling jacket were investigated. Received on 30 June 2000 The authors are grateful for the support for this study from National Science Council of Republic of China in Taiwan under the Project Nos. NSC87-2212-E006-054 and NSC88-2212-E006-022.     

Experimental investigations of flow field and heat transfer characteristics due to periodically pulsating impinging air jets

The paper concentrates on increasing convective heat transfer due to periodically pulsating impinging air jets. A maximum enhancement rate of cooling effectiveness up to 20% could be detected at an excitation Strouhal number of Sr = 0.82 when using a high pulsation magnitude. Reductions up to 5% occured at low Strouhal numbers with coincident high pulsation magnitudes as well. The thermal results were completed with phase-locked flow field investigations by means of PIV and surface visualizations using the oil film method.     

Einleitung nichtisothermer ebener Strahlen tangential und normal zu einer turbulenten Querströmung zum Zweck der Filmkühlung

The injection of plane cold air jets tangential or/and normal to a turbulent crossflow for the purpose of film cooling of combustion chamber walls is treated by developing a model based on the conservation equations which allows the calculation of the adiabatic wall temperature distribution. Starting with the differential equations of Prandtls boundary layer theory, Gaussian similarity profiles are assumed for the time averaged quantities of velocity and temperature. The different spread of heat and momentum for the jets is considered in the similarity profiles by an experimental expression for the turbulent Prandtl-number. The resulting linear differential equation system is closed by an entrainment hypothesis which pays attention to the suction effect of the jet. An additional ideal model conception is used to define the coupling conditions necessary for the interaction between tangentially and normally injected cold air streams. In order to demonstrate the capability of the mathematical model own experimental results as well as those of other authors are used for comparison with the calculations. The variety of investigated film cooling configurations reaches from pure tangential over pure normal up to the combination of both injection systems.     

A comparative study of flame-wall interaction and flame-cooling air interaction

This paper presents a three-dimensional (3D) direct numerical simulation (DNS) study of flame-wall interaction (FWI) and flame-cooling air interaction (FCAI). A preheated, methane/air mixture enters a channel with constant temperature walls, where the top wall is effusion cooled. An imposed vertical hot sheet near the inlet creates two flame branches interacting with the top and bottom walls. The flame is observed to be leaner in the region where it interacts with the effusion cooling jets. In this region, the flame is longer and features reduced CO mass fraction. The fluctuations in the heat release rate (HRR) and CO mass fraction are also relatively small near the top wall. Near the bottom wall, finger-like flame structures are formed due to the interaction of turbulent vortices with the flame surface. These flame structures initially move away from the wall as they propagate further downstream before eventually collapsing at the wall. This leads to the creation of regions of high wall heat flux and CO. While analysis of the CO thermochemical state shows a complex picture near the bottom wall, two-dimensional (2D) manifolds can be identified near the top wall. Therefore, a framework to estimate CO mass fraction due to FCAI based on 1D freely-propagating flame solutions is proposed showing a good agreement with the DNS results.     

Pulsating flow in a heat exchanger

The problem of heat transfer in industrial processes, heat exchangers, and combustion chambers is formulated for a case where flow inside the chamber consists of a periodic motion imposed on a fully developed turbulent flow. It is shown that the velocity pulsations induce harmonic oscillations in temperature, thus breaking the temperature field into a steady mean part and a harmonic part. The interaction between the velocity and temperature oscillations introduces an extra term into the energy equation which reflects the effect of pulsations in producing higher heat transfer rates. The analysis shows that when the mean temperature is fully developed with constant heat flux at the wall, there is no effect of the velocity pulsations on the total heat transfer rate along the chamber. For the case where the mean temperature profile is not fully developed, analytical solutions are obtained for asymptotic values of the pulsations frequency. The results show the temperature gradient and its dependence on the frequency. These results are used to evaluate the feasibility of pulsating the flow in a heat exchanger for obtaining higher rates of heat transfer.     

Magnetic resonance studies of a gas–solids fluidised bed: Jet–jet and jet–wall interactions

Magnetic resonance imaging （MRI） gave images of air jets from orifices in the distributor plate of a bed of poppy seeds. Attention focused on two features：
（1） The interaction between nearby vertical jets from two, three or four orifices;
（2） Wall effects, where one or more orifices created vertical jets near the vertical wall of the cylinder containing the particle bed.
The results show that nearby jets are mutually attracted. Likewise a jet near a wall bends out of the vertical, towards the wall, For multiple adjacent jets, the jet lengths show dependence on orifice layout： the lengths are in reasonable agreement with published measurements, by other methods, for single jets. The MRI gives three-dimensional images of the single jets and of multiple jets, separate or merging.     

Performance studies of energy consumption for single and multiple nozzle systems under impinging air jets

Impinging air jets of various shapes, sizes and configurations are commonly used in heating, cooling and drying industrial processes. An analytical study has been carried out to optimise the thermal performance of single and multiple nozzle systems using impinging air jets. The optimisation of the nozzle array was given for practical purposes. The results show that within practical limits, a narrower nozzle size results in a greater heat and mass transfer coefficient. An economical analysis of the drying processes is also given for slot nozzles.     

Scaling investigation of plasma-induced flows over curved and flat surfaces: Comparison to the wall jet

The present investigation deals with Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) induced jets flowing over curved surfaces and studied in the framework of a circulation control application, carried out by acting near the rounded trailing-edge of an airfoil. These jets are characterized experimentally via Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) in quiescent air conditions. The study assesses the evolution of these flows in terms of self-similarity of the mean flow and of its turbulent components. DBD wall jets evolution in the streaming direction is also analyzed through the rate of spread and the maximum velocity decay evolution as commonly done for fluidic wall jets, and also through several normalized quantities deriving from different length and velocity scales. A comparison with a canonical flow, such as the classical wall jet flowing over plane or curved surfaces, is made in order to find out the similarities and the discrepancies between these two flows. Results reveal that DBD wall jets and canonical fluidic wall jets show comparable properties in the diffusion zone. Compared to the plane DBD wall jet, centrifugal forces are responsible of the greater spread of curved DBD wall jets and are likely the source of instabilities leading to their transitional state. The momentum flux of the induced jet and the radius of curvature of the surface are two relevant scales for DBD induced flows developing over curved surfaces.     

Distinctive features of variation in the thermal structure of impinging gas jets

Turbulent structures occurring in impinging air jets in both original and excited states are identified by means of processing the sequences of thermal images (thermal videofilms). It is assumed that the structure in a jet is a flow region in all whose points (elements) the temperature as a control parameter varies with time in accordance with a single dynamic law. An analysis of the obtained two-dimensional distributions of the characteristic frequencies of temperature fluctuations in impinging air jets makes it possible to reveal and to determine the generation and the localization of structure regions, the time intermittence effect, the difference in the nature of structure formations, and the structure formation effect on heat transfer.     

Die turbulente Grenzschicht an einer stark geheizten ebenen Platte bei Unterschallströmung

Experiments for air flowing over a flat plate heated up to 250°C with velocities of 10 to 30 m/s, which have been made at the DFVLR-AVA, are briefly reviewed and a new analysis of the data is given. The analysis is based on an analytical representation of the velocity and temperature profiles. Close to the wall, a law of the wall approximation is used, which includes the effect of density and viscosity variation. The whole velocity profile is constructed by adding Coles' law of the wake to the law of the wall. In a similar way, the temperature profile is obtained from the law of the wall and an auxiliary distribution. The integrals of momentum and heat flux for two-dimensional flow are used in conjunction with a similarity assumption, to derive a relation between rate of heat transfer from the plate and skin friction. A maximum likelihood procedure has been applied to determine skin friction and rate of heat transfer from the measured dynamic pressure profiles.—The analytical velocity and temperature profiles are found in good agreement with the experimental data, except for the stations near the leading edge of plate. The skin friction coefficients and the Stanton numbers decrease slightly in downstream direction as a consequence of growing local Reynolds number, and decrease with increasing ratio of plate to free stream temperature. The latter fact is in qualitative agreement with the behavior of turbulent boundary layers in supersonic flow. The ratio of Stanton number to half of skin friction coefficient (Reynolds analogy factor) varies with increasing local boundary layer Reynolds number from 1.23 to 1.16.     

Numerical and experimental study of heat transfer in a tall vertical closed cavity

In this work the numerical and experimental results of heat transfer in a vertical tall closed cavity are presented. The cavity has an aspect ratio of 20, one of the vertical walls receive a constant and uniform heat flux, while the opposite wall is kept at a constant temperature. The remaining walls are assumed adiabatic. The cavity is full of air. The computational fluid dynamics software Fluent 6.3 was used for the simulation and an experimental prototype was built to obtain the heat transfer coefficients. The air temperature and the fluid velocity values are higher when emissivity (ε) is 0.03 (almost pure natural convection). The experimental total heat transfer coefficient increases between 119.9 and 159.9 % when the emissivity of the walls changes from 0.03 to 0.95.     

Heat transfer from an obliquely impinging circular, air jet to a flat plate

A series of experiments was conducted for the measurement of local convective heat transfer coefficients for an obliquely impinging circular air jet to a flat plate. In the experiments, the oblique angles selected were 90°, 75°, 60° and 45°, with 90° being a vertical jet. Two different Reynolds numbers of 10,000 and 23,000 were considered for the purpose of comparison with previous data available in the literature. Another parameter varied in the measurements was the dimensionless jet-to-plate distance, L/D. Four values of L/D(2, 4, 7, and 10) were considered in the experiments. The experiments were conducted using the preheated wall transient liquid-crystal technique. Liquid-crystal color changes were recorded with a video system. Local convective heat transfer coefficients were obtained through the surface transient temperatures that were related to the recorded color information. Detailed local heat transfer coefficients were presented and discussed in relation to the asymmetric wall jet upon impingement of the jet flow. Results of experiments show that, for a given flow situation, the point of maximum heat transfer shifts away from the geometrical impingement point toward the compression side of the wall jet on the axis of symmetry. The shift is more pronounced with a smaller oblique angle (larger jet inclination) and a smaller jet-to-plate distance. Comparisons of experimental results with existing heat transfer data for both obliquely impinging jets and vertical impinging jets are made. The effect of oblique angles on heat transfer was assessed.     

Experimental study of convective heat transfer under arrays of impinging air jets from slots and circular holes

 Impinging air jets are widely used in industry, for heating, cooling, drying, etc, because of the high heat transfer rates which is developed in the impingement region. To provide data for designers of industrial equipment, a large multi-nozzle rig was used to measure average heat transfer coefficients under arrays of both slot nozzles and circular holes. The aim of the present paper is to develop the relationship between heat transfer coefficient, air mass flow and fan power which is required for the optimum design of nozzle systems. The optimum free area was obtained directly from experimental results. The theory of optimum free area was analysed and good agreement was found between theoretical and experimental results. It was also possible to optimise the variables, to achieve minimum capital and running costs. Received on 21 November 2000 / Published online: 29 November 2001     

Experimental simulation of heat transfer in an HF-plasmatron with lengthened segmented discharge channel

Subsonic and supersonic air induction plasma flows in a VGU-4 100 kW plasmatron with segmented water-cooled cylindrical nozzle with the outlet cross-section 40 mm in diameter are investigated experimentally. The enthalpy on the axis of flow is measured in subsonic air jets. The heat fluxes are measured at the stagnation flow point on a cylindrical water-cooled model 50 mm in diameter located in subsonic air and nitrogen jets. The effect of the generator power, nozzle length, and pressure in the plasmatron pressure chamber on the distributions of the heat flux and the pressure at the stagnation point on the surface of cylindrical models 20 mm in diameter with a plane and hemispheric nose is investigated along the axis of underexpanded dissociated air jets.     

Study on three-dimensional expansion characteristics of four wall combustion-gas jets in confined liquid space

To explore further the launch mechanism of the new underwater launching technology proposed in this paper, the expansion characteristics of four wall combustion-gas jets in confined liquid space must be studied firstly. The experimental device is designed, and the high-speed digi-tal photographic system is adopted to obtain the expansion sequence processes of Taylor cavities formed by the four wall jets. Meanwhile, the influence of the injection pres-sure on the axial expansion property of the four wall jets is discussed. Based on the experiments, a three-dimensional unsteady mathematical model is established to simulate the turbulent flow process of the four wall jets expanding in liquid, and the temporal and spatial distribution laws of phase, pressure, temperature, and velocity and the evolution rules of vortices are illustrated in detail. Results show that, accompanied by the jets expanding downstream, the four wall combustion-gas jets get close to each other and achieve convergence eventually under induction of the interference effect between multiple jets. Meanwhile, the heads of the Taylor cavities separate from the observation chamber wall and offset to the central axis of the observation chamber with time going on. The numerical simulation results of the four wall combustion-gas jets coincide well with the experimental data.     

Analysis of heat transfer in a partially wet radial fin assembly during dehumidification

This paper presents the analysis of heat transfer in a partially wet annular fin assembly during the process of dehumidification. In past studies, both fully dry and fully wet fins have been analyzed. New analytical formulation leading to a closed-form solution has been developed for a partially wet fin, which is most common in dehumidifier coil operation during air conditioning. The parameters that influenced the heat transfer rate in the finned tube structure are ratio of fin and wall thermal conductivities, ratio of fin thickness to fin pitch, ratio of wall thickness to fin pitch, ratio of fin length to fin pitch, cold fluid Biot number, ambient Biot number, the relative humidity and dry bulb temperature of the incoming air, and the cold fluid temperature inside the coil. Calculations were carried out to study the performance of the heat exchanger. The computed results included the temperature distribution in the wall and the fin and the fin efficiency.     

An investigation into the interaction of closely-spaced starting jets

The transient, three-dimensional scavenging flow inside a novel two-stroke engine has been investigated both experimentally in a scaled water model as well as numerically using a commercial CFD code incorporating an unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) formulation. The scavenging flow consists of 16 round jets in close proximity of each other and the cylinder wall, developing from the top of the combustion chamber down towards the exhaust ports located along the wall at the bottom of the cylinder. Flow visualization of the scavenging flow was performed using a scaled fixed-piston water model and was used as a means of validating the URANS simulations themselves. The flow visualization experiments provided insight into the complex jet–jet and jet–wall interactions within the engine cylinder. These interactions were not as well predicted by the CFD simulations. In fact, the CFD simulations were found to significantly under-predict the turbulent mixing between the jets. This suggests that unsteady-RANS formulations are incapable of reproducing the large-scale and unsteady mixing structures associated with the vortex shedding between the closely-spaced jets.     

Wall jet similarity of impinging planar underexpanded jets

Velocity profiles and wall shear stress values in the wall jet region of planar underexpanded impinging jets are parameterized based on nozzle parameters (stand-off height, jet hydraulic diameter, and nozzle pressure ratio). Computational fluid dynamics is used to calculate the velocity fields of impinging jets with height-to-diameter ratios in the range of 15–30 and nozzle pressure ratio in the range of 1.2–3.0. The wall jet has an incomplete self-similar profile with a typical triple-layer structure as in traditional wall jets. The effects of compressibility are found to be insignificant for wall jets with Ma < 0.8. Wall jet analysis yielded power-law relationships with source dependent coefficients describing maximum velocity, friction velocity, and wall distances for maximum and half-maximum velocities. Source dependency is determined using the conjugate gradient method. These power-law relationships can be used for mapping wall shear stress as a function of nozzle parameters.     

Using Stability Theory to Analyse Configurations of Pulsed Jets for Flow Control

During the last decade, efforts for simulating active flow control behavior by the use of pulsating jets have multiplied. In the present work, a URANS is used mostly for simulation, where the resulting flow characteristics can be reproduced with fair but adequate accuracy for engineering applications. This computational tool provides information concerning the effect on the flow, of the flow control. An additional computational tool is introduced, that of flow stability analysis, which allows to optimize the frequency and the position of the actuators (here pulsating jets). This tool will be developed through flow stability arguments. Both tools will be used within the context of the present paper and for reasons explained below, for suppressing only flow separation in internal flow cases. Once the computational tools are described/developed, they will be applied to a specific case. The optimization procedure will be demonstrated and discussed.