Exact analytical solution to three-dimensional phase change heat transfer problems in biological tissues subject to freezing

Analytically solving a three-dimensional （3-D） bioheat transfer problem with phase change during a freezing process is extremely difficult but theoretically important. The moving heat source model and the Green function method are introduced to deal with the cryopreservation process of in vitro biomaterials. Exact solutions for the 3-D temperature transients of tissues under various boundary conditions, such as totally convective cooling, totally fixed temperature cooling and a hybrid between them on tissue surfaces, are obtained. Furthermore, the cryosurgical process in living tissues subject to freezing by a single or multiple cryoprobes is also analytically solved. A closed-form analytical solution to the bioheat phase change process is derived by considering contributions from blood perfusion heat transfer, metabolic heat generation, and heat sink of a cryoprobe. The present method is expected to have significant value for analytically solving complex bioheat transfer problems with phase change.     

Heat and mass transfer in unsaturated porous media at a hot boundary: I. One-dimensional analytical model

We present a model of heat and mass transfer in an unsaturated zone of sand and silty clay soils, taking into account the effects of temperature gradients on the advective flux, and of the enhancement of thermal conduction by the process of latent heat transfer through vapor flow. The motivation for this study is to supply information for the planned storage of thermal energy in unsaturated soils and for hot waste storage. Information is required on the possibility of significant drying at a hot boundary, as this would reduce the thermal conductivity of a layer adjacent to the boundary and, thus, prevent effective heat transfer to the soil. This study indicates the possibility that the considered system may be unstable, with respect to the drying conditions, with the occurrence of drying depending on the initial and the boundary conditions. An analysis performed for certain boundary conditions of heat transfer and for given soil properties, disregarding the advective flux of energy, indicated that there are initial conditions of water content for which heating will not cause significant drying. Under these conditions, fine soils may be better suited for heat transfer at the hot boundary, due to their higher field capacity, although their heat conduction coefficients at saturation are lower than those of sandy soils. At present, these conclusions are limited to the range of 50–80°C. Potential effects of solute concentration at the hot boundary are indicated.     

Planar solidification of a warm flowing-liquid under different boundary conditions

Planar solidification of a warm flowing liquid with the convective heat transfer to the growing solid layer, has been analysed for the boundary conditions of constant temperature, constant heat flux and convective heat flux at the surface respectively. The mathematical formulation of the problem resulted in a coupled set of two differential equations in temperature and solid thickness as function of position, time and the problem parameters. Analytical expressions for the temperature distribution within the growing solid layer, the rate of solidification and the solidification time are obtained. The perturbation techniques employed here is simple and straight forward in contrast with the earlier techniques. Good agreement between the experimental results and the present solutions is obtained for the convective heat flux boundary condition. The results of this analysis are useful in the design and analysis of experiments dealing with freezing/melting in one dimension. The role of the parameter Stefan number which is small for phase change materials, is discussed in context with the storage of thermal energy.     

Unsteady Free Convection along an Infinite Vertical Flat Plate Embedded in a Stably Stratified Fluid-Saturated Porous Medium

The problem of unsteady free convection heat transfer from a one-dimensional (parallel) flow along an infinite vertical flat plate embedded in a thermally stratified fluid-saturated porous medium is considered. Flows are induced by a sudden change in the arbitrary temporal plate temperature. By a formal reduction of the corresponding boundary value problems to well-known Fourier heat conduction problems, analytical solutions of the Darcy and energy equations are obtained. Several special cases are discussed in detail.     

Effects of thermal buoyancy and variable thermal conductivity on the MHD flow and heat transfer in a power-law fluid past a vertical stretching sheet in the presence of a non-uniform heat source

The paper considers the flow of a power-law fluid past a vertical stretching sheet. Effects of variable thermal conductivity and non-uniform heat source/sink on the heat transfer are addressed. The thermal conductivity is assumed to vary linearly with temperature. Similarity transformation is used to convert the governing partial differential equations into a set of coupled, non-linear ordinary differential equations. Two different types of boundary heating are considered, namely Prescribed power-law Surface Temperature (PST) and Prescribed power-law Heat Flux (PHF). Shooting method is used to obtain the numerical solution for the resulting boundary value problems. The effects of Chandrasekhar number, Grashof number, Prandtl number, non-uniform heat source/sink parameters, wall temperature parameter and variable thermal conductivity parameter on the dynamics are shown graphically in several plots. The skin friction and heat transfer coefficients are tabulated for a range of values of the parameters. Present study reveals that in a gravity affected flow buoyancy effect has a significant say in the control of flow and heat transfer.     

Transient two-dimensional radiative and conductive heat transfer in an axisymmetric medium

This work considers transient conductive and radiative heat transfer in a two-dimensional, cylindrical, scattering medium heated or cooled by internal heat source or boundary surface. A finite difference scheme is employed for handling the energy storage and the heat diffusion by conduction, while a discrete-ordinate method is used to analyze the radiative heat transfer. The effects of various parameters, including the conduction-radiation parameter, the scattering albedo and the emissivity of the boundary surfaces, are investigated. Received on 30 April 1997     

Scaling Transformations for Boundary Layer Flow near the Stagnation-Point on a Heated Permeable Stretching Surface in a Porous Medium Saturated with a Nanofluid and Heat Generation/Absorption Effects

In this article, a similarity solution of the steady boundary layer flow near the stagnation-point flow on a permeable stretching sheet in a porous medium saturated with a nanofluid and in the presence of internal heat generation/absorption is theoretically studied. The governing partial differential equations with the corresponding boundary conditions are reduced to a set of ordinary differential equations with the appropriate boundary conditions via Lie-group analysis. Copper (Cu) with water as its base fluid has been considered and representative results have been obtained for the nanoparticle volume fraction parameter f{\phi} in the range 0 ￡ f ￡ 0.2{0\leq \phi \leq 0.2} with the Prandtl number of Pr = 6.8 for the water working fluid. Velocity and temperature profiles as well as the skin friction coefficient and the local Nusselt number are determined numerically. The influence of pertinent parameters such as nanofluid volume fraction parameter, the ratio of free stream velocity and stretching velocity parameter, the permeability parameter, suction/blowing parameter, and heat source/sink parameter on the flow and heat transfer characteristics is discussed. Comparisons with published results are also presented. It is shown that the inclusion of a nanoparticle into the base fluid of this problem is capable to change the flow pattern.     

Finite element analysis of convective heat transfer in porous media

The finite element method is used to analyse convective heat transfer in a porous medium. Convection past a vertical surface embedded in the medium and convection in a confined porous medium enclosure are analysed using the above method. The results are compared with those available in the literature and the agreement is found to be good. The method is applicable for two-dimensional analysis in a porous body of any arbitrary shape. The restriction of the boundary layer assumption is relaxed.     

Thermodynamic analysis of a thermal storage unit under the influence of nano-particles added to the phase change material and/or the working fluid

The thermal storage unit consists of two concentric cylinders where the working fluid flows through the internal cylinder and the annulus is filled with a phase change material. The system carries out a cyclic operation; each cycle consists of two processes. In the charging process the hot working fluid enters the internal cylinder and transfers heat to the phase change material. In the discharging process the cold working fluid enters the internal cylinder and absorbs heat from the phase change material. The differential equations governing the heat transfer between the two media are solved numerically. The numerical results are compared with the experimental results available in the literature. The performance of an energy storage unit is directly related to the thermal conductivity of nano-particles. The energy consumption of a residential unit whose energy is supplied by a thermal storage system can be reduced by 43?% when using nano-particles.     

Effect of porosity and the inlet heat transfer fluid temperature variation on the performance of cool thermal energy storage system

This paper discusses the results of numerical and experimental study of an encapsulated cool thermal energy storage system. The storage system is a cylindrical storage tank filled with phase change material encapsulated in spherical container, placed in a refrigeration loop. A simulation program was developed to evaluate the temperature histories of the heat transfer fluid and the phase change material at any axial location during the charging period. The present analysis aims at studying the influence of the inlet heat transfer fluid temperature and porosity on system performance. An experimental setup was designed and constructed to conduct the experiments. The results of the model were validated by comparison with experimental results of temperature profiles for different inlet heat transfer fluid temperatures and porosity. The results are in good agreement with the experimental results. The results reported are much useful for designing cool thermal energy storage systems.     

DSMC (direct simulation Monte Carlo) analysis of microchannel flow with gas–liquid boundary

High heat capacity and constant operation temperature make a 2-phase heat remover tool promising for solving high heat dissipation problems in MEMS devices. However, microscale analysis of the flow with the conventional Navier–Stokes equation is inadequate, because the non-continuum effect is important when the characteristic dimension is comparable to the local mean free path. DSMC is a direct, particle-based numerical simulation method that uses no continuum assumption. In this paper, the gas–liquid boundary effects in microchannel flow are studied using this method. Modified DSMC code is used to simulate low-speed flow—under which viscous heating produces no significant temperature change—and MD results are incorporated into the DSMC boundary condition. Steady Couette flow simulation results show that the gas–liquid boundary affects the density distribution and the temperature dependence of the slip velocity. Unsteady simulation results show that mass transfer by diffusion is faster than momentum transfer by collision.     

Optimization of size and shape of composite heat sinks with phase change materials

A composite heat sink is one in which a phase change material is interspersed with a high thermal conductivity base material to maximize the thermal performance of the device. Unlike constant area fins considered in literature, this work considers a repeating elemental composite heat sink (ECHS) with variable area fins. The base material is aluminium and the phase change material is n-Eicosane. An in house code was developed in MATLAB© to determine the time of operation for a vertical fins ECHS for a one dimensional approximation. This was followed by a two dimensional analysis of the problem using FLUENT 6.3. The effects of the shape of the interface surface on the time of operation and overall heat dissipated are determined and design modifications for the composite Heat Sinks based on the results obtained are suggested.     

Mixed convection heat transfer from a horizontal plate with variable surface heat flux in a porous medium

In this article nonsimilarity solution for mixed convection from a horizontal surface in a saturated porous medium was obtained for the case of variable surface heat flux. The entire mixed convection regime, ranging from pure forced convection to pure free convection, is considered by introducing a single nonsimilarity parameter. Heat transfer results are predicted by employing four different flow models, namely, Darcy's law, the Ergun model, and the Brinkman-Forchheimer-extended Darcy model with constant and variable porosity. The variable porosity effect is approximated by an exponential function. Effects of transverse thermal dispersion are taken into consideration in the energy equation, along with variable stagnant thermal conductivities. The formulation of the present problem shows that the flow and heat transfer characteristics depend on five parameters, that is, the power in the variation of surface heat flux, the nonsimilarity mixed-convection parameter, the inertia effect parameter, the boundary effect parameter, and the ratio of thermal conductivity of the fluid phase to that of the solid phase. Numerical results for the local Nusselt number variations, based on the various flow models, are presented for the entire mixed convection regime. The impacts␣of different governing parameters on the heat transfer results are thoroughly investigated. Received on 7 August 1997     

模拟相变问题的精细积分边界元法

将精细积分边界元法和界面追踪法相结合求解相变问题。因为边界元法只需要将待求解空间域的边界离散,方便连续追踪移动界面位置和重构网格,所以边界元法适合应用于移动边界问题的模拟。首先,利用精细积分边界元法在固相区域和液相区域分别求解相应的瞬态热传导控制方程,从而求得温度场和边界热流密度。然后,根据固-液相变界面上的能量平衡方程,利用热流密度求得相变界面的移动速度,再采用界面追踪法预测移动相变界面的位置变化。最后,给出了几个数值算例,并通过与参考解的对比验证本文方法的准确性。     

Interaction between heat dipole and circular interracial crack

The heat dipole consists of a heat source and a heat sink. The problem of an interfacial crack of a composite containing a circular inclusion under a heat dipole is investigated by using the analytical extension technique, the generalized Liouville theo-rem, and the Muskhelishvili boundary value theory. Temperature and stress fields are formulated. The effects of the temperature field and the inhomogeneity on the interracial fracture are analyzed. As a numerical illustration, the thermal stress intensity factors of the interfacial crack are presented for various material combinations and different po-sitions of the heat dipole. The characteristics of the interfacial crack depend on the elasticity, the thermal property of the composite, and the condition of the dipole.     

Free convection from a vertical plate with nonuniform surface heat flux and embedded in a porous medium

An analysis is presented for the calculation of heat transfer due to free convective flow along a vertical plate embedded in a porous medium with an arbitrarily varying surface heat flux. By applying the appropriate coordinate transformations and the Merk series, the governing energy equation is expressed as a set of ordinary differential equations. Numerical solutions are presented for these equations which represent universal functions and several computational examples are provided.     

Interaction between heat dipole and circular interfacial crack

The heat dipole consists of a heat source and a heat sink. The problem of an interracial crack of a composite containing a circular inclusion under a heat dipole is investigated by using the analytical extension technique, the generalized Liouville theorem, and the Muskhelishvili boundary value theory. Temperature and stress fields are formulated. The effects of the temperature field and the inhomogeneity on the interracial fracture axe analyzed. As a numerical illustration, the thermal stress intensity factors of the interfacial crack are presented for various material combinations and different positions of the heat dipole. The characteristics of the interfacial crack depend on the elasticity, the thermal property of the composite, and the condition of the dipole.     

Network simulation method for solving phase-change heat transfer problems with variable thermal properties

 The transient heat conduction equation in a finite slab undergoing phase change (two-phase problem of melting and solidification), with isothermal, adiabatic or convective boundary conduction is studied by the network simulation method; solid phase conductivity and specific heat are assumed to be dependent on temperature. Ablation, as a particular case, is also analysed. A network model is established for a cell and boundary conditions are added to complete the whole network model. No restrictions exist, as to the kinds of linear and non-linear boundary conditions, Stefan number values or the initial conditions (when hypotheses concern of the Stefan problem, numerical and exact solutions are compared for a large interval of Stefan numbers; simulation values show good agreement). Movement of the solid–liquid boundary and thermal fields are determined in all cases. Received on 10 May 2000 / Published online: 29 November 2001     

Analytical approximation for solidification processes in PCM storage with internal fins: imposed heat flux

Uses of thermal energy storage systems have expanded notably in recent decades. In thermal energy systems, internal heat transfer enhancement techniques such as fins are often used because of the low thermal conductivity of the phase change materials (PCMs). In this paper, solidification of a PCM is studied in a rectangular storage with horizontal internal plate fins and an imposed constant heat flux on the vertical walls. A simplified analytical solution is presented and its results are compared to those for a numerical approach based on an enthalpy method. The fraction of solidified PCM in storage is calculated with the derived analytical model which determines how much of the storage is solidified after a certain time. The results show that the analytical model satisfactorily estimates the solid–liquid interface and the temperature distribution for the fin, which are useful in the design of PCM-based thermal energy storage or cooling systems.