A Subgrid-Scale Model for Turbulent Flow in Porous Media

Transport in Porous Media - Given the analogy between the filtered equations of large eddy simulation and volume-averaged Navier–Stokes equations in porous media, a subgrid-scale model is...     

Thermal Performance Evaluation of a Double-Tube Heat Exchanger Partially Filled with Porous Media Under Turbulent Flow Regime

A two-dimensional analysis of the onset of thermal convective instability in a horizontal porous layer with open upper boundary is carried out. The saturating fluid is non-Newtonian of power-law behaviour, and its flow is represented through a suitable extension of Darcy’s law. A model of temperature-dependent viscosity is employed where the consistency index is considered as variable, while the power-law index is assumed to be constant. Numerical data for the neutral stability and for the critical values of a modified Darcy–Rayleigh number have been obtained. The feasibility of an experimental validation of the theoretical results predicted by the stability analysis is discussed in detail. An experimental set-up based on a Hele-Shaw cell is described, and preliminary results relative to the onset of convective cells are described. Observed hysteretic effects and deviations from the rheological model are identified as potential sources of uncertainty.     

Investigation of Hydrodynamic Dispersion and Intra-pore Turbulence Effects in Porous Media

Transport in Porous Media - The aim of the present paper is to evaluate and compare the pore level hydrodynamic dispersion and effects of turbulence during flow in porous media. In order to compute...     

Thermal performance evaluation of a nanofluid‐based flat‐plate solar collector

The thermal performance of a flat-plate solar collector (FPSC) is investigated experimentally and analytically. The studied nanofluid is SiO₂/deionized water with volumetric concentration up to 0.6% and nanoparticles diameter of 20–30 nm. The tests and also the modeling are performed based on ASHRAE standard and compared with each other to validate the developed model. The dynamic model is based on the energy balance in a control volume. The system of derived equations is solved by employing an implicit finite difference scheme. Moreover, the thermal conductivity and viscosity of SiO₂ nanofluid have been investigated thoroughly. The measurement findings indicate that silica nanoparticles, despite their low thermal conductivity, have a great potential for improving the thermal performance of FPSC. Analyzing the characteristic parameters of solar collector efficiency reveals that the effect of nanoparticles on the performance improvement is more pronounced at higher values of reduced temperature. The thermal efficiency, working fluid outlet temperature and also absorber plate temperature of the modeling have been confirmed with experimental verification. A satisfactory agreement has been achieved between the results. The maximum percentage of deviation for working fluid outlet temperature and collector absorber plate temperature is 0.7% and 3.7%, respectively.

     

Investigation of Post-Darcy Flow in Thin Porous Media

Transport in Porous Media - We present numerical simulations of post-Darcy flow in thin porous medium: one consisting of staggered arrangements of circular cylinders and one random distribution of...     

A pore scale study on turbulent combustion in porous media

This paper presents pore scale simulation of turbulent combustion of air/methane mixture in porous media to investigate the effects of multidimensionality and turbulence on the flame within the pores of porous media. In order to investigate combustion in the pores of porous medium, a simple but often used porous medium consisting of a staggered arrangement of square cylinders is considered in the present study. Results of turbulent kinetic energy, turbulent viscosity ratio, temperature, flame speed, convective heat transfer and thermal conductivity are presented and compared for laminar and turbulent simulations. It is shown that the turbulent kinetic energy increases from the inlet of burner, because of turbulence created by the solid matrix with a sudden jump or reduction at the flame front due to increase in temperature and velocity. Also, the pore scale simulation revealed that the laminarization of flow occurs after flame front in the combustion zone and turbulence effects are important mainly in the preheat zone. It is shown that turbulence enhances the diffusion processes in the preheat zone, but it is not enough to affect the maximum flame speed, temperature distribution and convective heat transfer in the porous burner. The dimensionless parameters associated with the Borghi–Peters diagram of turbulent combustion have been analyzed for the case of combustion in porous media and it is found that the combustion in the porous burner considered in the present study concerns the range of well stirred reactor very close to the laminar flame region.     

Improving the flow uniformity in compact parallel-flow heat exchangers manifold using porous distributors

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - The present study deals with the numerical simulation of turbulent flow in a Z-type manifold in which the fluid is distributed via nine distribution...     

Nonadiabatic Absorption Spectra and Ultrafast Dynamics of DNA and RNA Photoexcited Nucleobases

We have recently proposed a protocol for Quantum Dynamics (QD) calculations, which is based on a parameterisation of Linear Vibronic Coupling (LVC) Hamiltonians with Time Dependent (TD) Density Functional Theory (TD-DFT), and exploits the latest developments in multiconfigurational TD-Hartree methods for an effective wave packet propagation. In this contribution we explore the potentialities of this approach to compute nonadiabatic vibronic spectra and ultrafast dynamics, by applying it to the five nucleobases present in DNA and RNA. For all of them we computed the absorption spectra and the dynamics of ultrafast internal conversion (100 fs timescale), fully coupling the first 2–3 bright states and all the close by dark states, for a total of 6–9 states, and including all the normal coordinates. We adopted two different functionals, CAM-B3LYP and PBE0, and tested the effect of the basis set. Computed spectra are in good agreement with the available experimental data, remarkably improving over pure electronic computations, but also with respect to vibronic spectra obtained neglecting inter-state couplings. Our QD simulations indicate an effective population transfer from the lowest energy bright excited states to the close-lying dark excited states for uracil, thymine and adenine. Dynamics from higher-energy states show an ultrafast depopulation toward the more stable ones. The proposed protocol is sufficiently general and automatic to promise to become useful for widespread applications.