Experimental Study on a Pulsation-enhanced Heat Transfer Device

Heat transfer and pressure drop performance of solar glycol/activated carbon based nanofluids in shot peened double pipe heat exchanger

Scaling caused by long-term operation is a common fault of the heat exchanger. Fouling will reduce the heat transfer efficiency of heat exchanger, thus affecting the operation cycle of equipment, reducing product quality, and easy to induce production safety accidents. The quantitative evaluation principle and classification standard of heat exchanger fouling condition based on calculating the heat transfer coefficient as the core analysis process were proposed. The calculation methods of query temperature, pressure difference, temperature difference, effective average temperature difference, heat flow and heat transfer coefficient of fluid physical parameters were analyzed. A distributed monitoring system for fouling state of heat exchanger was developed and the system hardware design method and software operation architecture were introduced in detail. The system was successfully applied to the online monitoring of fouling state of a U-tube heat exchanger. The fouling hidden danger of the tested heat exchanger was found.

A microchannel radiator is advantageous due to its high efficiency and large boiling heat transfer coefficient of two-phase flow. Based on the research of uniform lattice structures, this study proposed a microchannel heat exchanger with a nonuniform lattice structure. The calculation, optimal formation, and boiling heat transfer performance of the nonuniform lattice structure based on selective laser melting (SLM) were investigated, and heat exchange samples were successfully prepared using SLM. The porosity and pore morphology of the samples were analysed, and the contrast experiments of boiling heat transfer were conducted with deionised water. The results revealed that the heat flow density of the lattice structure was a minimum of 244% higher than that of the traditional liquid-cooled plate. The critical heat flux density of the lattice structure is 110 W∙cm−2, and the critical heat flux density of the traditional flat plate is 45 W∙cm−2. In addition, the effects of cell structures indicated that for frame cells, the heat transfer effect of nonuniform frames was inferior to that of uniform frames; for face-centred cubic (FCC) cells, the nonuniform and uniform frames exhibited the same trend. However, the heat flow density of FCC cells was 25% higher than that of frame structures.

Numerical study of heat transfer in gravity-driven dense particle flow around a hexagonal tube

An open-cell metal foam has excellent characteristics such as low density, high porosity, high specific surface area, high thermal conductivity, and low mass due to its unique internal three-dimensional network structure. It has gradually become a new material for enhanced heat transfer in industrial equipment, new compact heat exchangers, microelectronic device cooling, etc. This research established a comprehensive three-dimensional structural model of open-cell metal foams utilizing Laguerre–Voronoi tessellations and employed computational fluid dynamics to investigate its flow dynamics and coupled heat transfer performance. By exploring the impact of foam microstructure on flow resistance and heat transfer characteristics, the study provided insights into the overall convective heat transfer performance across a range of foam configurations with varying pore densities and porosities. The findings revealed a direct correlation between convective heat transfer coefficient (h) and pressure drop (ΔP) with increasing Reynolds number (Re), accompanied by notable changes in fluid turbulence kinetic energy (e) and temperature (T), ultimately influencing heat transfer efficiency. Furthermore, the analysis demonstrated that alterations in porosity (ε) and pore density significantly affected unit pressure drop (ΔP/L) and convective heat transfer coefficient (h). This study identified an optimal configuration, highlighting a metal foam with a pore density of 20 PPI and a porosity of 95% as exhibiting superior overall convective heat transfer performance.

Numerical analysis of the two-phase heat transfer in the heat exchanger of a mixed refrigerant Joule–Thomson cryocooler

Heat transfer and flow characteristics of two-phase two-component annular flow

In this study, the additive manufacturing technique has been utilized to fabricate air-water heat exchangers for the application of thermoelectric power plants. Additive manufacturing is a powerful fabrication method that has enabled fabrication of complex geometries that are either challenging or impossible to fabricate based on conventional techniques. Three manifold-microchannel heat exchangers with different interior designs were fabricated by additive manufacturing and from stainless steel. The heat exchangers were tested at different air flow rates and different inlet water temperatures. One heat exchanger was designed and fabricated based on an original design of the manifold-microchannel heat exchanger. Two other heat exchangers were designed with some modifications compared to the original design. In one modified heat exchanger, cylindrical pin arrays were considered on air manifold walls in order to enhance air disturbance, and thus, increase heat transfer between water and air. The second modified heat exchanger contained same pins and also had microchannels in the perpendicular orientation compared to the original design in the outlet manifolds. This design modification was done in order to reduce air-side pressure drop in the heat exchanger. The heat transfer characteristics along with air-side pressure drop were measured and compared with the original design of the manifold-microchannel heat exchanger. Results indicated that the heat flow rate, convection heat transfer coefficient, and pressure drop did not significantly change in modified heat exchangers. For air Reynolds number between around 800 and 4,000, the heat flow rates obtained in the original heat exchanger (type A) and for 50° C water inlet temperature were between 63.9 and 228 W for the lowest and the highest air flow rates, respectively. For the same inlet water temperature, these heat flow rates were between 64.2 and 211 W for the lowest and the highest air flow rates and in one of the modified heat exchangers (type B), respectively. Similarly, while the highest air-side pressure drop in the original heat exchanger was 3458 Pa, this property was measured at 3525 (type B) and 3884 (type C) for the two modified heat exchangers.

An empirical investigation on flow pattern, heat transfer, and pressure drop during flow boiling of R1234yf in an inclined plain tube

Investigating the coupling effect of ventilation and GHEs on temperature distribution and heat transfer characteristics

Experimental study on the characteristics of heat transfer and flow resistance in turbulent pipe flows of viscoelastic-fluid-based Cu nanofluid

Experimental investigation on non-boiling heat transfer of two-component air-oil and air-water slug flow in horizontal pipes

Flow boiling heat transfer mechanisms and flow characteristics of pump-driven two-phase flow systems used in data center cooling

In the past two decades, enhancement of heat transfer characteristics of original fluid using nanofluids has been proposed by a large number of researchers. In this paper, an experimental study was carried out to investigate effect of pulsation on heat transfer of fluid flow inside a spiral-coil tube. In order to perform the experiments, a hot water reservoir tank was prepared and the spiral-coil was immersed horizontally inside the tank. Average temperature of the hot water bath was kept constant at 60 °C to establish a quiescent region of uniform temperature. The experiments were conducted in turbulent flow regime using distilled water and Al2O3/water nanofluid at 0.5, 1, and 1.5 % particle volume concentration. Results showed that overall heat transfer coefficient of the base fluid flow increases by using nanofluid or pulsation into the base fluid flow up to 14 %. Heat transfer results also indicated that combination of the nanofluid and the pulsation into the fluid flow can increase significantly the overall heat transfer coefficient up to 23 %.

Flow and heat transfer characteristics of ice slurries in a helically-coiled pipe