Performance of earth air tunnels

Corresponding to the annual variation of the meteorological data for the year 1974 at New Delhi, a study of the annual variation of the ground temperature distribution has been carried out for different surface conditions. At a depth of around 4 m the temperature remains almost constant in all the cases; it is maximum (～ 53°C) for a dry glazed black surface and minimum (～ 17-3°C) for a wet shaded surface, respectively. An earth air tunnel dug at this depth provides heating/cooling to the air flowing inside it during winter/summer. We have carried out a parametric study of the performance of such tunnels in terms of the heat gain/loss by air flowing through them.     

Boiling Heat Transfer Performance in a Spiraling Radial Inflow Microchannel Cold Plate

ABSTRACT

This study presents an experimental exploration of flow boiling heat transfer in a spiraling radial inflow microchannel heat sink. The effect of surface wettability, fluid subcooling, and mass fluxes are considered. The design of the heat sink provides an inward radial swirl flow between parallel, coaxial disks that form a microchannel of 300 microns. The channel is heated on one side, while the opposite side is essentially adiabatic to simulate a heat sink scenario for electronics cooling. To explore the effects of varying surface wetting, experiments were conducted with two different heated surfaces. One was a clean, machined copper surface and the other was a surface coated with zinc oxide nanostructures that are superhydrophilic. During boiling, increased wettability resulted in quicker rewetting and smaller bubble departure diameter, as indicated by reduced temperature oscillations during boiling, and achieving higher maximum heat flux without dryout. The highest heat transfer coefficients were seen in fully developed boiling with low subcooling levels as a result of heat transfer being dominated by nucleate boiling. The highest heat fluxes achieved were during partial subcooled flow boiling at 300 W/cm² with an average surface temperature of 134° Celsius. Recommendations for electronics cooling applications are also discussed.     

Theoretical model to estimate the thermal performance of an evaporative wind tower placed in an open space

A theoretical model to evaluate the thermal performance of an evaporative wind tower installed in open spaces with hot and dry climates has been developed. It was based on the laws of conservation of mass and energy and used TRNSYS as a simulation tool. Evaporative wind towers produce an adiabatic cooling which has been modelled taking into account all the heat and mass exchanges between the airflow and the injected water, and also considering the processes of radiation, convection and conduction. The system analyzed has a special design based on an existing installation placed in Madrid, which is composed of sixteen evaporative wind towers with one fan and six nozzles on the top of each one. A first validation of this theoretical model was done by comparing calculated results obtained through numerical simulation with experimental data. These last data were previously registered in a campaign carried out during the summer 2008 to evaluate the thermal behaviour of the system. To contrast both results, the same initial assumptions in fan and water operation as well as environmental conditions were considered. The comparison between them during the period of 18th to 20th July 2008, show an average temperature drop of 6.5 °C and an average increase of relative humidity of 27%. These values present a high correlation, up to 0.79, between experimental and calculated wet bulb depression. The average cooling power achieved by this system varies from 13 to 16 kW, with maximum peaks around 20 kW. So this theoretical model could be used for future energy estimations of wind towers design with similar constructive characteristics.     

Numerical Analysis of Experimental Observations for Heat Transfer Augmentation by Ultrasonic Vibration

Previous experimental measurements showed that heat transfer performance of heaters submerged in a water pool is enhanced when ultrasonic vibration is applied to the pool. The increase rate in CHF values varied depending on the inclination angle of the heated surface with the maximum when horizontal and facing downward. Despite the obvious enhancement of heat transfer performance, it was not clear how ultrasonic vibration influenced heat transfer in a pool. In order to understand the mechanism, the experimental conditions inside the water pool with and without ultrasonic vibration were numerically analyzed. A commercial CFD package that has a dynamic mesh model, FLUENT V.6.1, was used in the analysis. The results show that the standard deviation of temperature distribution in the pool is reduced when ultrasonic vibration is applied to the pool. The reduction rate of standard deviation of temperature is greatest when the heated surface faces downward and decreases as the inclination angle of heated surfaces increases. This trend coincides with the trend of CHF increase rate. Based on these results, it is concluded that an ultrasonic vibration enhances fluid mixing around the heater and thus provides heated surface with fresh water. This has an effect of lowering liquid temperature adjacent to heater surface, and in turn, leads to a heat transfer augmentation.     

溴化锂制冷技术在低温热回收利用中的应用

九江石化为了降低炼油能耗,实施了延迟焦化装置低温余热回收综合利用改造,将50℃热媒水分别进入常减压、1号催化、2号催化等6套热源装置,换热到128℃后,用于再沸器加热,为控制热媒水温度,在末端配有冷却循环水,控制热媒水返回温度在50℃左右。为了增加低温热系统的操作弹性,改造中引入了溴化锂制冷技术。溴化锂制冷机理为水在物体表面蒸发汽化,带走物体表面的热量,在真空条件下,物体表面温度会降到很低。溴化锂是一种吸水性极强的盐类物质,可以连续不断地将周围的水蒸气吸收过来,可创造和维持真空条件。溴化锂吸收式制冷机是利用溴化锂作吸收剂,用水作制冷剂,利用不同温度下溴化锂水溶液对水蒸气的吸收与释放来实现制冷的。应用溴化锂机组后,装置热平衡系统得到优化,循环热媒水末端温度下降到64℃(投用前为76℃),可节约冷却循环水600t/h;焦化装置干气吸收效果明显改善,C3+组分平均值为2.75%(体积分数),同比下降3.11个百分点。     

Improving Photovoltaic Module Efficiency Using Water Cooling

An effective way of improving efficiency and reducing the rate of thermal degradation of a photovoltaic (PV) module is by reducing the operating temperature of its surface. This can be achieved by cooling the module and reducing the heat stored inside the PV cells during operation. In this paper, long-term performance modeling of a proposed solar-water pumping system is carried out. The system, which is used for irrigation purposes, consists of a PV module cooled by water, a submersible water pump, and a water storage tank. Cooling of the PV panel is achieved by introducing water trickling configuration on the upper surface of the panel. An experimental rig is developed to investigate and evaluate PV module performance with the proposed cooling technique. The experimental results indicated that due to the heat loss by convection between water and the PV panel's upper surface, an increase of about 15% in system output is achieved at peak radiation conditions. Long-term performance of the system is estimated by integrating test results in a commercial transient simulation package using site radiation and ambient temperature data. The simulation results of the system's annual performance indicated that an increase of 5% in delivered energy from the PV module can be achieved during dry and warm seasons.     

Evaporating system for cryogenic support of long length HTS power cables

The paper deals with an analysis of the results of theoretical and experimental research on an evaporating system for cryogenic support as supplied to long length thermostatting channels of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) cables and hybrid power transmission lines as well as thermal control systems for cryogenic components in aircraft fuel tanks during long-term spaceflights. Experimental evidence for nitrogen and hydrogen are presented here. The importance of such research for practical application in developing modern cryostatting systems has been highlighted.The design of an experimental hybrid power transmission line for studying thermostatting of superconducting power cables has been considered in the paper. The transmission line contains three sections with different types of thermal insulation and current leads providing high current supply to superconducting threads with minimum external heat inflow. The unique experimental data on heat inflows from the outer surface of the transmission line in different sections has been obtained by the authors. It is shown that it may be possible to compensate fully for external heat inflow to a cryogenic line as well as to lower the temperature of a cryogenic coolant in the section with an evaporating system for cryogenic support. In order to determine the possible length of the cryostatting work field of a long length superconducting cable, estimates of using liquid nitrogen and liquid hydrogen as a working fluid for various mass flow rates of the coolant feed have been made via the mathematical model describing physical processes in a thermostatting channel using an evaporating system for cryogenic support. Calculation data on changes in the length of the long length temperature cryostat, pressure and cooling capacity of the evaporating cryostat system has been obtained.     

Characteristics and enhancement of heat transfer from heat-generating blocks mounted on back wall of a 3D cabinet to an ambient natural convective air stream

Abstract

In this study, the physical system under consideration is a three-dimensional (3D) cabinet with arrays of heat-generating blocks mounted on inner surface of back wall of the cabinet. The heat-generating blocks dissipate heat to the surrounding of cabinet through conjugate conduction and natural convection. Efforts are performed to investigate the cooling performance enhancement of the blocks by constructing circular air vents in walls and installing round fins onto back wall of the cabinet. Results show that the air vents and fins can significantly reduce the hot spot temperature of heat-generating blocks, and improve temperature uniformity of the blocks. The maximum reduction in hot spot temperature can be up to 26.2% for cases under investigation in this study.     

Characteristics of boiling curve in transition region between nucleate boiling and film boiling

An experimental study has been carried out for estimating surface temperature and heat flux during both a transient heating process from nucleate boiling to film boiling and a cooling process in the reverse direction. Experiments were at atmospheric pressure, and calculations used a newly developed inverse solution. Three different materials, gold, copper, and brass, were employed to make clear the effect of thermal properties on the boiling curves in the transient region including the maximum and minimum heat fluxes. It was determined that the histories of surface temperature and heat flux for the transition boiling region during either heating or cooling process can be tracked well. The experiment shows that hysteresis exists in the heating and cooling processes for the transition region while no hysteresis exists in the nucleate boiling region, except that the maximum heat fluxes reached during the heating and cooling processes are much different. It was found that the characteristics for the heating process are minimally influenced by thermal properties, while characteristics of the cooling process are greatly affected. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res, 35(1): 20–34, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/htj.20097     

Material design of a film cooling system using experimental heat transfer data

The present study numerically calculates the temperature and thermal stress distributions near a normal cooling hole. We evaluate the effects of material properties on thermal damage by using local heat transfer data from previous experiments. The experimental results are converted into the surface’s heat transfer coefficients and the adiabatic wall temperature while using surface boundary conditions. The calculated results reveal that the thermal stresses depend on the main stream temperature and the material properties. To predict the maximum thermal stress near the normal cooling hole, we provide a single correlation consisting of the material properties and the main stream temperature.     

Experimental investigation of thermal and moisture behaviors of wet and dry soils with buried capillary heating system

An experimental study of thermal and moisture behaviors of dry and wet soils heated by buried capillary plaits was done. This study was carried out on a prototype similar to an agricultural tunnel greenhouse. The experimental procedure consisted on three different measuring phases distinguished by three different operational conditions of the capillary plaits: heating at 70 °C, heating at 40 °C and without heating in summer. During an experimental run, quantities measured are soil temperature, soil water content at various depths, soil surface heat flux, solar radiation under the plastic cover, internal relative humidity, internal and external air temperature. In unsaturated moist soils, the transport of heat is complicated by the fact that heat and mass transfer is a coupled process. During the daily soil temperature variation, it was found that the surface temperature amplitude was higher in wet soil than in dry soil. The water content increased during daytime and decreased during nighttime. The diurnal variation amplitude of water content was higher without underground heating and decreased with the buried heat source temperature.     

Determination of heat transfer coefficients for hydrogen condensation in condensers of various geometries

An important task for the hydrogen isotopes separation by cryogenic distillation is to establish the shape and dimension of the column condenser and boiler in order to obtain the desired load and separation for the distillation column. In the paper we present the set-up and experimental values for the heat transfer coefficient on various types of condensers. The heat transfer coefficients were determined by measurements on liquid hydrogen flow-rate condensed on the cold surface and temperature drop between the cooling liquid and the condensate. The experiments were made for different vapor pressures and certain temperatures of the cooling liquid from the condenser. As results we determined the condensation heat transfer coefficients for different shapes and geometries of the condensers as a function of the condensate film temperature drop.     

Experimental performance comparison and trade-off among air-based precooling methods for postharvest apples by comprehensive multiscale thermodynamic analyses

Air-based precooling methods including room cooling and forced-air cooling were traditionally used for postharvest horticultural products. In this study, disturbed-air cooling with different layouts was proposed for the trade-off between room cooling with long cooling time and forced-air cooling with high energy consumption. Lab-scale experiments with 30 bins of postharvest apples were conducted using the aforementioned methods to measure the temperature history. Multiscale thermodynamic analyses from energy, entropy, exergy, and entransy perspectives were then performed. The time evolution of transient quantities and overall comparison of the trade-off performances were further discussed. The ventilation power and transformed heat became more significant respectively for the total energy consumption and heat load during the precooling processes. The rates of entropy generation, exergy destruction, and entransy dissipation reduced in consistent with the tendency of heat rejection from all bins. The major part of these losses was resulted by the ventilation for convective heat transfer between cold air and apples and became more significant during later stage of precooling processes. The middle-parallel disturbed-air cooling achieved the best trade-off between the lowest energy consumption for room cooling and the lowest maximum seven-eighths cooling time for forced-air cooling by respectively reaching 81.68% and 28.82% of the optimization potential. The best trade-off between the lowest thermodynamic loss for room cooling and the lowest heat transfer ability loss for forced-air cooling was also achieved by this method with around 55% to 62% optimization of the coefficients of performance, around 83% optimization of the entropy generation ratio, around 58% to 62% optimization of the exergy destruction ratio, and around 36% optimization of the entransy dissipation ratio.     

单元式露点蒸发冷却装置的实验研究

本研究设计了一台由干、湿通道相结合的单元式露点蒸发冷却装置,通过实验研究了蒸发冷却装置在空气经过一级冷却的模式1和经过二级冷却的模式2两种运行模式下,不同空气入口参数时的换热效果。实验结果表明,空气的入口温度越高,换热效果越好;低湿度时空气的进出口温差比高湿度时大,但其湿球效率和露点效率反而较低,这说明2种效率并不适用于不同湿度间的冷却效果对比;模式2运行时的换热效果比模式1好。与已有研究成果对比表明,该单元式露点蒸发冷却装置的湿球效率和露点效率分别可以达到120%和88%,为露点蒸发冷却装置的优化设计提供理论依据和优化方向。     

Experimental examination of large capacity liFePO4 battery pack at high temperature and rapid discharge using novel liquid cooling strategy

To overcome the significant amounts of heat generated by large‐capacity battery modules under high‐temperature and rapid‐discharge conditions, a new liquid cooling strategy based on thermal silica plates was designed and developed. The superior thermal conductivity of the thermal silica plate combined with the excellent cooling effect of water led to a feasible and effective composite liquid cooling system during long cycle testing. The experimental results showed that the addition of thermal silica plates can greatly improve the cooling capacity that can allow the maximum temperature difference to be controlled at 6.1°C and reduce the maximum temperature of the battery module by 11.3°C, but still outside the optimum operating temperature range. The water flow significantly enhanced the cooling performance/stability, and slight temperature fluctuations were observed during cycling. The cooling performance obviously improved as the flow rate rose. When the velocity reached a critical value, further increase in water flow rate induced a slight influence on the cooling capacity due to the limitation of the materials. The maximum temperature (T_max ) could be reduced to 48.7°C, and temperature difference (?T ) could be maintained within 5°C when the water flow velocity increased to 4 mL/s, which was determined as the best value. The energy consumed by the water pump is only 1.37% of the total energy of the battery module. Overall, these findings should provide novel strategies for the design and optimization of battery thermal management system.     

Optimal Ground Tube Length for Cooling of Electronics Shelters

This paper presents a theoretical, numerical, and experimental study to investigate the possibility of optimizing the configuration (geometry) of underground heat exchangers for maximum heat transfer. The first part of the study identifies a novel fundamental optimization principle for maximizing heat transfer between a tube and its surroundings, which is expected to be present in any buried tube heat exchanger design. The second part presents a practical application of the fundamental principle: a simplified physical model to determine the temperature field inside an electronics shelter that uses an earth-air heat exchanger and the soil as a heat sink. A volume elements methodology is employed to obtain a system of ordinary differential equations with time as the independent variable that combines principles of classical thermodynamics and heat transfer. This allows the computation of the temperature and relative humidity fields at every instant inside the shelter. The numerical results obtained with the proposed model are validated by means of direct comparison with experimental temperature and relative humidity measurements. It is shown that the tube length can be optimized such that the maximum temperature reached inside the shelter is minimal. The results also demonstrate the potential of the utilization of buried tubes for cooling electronic packages. Since accuracy and low computational time are combined, the model is shown to be efficient and could be used as a tool for simulation, design, and optimization of electronic packages cooled by underground heat exchangers.     

Microcooling system with impinging jets and a stalactite structure

ABSTRACT

A novel structure for a microcooling system with an impinging jet array was proposed to enhance heat transfer and reduce the pressure drop. Conjugated heat transfer in the proposed impinging jet array cooling systems, with and without effusion holes, was analyzed to evaluate their heat transfer performance and pressure drop using the three-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations for steady incompressible laminar flow. Grid dependency tests were performed for not only the size, but also the distribution of the grid system. The numerical result was validated using the experimental data. The area-averaged Nusselt number and the maximum temperature on the target surface were selected as the performance parameters for heat transfer. The proposed structure showed remarkable improvement in both the heat transfer performance and pressure drop, but natural effusion from the system did not improve the performance.     

Heat transfer analysis for the design and application of the passive cooling rate controlled device—Box-in-box

BackgroundIn cryopreservation, cooling rate is a dominant factor that influences the survival of cells. Box-in-box (BIB) was recently developed as a reliable, cooling rate controlled and cost-effective cooling device. However, the intrinsic heat transfer characteristic still needs to be further specified for the best of design and application of the device.MethodThe freezing process of samples inside BIB is simulated by developing a one dimensional heat transfer model in which fixed-grid technique is used to solve the solidification problem of the ternary cryopreservation media (water, NaCl and cryoprotectant). Based on the model, several critical factors, including supercooling temperature, structural parameters and application conditions, are evaluated respectively. Several cell free experiments were also conducted to validate the model.ResultsIt was demonstrated that BIB method can achieve uniform and consistent cooling of samples, and the theoretical and experimental results fit quite well. Further analysis reveals that several structural parameters (such as the dimension of insulation layer) and application conditions (such as the cryoprotectant concentration and the sample volume) have significant effect on the freezing process of sample. Thus the design and application of BIB should be carefully conducted to achieve the desired cooling rate.ConclusionThe theoretical model is reasonable for the BIB system. It provides an effective tool to determine the detailed structural parameters when designing BIBs, and it can also be used as a good support for the application of BIB systems.     

Developed boiling heat transferTransfert thermique pour une ebullition developpeeWärmeübertragung beim ausgebildeten blasensiedenТеплообмен при развитом кипении01

In conformity with the heat transfer model considered, the developed boiling temperature conditions of the heating surface are mainly governed by the processes which are responsible for multipe star-ups of the different mechanisms of heat release. The analysis of the model yields a universal correlation for the developed boiling heat transfer on surfaces of known microgeometry and on commercial heating surfaces for all classes of heat transfer agents (water, organic liquids, cooling and cryogenic agents and liquid metals).     

Performance of passive heat removal by an air‐cooling panel from a high‐temperature gas‐cooled reactor

An experiment was performed to simulate an air‐cooling panel system for passive decay heat removal from a high‐temperature gas‐cooled reactor to investigate the performance of decay heat removal and the temperature distributions of components of the system. The experimental apparatus consisted of a pressure vessel 1 m wide and 3 m high. Nineteen simulated standpipes containing heaters with a maximum heating rate of 100 kW simulated residual heat of the core, and the cooling panels surrounded the pressure vessel. An analytical code (THANPACST2) was applied to the experimental data to investigate the validity of the analytical method and the model proposed. Under the conditions of helium gas at a pressure of 0.64 MPa and temperature of 514 °C in the pressure vessel, the predicted temperature distribution in the pressure vessel was estimated and was within ?10 to +50 °C as compared to the experimental data. The analysis indicated that the heat transferred to the cooling panel was 15.4% less than the experimental value. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res, 31(8): 665–677, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/htj.10061