End effects in a MHD channel with diverging electrode walls

End effects phenomena in a Faraday type generator with diverging electrode walls for two types of velocity profiles—one with a source velocity and the other with a fully developed velocity—are discussed. The electric potential is determined numerically using the successive overrelaxation method in polar coordinates. It is found that the viscous forces increase the end losses and create current concentrations on the electrodes even at far distances from the entrance.     

Gas–liquid two-phase flow patterns in a miniature square channel with a gas permeable sidewall

Characteristics of air–water two-phase flow patterns in a miniature square channel having a gas permeable sidewall were investigated experimentally. Water was fed into the channel from its entrance, while air was injected uniformly into the channel along the permeable sidewall. This configured two-phase flow problem is encountered in direct feed methanol fuel cells. Flow patterns in both vertical upward and horizontal flows were identified using a high-speed motion analyzer. The visualization shows that the typical flow pattern encountered in the conventional co-current gas–liquid two-phase flow, such as bubbly flow, plug flow, slug flow and annular flow were also observed in the present work. However, unlike the conventional co-current gas–liquid two-phase flow in a channel with gas and liquid uniformly entering from one of its ends, for the flow configuration considered in this work, the stratified flow and wavy flow were not found in horizontal flow. And a so-called “single layer bubbly flow” was found in vertical upward flow, which is characterized by a mono small-gas-bubble layer existing adjacent to the surface of the permeable sidewall with the reminding space occupied by the liquid phase. Four transitional flow patterns such as bubbly-plug flow, bubbly-slug flow, plug–slug flow, and slug-annular flow, were found to exist between the distinct flow patterns. Finally, the flow regime maps for various liquid volumetric fluxes are presented in terms of mass quality versus the volumetric flux of gas phase.     

Investigation of gas flow in micro-filters and modification of scaling law

In this study, important micro gas flow features including slip velocity, compressibility, and rarefaction effects for flow micro-filters are investigated. In this regard the compressible Navier–Stokes equations with wall slip and temperature jump boundary conditions are solved for a proper range of Knudsen numbers. For the filters, the ratio of the open orifice area to the total area is selected as 0.6 in order to compare the results with the literature. Considering that the filter holes repeat in a periodic fashion, gas flow is simulated through only one hole by imposing periodicity conditions. The simulation results are compared with the empirical scaling laws developed in the last works and a modified relation for the scaling law is presented. This modified relation predicts high-accuracy pressure drop through the micro-filters in the slip regime.     

Three dimensional numerical simulation of gas-liquid two-phase flow patterns in a polymer-electrolyte membrane fuel cells gas flow channel

Water management in polymer-electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) has a major impact on fuel cell performance and durability. To investigate the two-phase flow patterns in PEMFC gas flow channels, the volume of fluid (VOF) method was employed to simulate the air-water flow in a 3D cuboid channel with a 1.0 mm × 1.0 mm square cross section and a 100 mm in length. The microstructure of gas diffusion layers (GDLs) was simplified by a number of representative opening pores on the 2D GDL surface. Water was injected from those pores to simulate water generation by the electrochemical reaction at the cathode side. Operating conditions and material properties were selected according to realistic fuel cell operating conditions. The water injection rate was also amplified 10 times, 100 times and 1000 times to study the flow pattern formation and transition in the channel. Simulation results show that, as the flow develops, the flow pattern evolves from corner droplet flow to top wall film flow, then annular flow, and finally slug flow. The total pressure drop increases exponentially with the increase in water volume fraction, which suggests that water accumulation should be avoided to reduce parasitic energy loss. The effect of material wettability was also studied by changing the contact angle of the GDL surface and channel walls, separately. It is shown that using a more hydrophobic GDL surface is helpful to expel water from the GDL surface, but increases the pressure drop. Using a more hydrophilic channel wall reduces the pressure drop, but increases the water residence time and water coverage of the GDL surface.     

An experimental and numerical investigation on the cross flow through gas diffusion layer in a PEM fuel cell with a serpentine flow channel

A serpentine flow channel is one of the most common and practical channel layouts for a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell since it ensures the removal of water produced in a cell with acceptable parasitic load. During the reactant flows along the flow channel, it can also leak or cross to neighboring channel via the porous gas diffusion layer due to the high pressure gradient caused by the short distance. Such a cross flow leads to a larger effective flow area altering reactant flow in the flow channel so that the resultant pressure and flow distributions are substantially different from that without considering cross flow, even though this cross flow has largely been ignored in previous studies. In this work, a numerical and experimental study has been carried out to investigate the cross flow in a PEM fuel cell. Experimental measurements revealed that the pressure drop in a PEM fuel cell is significantly lower than that without cross flow. Three-dimensional numerical simulation has been performed for wide ranges of flow rate, permeability and thickness of gas diffusion layer to analyze the effects of those parameters on the resultant cross flow and the pressure drop of the reactant streams. Considerable amount of cross flow through gas diffusion layer has been found in flow simulation and its effect on pressure drop becomes more significant as the permeability and the thickness of gas diffusion layer are increased. The effects of this phenomenon are also crucial for effective water removal from the porous electrode structure and for estimating pumping energy requirement in a PEM fuel cell, it cannot be neglected for the analysis, simulation, design, operation and performance optimization of practical PEM fuel cells.     

MHD flow and heat transfer of a rarefied gas in a rotating channel between conducting plates

An exact analysis of the MHD flow of a rarefied gas in a rotating flat-plate channel is presented. The channel is assumed to rotate about an axis perpendicular to the plane of the plates, which are assumed to be finitely electrically conducting. Velocity profiles, magnetic field lines, and the function affecting the temperature field are shown on graphs. The numerical values of the axial and transverse skin friction, axial and transverse components of the mass flux, and the function affecting the rate of heat transfer are entered in Tables. The results are discussed in terms of the parameters M (Hartmann number), α (Ekman number), λ (slip-parameter), Γ (temperature jump coefficient), ?₁, ?₂ (electrical conductance ratios of the upper and lower plates, respectively).     

Choked flow and heat transfer of low density gas in a narrow parallel-plate channel with uniformly heating walls

The discharge and heat transfer characteristics of the continuum and slip choked gas flows through a narrow parallel-plate channel with uniform heat flux walls are studied by experimental means, numerical simulation, and analytical approximate solution. The numerical results of the discharge coefficient and the wall surface temperature distributions agree relatively well with the experimental results. The effects of the heat transfer at the walls on the discharge coefficient can be correlated with the dimensionless heat input at the walls. Three kinds of Nusselt numbers which are defined by adiabatic wall, bulk mean, and total temperatures as a reference temperature, respectively, are proposed and the effects of the viscous heating on these Nusselt numbers are clarified.     

Rarefied gas flow in a planar channel caused by arbitrary pressure and temperature drops

The paper presents a numerical analysis of the nonlinear rarefied gas flow through a long planar channel of finite length. The solution is constructed for the arbitrary pressure and temperature drops, including flow into vacuum. The obtained results for the flow rates are compared with the linearized solutions in the large range of degree of gas rarefaction. The boundaries of the validity of the linearized approximation are established.     

Numerical study of two-phase flow patterns in the gas channel of PEM fuel cells with tapered flow field design

In this study the air–water two-phase flow in a tapered channel of a PEMFC was numerically simulated using the volume of fluid (VOF) method. In particular, a 3D mathematical model of the fuel cell flow channel was used to obtain a reliable evaluation of the fuel cell performance for different taper angles and different temperatures and to calculate the total amount of water produced. This information was then used as boundary conditions to simulate the two-phase flow in the cell channel through a 2D VOF model. Typical operating conditions were assigned and the numerical mesh was constructed to represent the real fuel cell configuration. The results show that tapering the channel downstream enhances the water removal due to increased airflow velocity. In the rectangular channel no film formation is noted with a marked predominance of slug flow. In contrast, as the taper angle is increased the predominant two-phase flow pattern is film flow. Finally many contact angles have been used to simulate the effect of the hydrophobicity of a GDL surface on the motion of the water. As the hydrophobicity of a GDL surface is decreased the presence of film is more evident even for less tapered channels.     

Modelling and optimization of reactant gas transport in a PEM fuel cell with a transverse pin fin insert in channel flow

A proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell has many distinctive features which make it an attractive alternative clean energy source. Some of those features are low start-up, high power density, high efficiency and remote applications. In the present study, a numerical investigation was conducted to analyse the flow field and reactant gas distribution in a PEM fuel cell channel with transversely inserted pin fins in the channel flow aimed at improving reactant gas distribution. A fin configuration of small hydraulic diameter was employed to minimise the additional pressure drop. The influence of the pin fin parameters, the flow Reynolds number, the gas diffusion layer (GDL) porosity on the reactant gas transport and the pressure drop across the channel length were explored. The parameters examined were optimized using a mathematical optimization code integrated with a commercial computational fluid dynamics code. The results obtained indicate that a pin fin insert in the channel flow considerably improves fuel cell performance and that optimal pin fin geometries exist for minimized pressure drop along the fuel channel for the fuel cell model considered. The results obtained provide a novel approach for improving the design of fuel cells for optimal performance.     

Turbulent flow in a composite channel

Numerical solutions for turbulent flow in a composite channel are presented. Here, a channel with a centered porous material is considered. The interface between the porous medium and the clear flow was assumed to have different transversal positions and the porous matrix was simulated with distinct permeabilities. Governing equations were discretized and solved for both domains making use of one unique numerical methodology. Increasing the size of the porous material pushes the flow outwards, increasing the levels of turbulent kinetic energy at the macroscopic interface. For high permeability media, a large amount of mechanical energy is converted into turbulence inside the porous structure.     

Effect of surfactant addition on boiling heat transfer in a liquid film flowing in a diverging open channel

An experimental study was conducted to investigate how the addition of small amounts of a surfactant influences the heat transfer characteristics in a thin boiling liquid film flowing in a diverging open channel. Heat transfer experiments were conducted with fluid inlet temperatures from 40 °C to 92 °C. The flow field on the plate included thin film supercritical flow upstream of a hydraulic jump and thick film subcritical flow downstream of a hydraulic jump. Nusselt numbers for the non-boiling heat transfer without surfactant addition scaled linearly with the film Reynolds number. The boiling heat transfer produced higher Nusselt numbers with a weaker dependence on the Reynolds number. Experimental results showed that a boiling surfactant solution created a thick foam layer with high heat transfer rates and Nusselt numbers that are very weakly dependent on the inlet flow rate or the inlet Reynolds number.     

Dynamic behaviour of liquid water emerging from a GDL pore into a PEMFC gas flow channel

A numerical investigation of the dynamic behaviour of liquid water entering a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) channel through a GDL pore is reported. Two-dimensional, transient simulations employing the volume of fluid (VOF) method are performed to explicitly track the liquid–gas interface, and to gain understanding into the dynamics of a water droplet subjected to air flow in the bulk of the gas channel. The modeled domain consists of a straight channel with air flowing from one side and water entering the domain from a pore at the bottom wall of the channel. The channel dimensions, flow conditions and surface properties are chosen to be representative of typical conditions in a PEMFC. A series of parametric studies, including the effects of channel size, pore size, and the coalescence of droplets are performed with a particular focus on the effect of geometrical structure. The simulation results and analysis of the time evolution of flow patterns show that the height of the channel as well as the width of the pore have significant impacts on the deformation and detachment of the water droplet. Simulations performed for droplets emerging from two pores with the same size into the channel show that coalescence of two water droplets can accelerate the deformation rate and motion of the droplets in the microchannel. Accounting for the initial connection of a droplet to a pore was found to yield critical air inlet velocities for droplet detachment that are significantly different from previous studies that considered an initially stagnant droplet sitting on the surface. The predicted critical air velocity is found to be sensitive to the geometry of the pore, with higher values obtained when the curvature associated with the GDL fibres is taken into account. The critical velocity is also found to decrease with increasing droplet size and decreasing GDL pore diameter.     

Micropolar flow in a porous channel with high mass transfer

In this research the injective micropolar flow in a porous channel is investigated. The flow is driven by suction or injection on the channel walls, and the micropolar model is used to describe the working fluid. This problem is mapped into the system of nonlinear coupled differential equations by using Berman's similarity transformation. These are solved for large mass transfer via Optimal Homotopy Asymptotic Method (OHAM). Also the numerical method is used for the validity of this analytical method and excellent agreement is observed between the solutions obtained from OHAM and numerical results. Trusting this validity, effects of some other parameters are discussed.     

Peristaltic flow of a Phan‐Thien‐Tanner nanofluid in a diverging tube

The present study examines the peristaltic flow of a PTT nanofluid in a diverging tube. This is the first article on the PTT peristaltic flow in nanofluid. The governing equations for PTT nanofluid are modelled in a cylindrical coordinates system. The flow is investigated in a wave frame of reference moving with velocity of the wave c₁. Temperature and nanoparticle equations are coupled so the homotopy perturbation method is used to calculate the solutions of temperature and nanoparticle equations, while exact solutions have been evaluated for the velocity profile and pressure gradient. The solutions analyze the Brownian motion number N_b, thermophoresis number N_t, local temperature Grashof number B_r, and local nanoparticle Grashof number G_r. The effects of various physical parameters of the model are investigated and discussed. It is observed that the pressure rise decreases with the increase in thermophoresis number N_t. Increases are noted in the Brownian motion parameter N_b and the thermophoresis parameter N_t as the temperature profile increases. Streamlines have been plotted at the end of the article. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res; Published online in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/htj ). DOI 10.1002/htj.20386     

One-dimensional drift-flux model for two-phase flow in a large diameter pipe

In view of the practical importance of the drift-flux model for two-phase-flow analysis in general and in the analysis of nuclear-reactor transients and accidents in particular, the distribution parameter and the drift velocity have been studied for vertical upward two-phase flow in a large diameter pipe. One of the important flow characteristics in a large diameter pipe is a liquid recirculation induced at low mixture volumetric flux. Since the liquid recirculation may affect the liquid velocity profile and promote the formation of cap or slug bubbles, the distribution parameter and the drift velocity in a large diameter pipe can be quite different from those in a small diameter pipe where the liquid recirculation may not be significant. A flow regime at a test section inlet may also affect the liquid recirculation pattern, resulting in the inlet-flow-regime dependent distribution parameter and drift velocity. Based on the above detailed discussions, two types of inlet-flow-regime dependent drift-flux correlations have been developed for two-phase flow in a large diameter pipe at low mixture volumetric flux. A comparison of the newly developed correlations with various data at low mixture volumetric flux shows a satisfactory agreement. As the drift-flux correlations in a large diameter pipe at high mixture volumetric flux, the drift-flux correlations developed by Kataoka-Ishii, and Ishii have been recommended for cap bubbly flow, and churn and annular flows, respectively, based on the comparisons of the correlations with existing experimental data.     

Simulation of heat transfer on the peristaltic flow of a Jeffrey-six constant fluid in a diverging tube

Peristaltic flow of a Jeffrey-six constant fluid in a nonuniform tube is investigated under the assumption of long wavelength and low Reynolds number approximations. The dimensionless quantities are used to simplify momentum and energy equations assuming that fluid physical/rheological properties remain constant. Regular perturbation method is invoked to find an analytical solution for the velocity and temperature field. The variation of pressure rise and frictional forces with the different parameters is also examined numerically. Results are also presented graphically at the end of the article.     

Experimental and numerical investigation of the flow in rotating diverging channels

This paper reports on an experimental and numerical study at low Reynolds number in order to evaluate the influence of the Coriolis forces on the flow in radial rotating channels.Operating conditions correspond to the flow in radial impellers for micro gasturbine applications.A comparison of detailed flow measurements with CFD results indicates that Navier Stokes solvers with standard k-ω and SST turbulence models predict the flow surprisingly well and that no extra corrections for Coriolis forces are required at these operating conditions     

Lattice Boltzmann simulations of liquid droplet dynamic behavior on a hydrophobic surface of a gas flow channel

Using the multiphase free-energy lattice Boltzmann method (LBM), the formation of a water droplet emerging through a micro-pore on the hydrophobic gas diffusion layer (GDL) surface in a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) and its subsequent movement on the GDL surface under the action of gas shear are simulated. The dynamic behavior of the water droplet emergence, growth, detachment and movement in the gas flow channel is presented. The size of the detached droplet and the time of the droplet removing out of the channel under the influence of gas flow velocity and GDL surface wettability are investigated. The results show that water droplet removal is facilitated by a high gas flow velocity on a more hydrophobic GDL surface. A highly hydrophobic surface is shown to be capable of lifting the water droplet from the GDL surface, resulting in more GDL surface available for gas reactant transport. Furthermore, an analytical model based on force balance is presented to predict the droplet detachment size, and the predicted results are in good agreement with the simulation results. It is shown that the LBM approach is an effective tool to investigate water transport phenomena in the gas flow channel of PEMFCs with surface wettability taken into consideration.