CHARACTERISTICS OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL FLOW,HEAT, AND MASS TRANSFER IN A CHEMICAL VAPOR DEPOSITION REACTOR

The three-dimensional flow, heat, and mass transfer characteristics in a horizontal chemical vapor deposition (CVD) reactor with a tilted susceptor are analyzed numerically. As the physical domain for the CVD reactor has an irregular region, the Cartesian coordinates are transformed into a general curvilinear coordinate system. For calculating the governing equations, the finite volume method (FVM) is adopted and the SIMPLE algorithm is extended and modified to employ the curvilinear system. The effects of flow rate and tilted angle of the susceptor on the transport phenomena (i.e., heat transfer rate, uniformity and growth rate of reactant gas, etc.) at the susceptor are investigated. The results show that the existence of return flows leads locally to improvement of the heat transfer, but it is not good for the uniformity of the deposition. As the tilted angle of the susceptor is increased (from 0^o to 9^o), the amount of heat transfer and growth rate in the main flow direction are improved irrespective of the Reynolds number. The growth rate and uniformity are less sensitive to the inclined angle of the susceptor than that of the Reynolds number.     

Effect of embedding a porous medium on the deposition rate in a vertical rotating MOCVD reactor based on CFD modeling

This paper investigates numerically the effect of embedding a porous medium on the deposition rate in a two-dimensional (2-D) axi-symmetric vertical rotating metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) reactor. The 2-D Navier–Stokes, thermal-energy, and mass transfer equations as well as the wall surface reaction for growth rate in this model are solved by using commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) package, FLUENT (version 6.2), with a segregated method. As shown in the results, the recirculation cell caused by a buoyancy effect above the susceptor may be eliminated due to a large pressure drop during CVD process. Under a condition of the appropriate porosity and the appropriate distance between a porous medium and the susceptor, the film uniformity may be increased about 53.3% owing to a thin boundary layer near the susceptor. In addition, the case of a porous medium embedded in a modified MOCVD reactor is considered in this study to increase the film uniformity further. The numerical results show that the uniformity of the film may be enhanced about 77.9%.     

A novel reactor for large-area epitaxial solar cell materials

A novel vertical stagnation flow organometallic vapor phase epitaxy reactor was designed and fabricated for the growth of GaAs and AlGaAs for solar cell applications. The reactor had an inverted configuration to eliminate recirculation problems. The susceptor and gas inlet nozzle were closely spaced (about 1 cm) in order to achieve improvements in deposition efficiency, layer uniformity and abruptness of interfaces. A specially designed water-cooled inlet nozzle was used to maintain the nozzle surface at relatively low temperatures under all operating conditions. A computer model was formulated to study the various thermal processes in this reactor. The model used rigorous thermal boundary conditions which included thermal radiation effects. Simulated and experimental nozzle temperatures were compared for different susceptor temperatures, susceptor-nozzle distances, gas flow rates and reactor pressures. The maximum nozzle temperature was about 100 °C, which is sufficiently low to prevent premature decomposition of the reactants on its surface.     

Bio-inspired leaf-vein type fins for performance enhancement of metal hydride reactors

Hydrogenation of metals is an exothermic and reversible process. Thus, metal hydride reactors/devices become essentially heat-driven. Excellent heat control in the MH reactor is required to develop metal hydride devices such as H2 storage systems successfully. Few attempts at nature-inspired designs have proven to have good heat transfer capabilities. Based on this idea, the present study investigates novel bio-inspired leaf-vein type fins for the metal hydride reactor. Two reactor designs are proposed for heat transfer fluid flow, namely (i) central straight tube and (ii) narrow trapezoidal channels with 10 kg of LaNi₅ as a sample alloy. Compared to longitudinal finned single tube reactors (LFSTR), these designs provided better heat transmission and temperature uniformity. For LFSTR, Case-1, and Case-2, 90% storage capacity was reached in 210, 145, and 80 s. Different fin configurations, such as parallel, inclined fins, and fins of different thicknesses, are investigated further in the design with narrow trapezoidal channels. The inclined fin configuration shows better performance, and it is further optimized by varying the inclination angle from 3 to 9° and the fin number from 2 to 4. The optimized design with a 7° inclination angle and four fins required 57 s to attain 90% storage capacity and reduced absorption time by 73% compared to LFSTR. The influence of operating parameters such as hydrogen supply pressure, inlet temperature, and velocity of the heat transfer fluid on the performance is evaluated for the optimized design.     

Optimum Tilt Angle for Solar Collectors

A solar collector is required to absorb solar radiation and transfer the absorbed energy into a heat transfer fluid with a minimum of heat loss. In assessing the performance of a collector, it is therefore important not only to determine its ability to absorb solar radiation but also to characterize its heat losses. The ability of a collector to absorb solar radiation is largely determined by its optical and geometric properties. One of the important parameters that affect the performance of a solar collector is its tilt angle with the horizontal. This is due to the fact that the variation in tilt angle affects the amount of solar radiation reaching the collector surface. In this study, a mathematical model is used to estimate the total (global) solar radiation on a tilted surface and to determine the optimum tilt angle for a solar collector in Izmir, Turkey. Total solar radiation on the solar collector surface with an optimum tilt angle is computed for specific periods. It is found that the optimum tilt angle changes between 0° (June) and 61° (December) throughout the year. In winter (December, January, and February) the tilt should be 55.7°, in spring (March, April, and May) 18.3°, in summer (June, July, and August) 4.3°, and in autumn (September, October, and November) 43°. The yearly average of this value was found to be 30.3° and this would be the optimum fixed tilt throughout the year.     

Performance investigation on a thermal energy storage integrated solar collector system using nanofluid

The effect of Fe nanofluid on the performance enhancement on solar water heater integrated with thermal energy storage system is investigated experimentally. A 0.5% wt fraction of Fe nanoparticle was synthesized with the mixture of water/propylene‐glycol base fluid. The experimental implementation utilized 40‐nm‐size Fe nanoparticle, 15 ° collector tilt angle, and 1.5 kg/min mass flow rate heat‐transfer fluid circulation. The system efficiency reached 59.5% and 50.5% for with and without nanofluid. The water tank temperature was increased by 13 °C during night mode. The average water tank temperature at night mode was 47.5 °C, while the average ambient temperature was 26 °C. The Fe nanofluid improved the system working duration during night mode by an average of 5 h. The techno‐economic analysis results showed a yearly estimated cost savings of 28.5% using the Fe nanofluids as heat transfer fluid. The embodied energy emission rate, collector size, and weight can be reduced by 9.5% using nanofluids. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A parametric study of laminar convective heat transfer in fractal minichannels with hexagonal fins

The excess heat generated by the modern electronic components and devices leads to a sustained growth in demand for thermal management technologies. Inspired by the features of fractal structures in terms of the periodical interruption of boundary layer and the strong flow mixing, a parametric study is carried out to study the flow and heat transfer performance in the fractal minichannels configured with hexagonal fins. A dimensionless performance factor involving average Nusselt number and average friction factor is defined to evaluate the overall performance with considering heat transfer enhancement and additional friction loss. The parametric effects of branching angle θ (60°-120°) and relative hexagonal side length α (1.00-2.00) on laminar hydrodynamics and thermal characteristics in the proposed minichannels are numerically investigated for Reynolds number ranged from 50 to 550. The results emphasize a lower temperature and more uniform temperature distribution on the bottom surface and an advantage of overall performance for the fractal minichannel with hexagonal fins over the conventional straight minichannel. It is noted from the results that the variation of branching angle possesses little effect on the maximum temperature and temperature uniformity of the bottom surface. On the basis of the evolution of the performance factors, the best performance is obtained by the branching angle of 60° and the relative hexagonal side length of 1.50 among the tested configurations, and the maximum temperature and temperature uniformity of the bottom surface are reduced by 16.4 K and 84%, respectively, when comparing with the straight channel as the reference object. This study verified the theoretical conjecture that the application of hexagonal fins in minichannel plays an important role in effectively improving heat transfer in the case of controllable pressure loss.     

NATURAL CONVECTIVE HEAT TRANSFER IN AN ASYMMETRIC GREENHOUSE-TYPE SOLAR STILL--EFFECT OF ANGLE OF INCLINATION

The natural convective flow and heat transfer in air inside an asymmetric, greenhouse-type solar still is studied numerically. The actual configuration consists of two top glass covers, perpendicular to each other and forming angles of 30° and 60° with respect to the horizontal, along with a blackened basin at the bottom where saline water evaporates. The Rayleigh number varies over a wide range of values during a 24-hour cycle of operation, but most of the time the values are high enough so that turbulent flow conditions prevail. Here the interest is in the heat transfer problem and the arising flow structure in the still, and two-dimensional computations are performed using a stream function-vorticity formulation along with a low Reynolds turbulence model. A curvilinear coordinate system is used, with a grid that is made orthogonal to all solid boundaries for most of their length. A multicellular flow pattern arises in the core of the still, depending on the value of the Rayleigh number (here Ra = 10 7 - 10 10 based on the horizontal dimension of the still), with thin boundary layers forming along the top covers and the bottom surface. Alternative configurations are investigated by changing the angle of inclination of the main condensation surface at the top cover. Detailed comparisons are made for a reduced slope of 15° for that surface, and by examining flow patterns and heat transfer rates the relative merits of each of the angles within the chosen range of Ra are examined.     

Experimental study on heat transfer augmentation in a double pipe heat exchanger utilizing jet vortex flow

This paper examines experimentally the effect of jet vortex technology on enhancing the heat transfer rate within a double pipe heat exchanger by supplying the heat exchanger with water at different vortex strengths. A vortex generator with special inclined holes with different inlet angles was designed, manufactured, and integrated within the heat exchanger. In this study, four levels of Reynolds number for hot water in the annulus (Re_h) were used, namely, 10,000; 14,500; 18,030; and 19,600. Similarly, four levels of Reynolds number for cold water in the inner tube (Re_c) were used, namely, 12,000; 17,500; 22,500; and 29,000. As for the inlet flow angle (θ), four different levels were selected, namely, 0°, 30°, 45°, and 60°. The temperature along the heat exchanger was measured utilizing 34 thermocouples installed along the heat exchanger. It was found that increasing the inlet flow angle (θ) and/or the Reynolds number results in an increase in the local Nusselt number, the overall heat transfer coefficient, and the ratio of friction factor. It is revealed that the percentage increase in the average Nusselt number due to swirl flow compared to axial flow was 10%, 40%, and 82% for an inlet flow angle of 30°, 45°, and 60°, respectively.     

The effects of geometrical parameters of a corrugated channel with in out-of-phase arrangement

Numerical investigations of forced turbulent convective flow and heat transfer in a corrugated channel of plate heat exchanger are carried out. The continuity, momentum and energy equations were solved by means of a finite volume method (FVM). The top and bottom walls of the corrugated channel are heated at constant heat flux boundary conditions. The effects of geometrical parameters of corrugated tilt angles, channel heights and wavy heights using water as a working fluid on the thermal and flow fields as well as on the performance of evaluation criterion are studied. The corrugated channel with three different corrugated tilt angles of 20°, 40° and 60° with different channel heights of 12.5, 15 and 17.5 mm and different wavy heights of 2.5, 3.5 and 4.5 mm are tested. This investigation covers Reynolds number and heat flux in the range of 8000–20,000 and 0.4–6 kW/m², respectively. The numerical results indicate that the wavy angle of 60° and wavy height of 2.5 mm with channel height of 17.5 mm are the optimum parameters and they have a significant effect on the heat transfer enhancement. It is found that using wavy channel is a suitable method to increase the thermal performance and getting higher compactness of the heat exchanger.     

Numerical Investigation on the Two Phase Flow Behaviors in Supercritical Water Fluidized Bed with Swirling Flow Distributor

ABSTRACT

Supercritical water fluidized bed reactor is a promising in the clean and efficient conversion of coal, and the distributor is one of the key component for the heat and mass transfer enhancement. However, the optimization study for the distributor in supercritical water fluidized bed reactor has been seldom conducted due to the special thermal properties of supercritical water. In this work, the swirling flow distributor was designed for its optimization for heat and mass transfer inside a supercritical water fluidized bed reactor. The swirling flow can be generated by the concentric circle or triangle type hole distribution in distributor with 0 or 45° intersection angle between the fluid inlet velocity direction and the distributor plane. The computational particle fluid dynamics (SCWFB) method, which has quick calculating speed and high accuracy, was used in this work to study the particle-fluid two-phase flow behaviors inside SCWFB with swirling flow distributors. Investigations were made to reveal the influence of the hole distribution type and intersection angle on the bed pressure drop and particle volume fraction characteristics. The results showed that the triangle type distributor with 45° intersection angle has the best fluidization performance. The conclusions drawn may has potential application for continuous and stable operation of supercritical water fluidized bed reactor for coal gasification.     

Free Convective Heat Transfer in Tilted Longitudinal Open Cavity

Heat transfer experiments were performed to investigate the effects of inclination and channel height-to-gap ratio on free convection in a simulated fin-passage with a strategic aim of devising a criterion for selecting the optimal fin length that could provide the maximum free convective capability. The ranges of parameters investigated include the Grashof number, up to 500,000; channel height-to-gap ratios of 1, 2, and 3; and tilt angles of 0°, 30°, 60°, 90°, 120°, 150°, and 180°. Selections of local and spatially averaged Nusselt number results demonstrate the manner by which the Grashof number, tilt angle, and channel height-to-gap ratio interactively affect the heat transfer. In conformity with the experimentally revealed heat transfer physics, the correlation of a spatially-averaged Nusselt number over two parallel walls and the bottom surface of an open-ended channel is derived that permits the individual and interactive effects of the Grashof number, tilt angle, and channel height-to-gap ratio on heat transfers to be evaluated. A criterion for selecting the optimal height-to-gap ratio of the fin channel is subsequently formulated as a design tool for maximizing the convective capability of a free convective fin assembly.     

Effects of the pocket cavity on heat transfer and fluid flow of the downstream outlet guide vane at different flow attacking angles

Abstract

A pocket cavity is generated at the junction position of the low pressure turbine (LPT) and the outlet guide vane (OGV) in the rear part of a modern gas turbine jet engine. In the present study, a triangular pocket cavity is placed upstream of an OGV at different distances. The effects of the pocket cavity on heat transfer and fluid flow of the downstream OGV with different flow attack angles are investigated numerically with well validated turbulence models. The flow attack angles are varied as –30°, 0°, and +30° at a constant Reynolds number =160,000. The turbulent flow details are provided by numerical calculations using two turbulence models, the unsteady DES model and the steady k-ω SST model. For different flow attack angles, the high Nusselt number regions around the OGV are changed. The high heat transfer region is really drawn back at a flow attack angle?=?+30° (Case 2b) compared with Case 2a with a flow attack angle =0°. As the flow attack angle is changed to –30° (Case 2c), the high Nusselt number regions are greatly enlarged not only on the suction side also on the pressure side because of the strengthened flow impingement on the vane surfaces. The pocket cavity weakens the flow impingement on the vane surfaces and the effect is more obvious when the pocket cavity is placed close to the vane. In addition, the heat transfer distribution over the pocket surface is also affected by the location of the vane. When the vane is placed close to the pocket cavity (Case 1), the heat transfer on the pocket edge is increased. In the case with a flow attack angle =0°, the high turbulent kinetic energy region is mainly located near the vane and wake region downstream the vane and recirculating flows can hardly be found.     

Investigation on laminar convection heat transfer in fin-and-tube heat exchanger in aligned arrangement with longitudinal vortex generator from the viewpoint of field synergy principle

3-D numerical simulation results are presented for laminar flow heat transfer of the fin-and-tube surface with vortex generators. The effects of Reynolds number (from 800 to 2000), the attack angle (30° and 45°) of delta winglet vortex generator are examined. The numerical results are analyzed from the viewpoint of field synergy principle. It is found that the inherent mechanism of heat transfer enhancement by longitudinal vortex can be explained by the field synergy principle, the second flow generated by the vortex generators results in the reduction of the intersection angle between the velocity and fluid temperature gradient. In addition, the heat transfer enhancement of delta winglet with the attack angle of 45° is larger than that of 30°, while the delta winglet with the attack angle of 45° results in an increase of the pressure drop, however, the delta winglet with the attack angle of 30° results in a slight decrease.     

Natural convection heat transfer in a circular enclosure

Natural convection heat transfer in a circular enclosure, one half of which was heated and the other half of which was cooled, was investigated experimentally, focusing on the effect of the inclination angle. The experiments were carried out with water. Flow and temperature field were visualized by using the aluminum and liquid-crystal suspension method. The results show that with downward heating the heat transfer coefficient increased as the inclination angle of the boundary between the heating wall and the cooling wall approached the vertical. But with upward heating, the heat transfer coefficient showed minimal change, exhibiting a small peak value when the inclination angle was γ ˜ –45°. The heat transfer coefficient of a flat circular enclosure was estimated from the circular enclosure's heat transfer coefficient. These results can be explained by the obtained flow and temperature fields. © 1999 Scripta Technica, Heat Trans Asian Res, 28(2): 152–163, 1999     

Thermal management of methanol reforming reactors for the portable production of hydrogen

Three-dimensional numerical simulations were performed to address the thermal management issues associated with the design of a methanol reforming microchannel reactor for the portable production of hydrogen. The design of the reactor was fundamentally related to the direct coupling of reforming and combustion reactions by performing them on opposite sides of dividing walls in a parallel flow configuration. Effective autothermal operation was achieved through a combination of microchannel reactor technology with heat exchange in a direction perpendicular to the reacting fluid flow. Computational fluid dynamics simulations and thermodynamic analysis were carried out to investigate the effect of various design parameters on the characteristics of the generation, consumption, and exchange of thermal energy within the system. The results indicated that the ability to control temperature and temperature uniformity is of great importance to the performance of the system. The degree of temperature uniformity favorably affects the autothermal operation of the reactor. Temperature uniformity of the reactor can be improved by controlling the rate of heat transfer through a variety of factors such as wall thermal conductivity, fluid velocities, and dimensions. High wall thermal conductivity would be greatly beneficial to the performance of the system and the temperature uniformity of the reactor.     

Numerical study and field synergy analysis on CO selective methanation packed-bed reactor

Carbon monoxide selective methanation (CO-SMET) is one of the most efficient technologies for hydrogen purification and CO deep removal. This paper applies the field synergy principle for a deep understanding on the chemically reactive flow in a CO-SMET tubular reactor. The variation of CO conversion rate under different operating conditions is interpreted, at the first time, as relevant to the variation of the synergy angle between temperature and gas concentration fields. Sensitive analyses of the bed pressure, CO/CO₂ ratio, heat exchange modes, etc., are studied to obtain the profile of field synergy angle in the inlet gas temperature range of 373 K – 873 K. It is found that the region with synergy angles between 0° and 70° enhances the heat transfer between mass transfer and contributes the main output of CO conversion. This work provides a fundamental basis on the future optimal design of CO–SMET reactors.     

Experimental study on thermal performance of a pumped two-phase battery thermal management system

Battery thermal management system (BTMS) is of great significance to keep battery of new energy vehicle (NEV) within favorable thermal state, which attracts extensively attention from researchers and automobile manufacturers. As one BTMS scheme, pumped two-phase system displays excellent cooling capacity owing to large amount of latent heat usage, while there is limited research efforts focusing on the feasibility of the BTMS scheme. This paper experimentally investigates thermal performance of a pumped two-phase BTMS heated by a dummy battery with relative high heat fluxes. The effects of heat fluxes, flow rates and cold source temperatures on thermal performance have been studied and conclusions have been drawn accordingly. The results show that the thermal performance of the system is generally enhanced with the increase of the refrigerant flow rates. When the heat flux and cold source temperature are 0.11 W/cm² and 10°C, respectively, t_avg and △t_max are decreased by 3.4°C and 0.5°C, respectively, when the refrigerant flow rate is increased from 0.20 to 1.67 L/min. Meanwhile, heat transfer coefficient is also improved with an increase of the flow rates, while the enhancements become less obvious under high heat flux. In addition, the t_avg and △t_max of cold plate surface are increased when the heat flux is elevated, while the t_avg at the low flow rate is increased slightly. However, the increase of △t_max is more obvious at the low flow rate, compared to that at high flow rate. When the heat flux is increased from 0.11 to 0.60 W/cm², t_avg is increased by 3.8°C under the flow rate of 0.2 L/min, while that at the flow rate of 1.67 L/min is almost doubled. Meanwhile, the heat transfer coefficient is increased monotonously at the low flow rate, while that at the high flow rate is first decreased and then increased. Besides, lower surface temperatures can be obtained with low cold source temperatures. However, cold source temperatures affect temperature uniformity less.     

Influence of Inclination Angle on the Start-up Performance of a Sodium-Potassium Alloy Heat Pipe

ABSTRACT

Alkali metal heat pipes play significant role in various high-temperature engineering applications because of their excellent heat transfer capacity. Inclination angle is one of major factors which significantly affect start-up and heat transfer characteristics especially for thermosiphons. A sodium-potassium alloy (Na-K) gravity-driven heat pipe (GHP), in which the content of potassium in Na-K is wt. 55%, was fabricated to study the effect of inclination angle on start-up and heat transfer capacities of high-temperature GHPs. The Na-K GHPs was fixed by the adjusting bracket in 9 inclination angles (0°, 10°, 20°, 30°, 40°, 50°, 60°, 70° and 80°). Outside wall temperature was measured by eleven thermocouples which calibrated by the China Institute of Metrology prior to using them in the experiments. Results show that inclination angle has a significant impact on start-up and heat transfer performances of the Na-K GHP because of the impact of gravity on the two-phase flow inside the heat pipe and effective heating area in the evaporator. Start-up and heat transfer characteristics are dramatically improved and temperature difference significantly decreases as the inclination angle increases from 0° to 50°, but slightly decreases when the inclination angle exceeds 60°.     

Numerical Analysis of Baffle Cut on Shell Side Heat Exchanger Performance with Inclined Baffles

In this work, an attempt has been made to decrease the pressure drop and to increase the heat transfer rate in a shell and tube heat exchanger (STHX) by tilting the baffle angle and by varying the baffle cut. The process of solving the simulation includes modeling, meshing, and analyzing the geometry of the STHX by using Pro-E, hypermesh, and computational fluid dynamics package of ANSYS Fluent, respectively. The objective of this study is to find a suitable baffle inclination and baffle cut for the efficient performance of the STHX. The baffle inclinations of 25°, 30°, 35°, and 40° were considered for three different baffle cuts of 25%, 30%, and 35% of shell inside diameter and the results were compared with segmental baffle of inclination angle 0°. The shell side flow with different inclination angles and baffle cuts results in a significant variation in heat transfer rate and pressure drop in the STHX. The results provide a clear idea that the heat transfer rate is maximum in inclined baffle heat exchanger compared to that of segmental baffle heat exchanger. Further it is found that the STHX with the configuration of 35º baffle inclination angle and baffle cut of 30% of shell inside diameter provides higher heat transfer rate with minimum pressure drop compared to all other configurations.