Numerical simulation of wall mass transfer rates in capillary-driven flow in microchannels

Microchannels are believed to open up the prospect of precise control of fluid flow and chemical reactions. The high surface to volume ratio of micro size channels allows efficient mass transfer rates. The capillary effect can be used to pump fluids in microchannels and the flow generated can dissolve chemicals previously deposited on the walls of the channel. The purpose of this work is to analyze the wall mass transfer rates generated by a capillary driven flow in a microchannel. The results have implications in the optimization and design of devices for biological assays. We performed simulations of the capillary-driven flow in two-dimensional rectangular and circular microchannels by solving numerically the governing momentum and mass transfer equations with a second order accuracy finite volume code. The effects of the Reynolds number, of the contact angle and of the channel geometry on the time evolution of the local and averaged wall mass transfer rates are reported and analyzed. The flow field behind the meniscus, viewed from a reference frame moving at the velocity of the meniscus, showed to have two recirculations that enhance the wall mass transfer rates close to the triple point. A correlation between the Sherwood number and the Reynolds number, the contact angle and the time is reported. The correlation can be a useful tool for design purposes of microfluidic devices with capillary driven flows in which a fast heterogeneous reaction occurs on the wall.     

Heat and mass transfer and fluid flow in cryo-adsorptive hydrogen storage system

Compared to room temperature adsorption, cryo-adsorptive hydrogen storage capacity has been greatly improved, and has become the central issue of the hydrogen storage research. Accurate simulation and optimization for cryo-adsorptive hydrogen storage has important guidance and application value to the experimental research, and the finite element software Comsol Multiphysics™ and system analysis software Matlab/Simulink™ can be used to simulate the cryo-adsorptive hydrogen storage. However, the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software Fluent™ can provide more information on the heat and mass transfer and the fluid flow than above softwares. Based on the mass, momentum and energy conservation equations, this paper uses the modified Dubinin–Astakhov (D–A) adsorption isotherm model, linear driving force (LDF) model and dynamic thermal boundary condition which are implemented by means of CFD software Fluent to simulate the hydrogen adsorption processes of charging and dormancy in the case of liquid nitrogen cooling. We study the variations of temperature and pressure during the processes of charging and dormancy. The results show that the experimental data is in good agreement with the simulation results. We also analyze the effect of variable specific heat and anisotropic thermal conductivity on the heat and mass transfer and the fluid flow in cryo-adsorptive hydrogen storage system.     

Evaluation of hydrogen concentration effect on the natural gas properties and flow performance

The natural gas flowing through transmission pipeline is impure and has a wide range of non-hydrocarbons components at different concentrations like hydrogen. The presence of hydrogen in the natural gas mixture influences its properties and flow performance. The effect of hydrogen concentration on the natural gas flowing through a transportation pipeline has not been adequately investigated and widely comprehended. In this paper, several mixtures flow through pipeline include typical natural gas and hydrogen at different concentrations up to 10% are evaluated to demonstrate their impact on the flow assurance and the natural gas properties. The string Ruswil – Griespass part from the Transitgas project with 94 km length is simulated applying Aspen Hysys Version 9 and validated using Aspen Plus. The simulation specifications were 1.228 1 10⁶ kg/h mass flowrate, 1200 mm and 1164 mm the outer and inner diameters, and 75 bar and 29.4 °C operating pressure, and temperature. The effect of different hydrogen concentrations has been examined and the differences from the typical mixture are estimated. The results show that the presence of hydrogen in the natural gas mixture reduces its density, 10% hydrogen content records 11.78% reduction in the density of typical natural gas. Interestingly, it has been found that up to 2% of hydrogen concentration turns in elevating the viscosity of the typical natural gas while the viscosity decreases at the point that hydrogen content increases above 2%. In addition, the pressure losses over the transmission pipeline increases due to the presence of hydrogen, 10% hydrogen concentration turns in 5.39% increase in the pressure drop of the natural gas mixture. Also, the temperature drop across the pipeline decreases as the hydrogen concentration increases; 10% hydrogen content can result in a 6.14% reduction in the temperature drop across the pipeline. As well as, the findings prove that the hydrogen strongly impacts the phase envelope by changing from size symmetric to size asymmetric diagram. The effect of pipeline elevations has been investigated by changing the elevation up to 25 m uphill and 25 m downhill. The results state that increase the pipeline elevation turns in increasing the pressure losses over the pipeline length. Along with this, the results illustrate that the presence of hydrogen in the mixture elevates the critical pressure and reduces the critical temperature.     

Free convection and mass transfer flow of non-newtonian fluid with thermal diffusion effect

An analytical study is performed to examine the thermal diffusion characteristics of free convection and mass transfer flow in a non-Newtonian fluid (Walters, 1962: liquid B') past a uniformly accelerated infinite vertical plate in the presence of thermal diffusion. The expression for the velocity field is obtained by the Laplace transform technique. The influence of the Soret number (a thermal diffusion parameter) on the velocity field is extensively discussed with the help of graphs.     

Momentum and mass transfer on sandpaper-roughened surfaces in pipe flow

A series of three electrochemically obtained nickel pipes with different surface roughness degree has been used in this study. In respect to momentum transfer, these rough surfaces exhibit similar patterns in terms of friction factor, friction similarity function, and rough-to-smooth friction factor ratio. The mass transfer is investigated with the electrochemical technique which exploits the red-ox reactions of potassium ferri- and ferro-cyanides. The gain in mass transfer enhancement is positive against the friction development in the range 3000-30,000 for the Reynolds number.     

Effect of transpiration on combined heat and mass transfer in mixed convection along a vertical plate

The effect of transpiration velocity on the heat and mass transfer characteristics of mixed convection flow along a permeable vertical flat plate under the combined effects of thermal and mass diffusion is analysed. The diffusion-thermo and thermo-diffusion effects as well as the interfacial velocities due to mass diffusion are negligibly small. The plate is maintained at a uniform temperature and species concentration. Numerical results for the local skin-friction, the local Nusselt number and the local Sherwood number, as well as for the velocity, the temperature and the concentration profiles, are presented for diffusion of common species into air only. In general, it has been found for thermally assisted flow that the local surface shear-, heat-, and mass-transfer rates decrease owing to suction of fluid. This trend reversed for blowing of fluid. In addition this trend is higher for species of larger Schmidt number as well as for increasing buoyancy force.     

Effects of mass transfer and free convection on the unsteady mhd flow past a vertical porous plate with variable suction

In this paper we investigate the effects of mass transfer on the unsteady free convective flow of an electrically conducting and viscous incompressible fluid past an infinite vertical plate subjected to variable suction, in the presence of transverse magnetic field, when the free-stream velocity oscillates with time in magnitude but not in direction. In this analysis, the effects of the induced magnetic field is neglected. Approximate solutions to the transient flow, the amplitude and phase of skin-friction and the rate of heat transfer have been derived. During the course of the discussion, the effects of Gr, Gc, Sc, Ec, M and ω have been presented.     

Effects of mass transfer and free convection on the unsteady mhd flow past a vertical porous plate with constant suction

Effects of free convection currents and mass transfer on the unsteady flow of an electrically conducting and viscous incompressible fluid past an infinite vertical porous plate subjected to uniform suction, in the presence of transverse magnetic field, have been studied taking into account that the external flow velocity varies periodically with time in magnitude but not in direction. The effect of the induced magnetic field has been neglected. Approximate solutions to the transient flow, the amplitude and the phase of the skin-friction and the rate of heat transfer have been derived. During the course of the discussion, the effects of the Grashoff number Gr, the modified Grashoff number Gc (depending on the concentration difference), the Schmidt number Sc, the Eckert number Ec, the magnetic field parameter M, and the frequency ω have been discussed.     

Numerical study of PEMFC heat and mass transfer characteristics based on roughness interface thermal resistance model

The thermal contact resistance (TCR) is the main component of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) thermal resistance due to the existence of surface roughness between the components of PEMFC, and the influence of TCR is often ignored in traditional three dimensional PEMFC simulations. In this paper, the heat and mass transfer characteristics including polarization curve, power density curve, temperature distribution, membrane water content distribution, membrane current density are studied under different component surface roughness conditions, and finally the effect of each TCR on the PEMFC performance is studied. It is found that under the same operating conditions, the TCR makes the radial heat transfer of the PEMFC decrease, and the temperature of the membrane electrode and the temperature difference of each component of the PEMFC is higher than that of the model without TCR. When the surface roughness of components in the PEMFC equals 1 μm, 2 μm, 3 μm, the cell current density decreases by 6.56%, 12.46% and 17.17% respectively when the output cell voltage equals 0.3 V, and the cell power density decreases by 3.64%, 7.54%, 13.14% respectively when the cell current density equals 1.2 A·cm^?2. When the TCR between the CL and PEM equals 0.003 K·m²·W^?1, 0.005 K·m²·W^?1, 0.01 K·m²·W^?1, the cell current density is increased by 2.30%, 3.65%, 6.74% respectively under the condition that the output cell voltage equals 0.3 V, and the cell power density is increased by 1.24%, 1.85%, 3.10% respectively when the cell current density equals 1.2 A·cm^?2. The results show that the numerical simulation of PEMFC cannot ignore the effect of TCR.     

Simulation of heat and mass transfer in activated carbon tank for hydrogen storage

The charging process of hydrogen storage tank based on bed of activated carbon in a steel container at room temperature (295 K) and medium storage pressure (10 MPa) is simulated with an axisymmetric geometry model using the finite volume commercial solver Fluent. The mass flux profile at the entrance is established using user-defined functions (UDFs). The heat and mass transfer processes in the cylindrical steel tank packed with activated carbon are discussed considering the influence of viscous resistance and inertial resistance of the porous media. The velocity distribution and its effect on the temperature distribution are analyzed. The effects of the flow rate at the inlet and of the adsorption factor on the charging process are studied. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach based on finite volume simulations is used. Results show that the temperature near the bottom of the tank is higher than that at the entrance, temperature in the center of the tank is higher than that near the wall and rises somewhat faster along the axial compared to the radial direction. The highest hydrogen absolute adsorption occurs at the entrance of the tank. A good agreement is found between the simulation results and the available experimental data. The maximum magnitude of the axial velocity is much higher than that of the radial component, resulting in more heat energy transfer along the axial direction than radial direction. In addition, the pressure reaches equilibrium earlier when the mass flow is higher, and the temperature reaches a maximum value faster.     

Effects of geometry and inconstant mass flow rate on temperatures within a pressurized hydrogen cylinder during refueling

Higher refueling rate leads to higher temperature rise within the cylinder. Excessive temperature should be avoided during the refueling progress. In this paper, we studied the effective methods to control the temperature rise by simulations based on the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Cylinders of different length to diameter ratios and different inlet diameters were simulated. We found that smaller radio of length to diameter can boost for temperature control and temperature distribution. Larger inlet diameter can restrain temperature rise. Comparing the simulation results with constant, increasing and decreasing mass flow rate, the refueling with increasing flow rate obtains the lowest temperature rise.     

Review on studies of the emptying process of compressed hydrogen tanks

Compressed hydrogen tanks are now widely used for onboard hydrogen storage in fuel cell vehicles (FCVs). However, because of the high storage pressure and the low thermal conductivity of carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP), the emptying of such tanks during driving or emergency release can cause a significant temperature decrease and result in an in-tank gas temperature below the low safety temperature limit of ?40 °C even in warm weather. Once the gas temperature within the tank is lower than ?40 °C, the sealing elements at the boss of the tank may fail, and glass transition of the polymer liner of the type IV tank may occur; both can cause hydrogen leakage and severe safety problems. In this paper, the heat transfer correlations, thermodynamic analyses, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, experimental studies, and thermal management methods associated with the emptying process of compressed hydrogen tanks are comprehensively reviewed. Future research directions on this topic are suggested.     

Simulation and experimental research on the adsorption bed temperature distribution during hydrogen purification

An amendatory Langmuir adsorption model is established based on an experiment using water vapor mixed in hydrogen and adsorbed onto a 5A molecular sieve film. The model is applied to simulate the computation of the desorbing process of the adsorption bed. The simulation curves of adsorption quantity, as well as the temperature vs. time of adsorption bed in the axial direction, are obtained. The thermal images of the adsorption bed are captured using an infrared camera to prove the result of simulation. The results of the simulation and the experiment are in agreement. The research shows that the desorbed water vapor mixed in the regenerating gas would re-condensate on the surface of the molecular sieve because of decreasing temperature and ascending humidity. The re-condensation of water vapor is concentrated on the middle of the adsorption bed. The failure of adsorbent is primarily attributed to the re-condensated water.     

Convection heat and mass transfer in a hydromagnetic flow of a second grade fluid in the presence of thermal radiation and thermal diffusion

The convection heat and mass transfer in a hydromagnetic flow of a second grade fluid past a semi-infinite stretching sheet in the presence of thermal radiation and thermal diffusion are considered. The governing coupled non-linear partial differential equations describing the flow problem are transformed into non-linear ordinary differential equations by method of similarity transformation. The resulting similarity equations are solved numerically using Runge-Kutta shooting method. The results are presented as velocity, temperature and concentration fields for different values of parameters entering into the problem. The skin friction, rate of heat transfer and mass transfer are presented numerically in tabular form. In addition, the results obtained showed that these parameters have significant influence on the flow, heat and mass transfer.     

Experimental Study and Thermal Analysis on the Buckling of Friction Components in Multi-Disc Clutch

A full-scale multi-disc clutch test bench was set up and some sliding experiments were conducted to investigate the temperature evolution processes in low and high lubrication regimes. Friction discs with single friction lining were used and arranged back-to-back in order to preserve possible evidences of buckling. Temperatures were measured with thermocouples from four different radii on the mid-plane of the separator disc. Two different kinds of temperature variation processes with obvious critical points of cone shape buckling were obtained. These temperatures can be divided into three effective stages that represent different deformation status of the discs in these experiments. The temperature fields in the contacting separator disc and friction disc were studied through a transient heat conduction model, and the results show that the temperatures measured by the thermocouples from the separator disc can represent the average temperatures in both of the separator disc and friction disc for a long sliding time. By comparing the computational critical moments of the friction components with the experimental results, the capability of the curved beam model for predicting the critical moments of cone buckling was validated.     

Two models of fluid flow and mass transfer at the trailing edge of a gas slug

Two theoretical models for fluid flow and mass transfer at the trailing edge of a gas slug for small and large Reynolds numbers are suggested. In the case of small Reynolds numbers the creeping fluid flow at the trailing edge of a slug near a corner formed by a plane rigid wall and gas liquid interface is investigated. The flow is caused by in-plane motion and by a fluid in the gap between a rigid wall and a gas-liquid interface. Using this model the rate of mass transfer from the bottom of a slug during gas absorption is determined. In the case of high Reynolds numbers the vortex flow at the trailing edge of the gas slug is investigated. A model of a fluid flow and mass transfer in a vortex flow in cavities is applied for the investigation of vortex formation at the trailing edge of a gas slug.     

Thermal dispersion effect on MHD flow of dusty gas and dust particles through hexagonal channel

In the field of dynamics for a dusty fluid, the volume of the dust particles and flow behaviour of particles in different conditions is very important in engineering problems such as atmospheric fallout, nuclear reactor, powder technology, performance of solid fuel rocket nozzles, air craft icing and so many others. An analysis is presented in this paper to study the effects of thermal dispersion and Viscous dissipation on unsteady flow of a viscous incompressible dusty gas through a hexagonal channel of uniform cross section under the influence of magnetic field and time dependent pressure gradient. The results show the change in velocity profile of gas and particles in the presence of magnetic field with time, thermal dispersion and volume fraction φ.     

Effect of a swirling ladle shroud on fluid flow and mass transfer in a water model of a tundish

A swirling ladle shroud (SLS) is used to control flow turbulence and to improve flotation of inclusions in a two-strand tundish of a slab caster. To simulate the fluid flow in a swirling flow three turbulence models, k-ε, k-ω and RSM were employed. Using the mixing kinetics of a tracer as well as Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) determinations it was found that among these three models the model of turbulence RSM predicts with acceptable agreement the velocity fields of swirling flows experimentally measured. The SLS decreases the turbulence of the entering jet and of the complete flow field when it is compared with a conventional ladle shroud. Kinetic energy of fluid is dissipated through recirculating flows in the transversal and horizontal planes of the tundish helping to the flotation of inclusions through buoyancy, drag and inertial forces. The SLS will become in a new generation of flow control devices in continuous casters of steel.     

Experimental investigation and CFD simulation of turbulence effect on hydrodynamic and mass transfer in a packed bed airlift internal loop reactor

The experimental investigation and its simulation using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) of hydrodynamic and mass transfer for two phase bubbly flow in a split cylindrical airlift reactor were carried out. The turbulence influences on mass transfer and hydrodynamic parameters were considered when packing was installed in the riser zone. Further, CFD was properly able to simulate hydrodynamic and mass transfer in a bubbly flow. Packing existence in an airlift reactor increased gas hold-up and decreased liquid velocity. The lower velocity increased the delay time (residence time), which increased the mass transfer. Since there is random and erratic movement of liquid bulk layers and dynamic fluctuations in a packed bed airlift reactor so, Reynolds number increased and resulted in mass and momentum transfer enhancement. In an unpacked reactor, the superficial gas velocity enhancement changed the flow regime from homogenous to transition while in packed bed reactor the homogenous flow regime was only observed.     

Transient flow performance and heat transfer characteristic in the cylinder of hydraulic driving piston hydrogen compressor during compression stroke

With the advantages of large flow capacity and high pressure, the use of hydraulic driving piston compressors in hydrogen refueling stations is becoming the development trend. Understanding transient flow and heat transfer characteristic is the key issue for the design and application of hydrogen compressors. The transient model of the hydraulic driving piston compressor is constructed by dynamic mesh and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) real hydrogen model, which accurately predicts flow field and heat transfer. Moreover, the effect of piston reciprocating cycle frequency on hydrogen parameters variation and heat transfer characteristic is investigated. Adiabatic compression theory is commonly applied in the design of reciprocating compressors. The results show that due to the heat transfer, the exhaust temperature predicted by the adiabatic compression theory is 6.29 K higher than the actual value. This study provides beneficial references for the design optimization and reliable operation of hydraulic driving piston hydrogen compressors.