Impingement of hollow cone spray on hot porous medium

To have a good understanding of the formation of homogenous mixture in a porous medium engine, the interaction between hollow cone spray and hot porous medium was studied numerically by using an improved version of KIVA-3V code. The improved KIVA-3V code is incorporated with an impingement model, heat transfer model and linearized instability sheet atomization (LISA) model to simulate the hollow cone spray. The reasonability of the impingement model and heat transfer model was validated. With a simple model to describe the structure of the porous medium, the interaction between hollow cone spray and hot porous medium was simulated under different ambient pressures and spray cone angles. Computational results show that the fuel spray could be divided into smaller ones, which provides conditions for the quick evaporation of fuel droplets and the mixing of fuel vapor with air. Differences in ambient pressure and spray cone angle affect the distribution of droplets in the porous medium. __________ Translated from Chinese Internal Combustion Engine Engineering, 2007, 28(4): 28-31 [译自: 内燃机工程]     

空心喷雾油滴碰撞热多孔介质的数值研究

为加深对多孔介质发动机中均匀混合气形成的了解,用改进的KIVA-3V详细模拟了空心喷雾油滴碰撞热多孔介质的过程。在KIVA-3V中增加了油滴碰撞热多孔介质壁面的碰撞模型、传热模型及空心喷雾的线性不稳定性液膜破碎(LISA)模型。油滴与热壁的碰撞模型和传热模型经检验证明了其合理性。在简化多孔介质结构的基础上,在不同的环境压力及喷雾锥角下,模拟了空心喷雾与热多孔介质的相互作用。计算结果表明:油雾在碰撞到热多孔介质后,发生分裂的油束和多孔介质区域的高温,促使油滴实现快速蒸发并为油蒸汽与空气充分混合创造了前提。不同的空间压力及喷雾锥角直接影响到油滴在多孔介质中的分布。     

Numerical investigation of the effects of fuel spray type on the interaction of fuel spray and hot porous medium

The interaction between two types of fuel spray and a hot porous medium is studied numerically by using an improved version of KIVA-3V code. The improved KIVA-3V code is incorporated with an impingement model, a heat transfer model and a linearized instability sheet atomization (LISA) model to model the hollow cone spray. An evaporating fuel spray impingement on a hot plane surface was simulated under conditions of experiments performed by Senda to validate the reasonability of the KIVA-3V code. The numerical results conform well with experimental data for spray radius in the liquid and the vapor phases. Computational results on the interaction of two types of the fuel spray and the hot porous medium show that the fuel spray can be split, which provides conditions for quick evaporation of fuel droplets and mixing of fuel vapor with air. The possibility of fuel droplets from hollow cone spray crossing the porous medium reduces compared with that from solid cone spray, with the same initial kinetic energy of fuel droplets in both injection types.     

伞喷油雾与热多孔介质相互作用的数值模拟

为深入认识多孔介质发动机中均匀混合气的形成,用改进的KIVA-3V详细模拟了伞喷油雾与热多孔介质之间的相互作用．在KIVA-3V中增加了油滴碰撞热多孔介质壁面的碰撞模型、传热模型．为检测数值模型的合理性,在Senda等人的实验条件下进行了数值计算．油束碰壁后油滴和油蒸气分布的数值计算结果与实验结果吻合较好．在简化多孔介质结构的基础上和不同的环境压力及喷雾锥角时,模拟了伞喷油雾与热多孔介质的碰撞过程．计算结果表明,伞喷油雾的喷雾锥角及空间压力对油滴在多孔介质中的分布有着很大的影响,在多孔介质厚度一定时,通过调节这些参数,能够形成均匀混合气．     

Flow field simulation and pressure drop modeling by a porous medium in PEM fuel cells

For proton-exchange membrane fuel cells, the distribution of reactant flow in the stack is critical to the fuel cell's efficiency. The uneven distribution of reactant flow in the stack may cause poor current density, low performance, and material degradation. To understand and accurately predict the flow field in the proton-exchange membrane fuel cell system, the present study aims to develop a simple correlation to analyze the pressure drop in fuel cell stacks. The flow channel in each cell of a stack is treated as a porous medium, and a power-law model is used to approximate the porous medium momentum source term. For the stacks with fewer cell numbers, namely, 1, 5, and 10 cells, the parameters in the power law are established based on the experimental data. Then, a correlation is developed to simulate the flow and predict the pressure drop in the stack with higher cell numbers (ie, 20 and 40 cells). The simulations show that the pressure drop in each cell of a stack is almost invariable, and the average pressure drop decreases with increasing the number of cells. The flow uniformity in the stacks with different cell numbers is evaluated using the dimensionless pressure drop and the pressure drop ratios. It suggests that the lower the cell number, the more uniform the pressure drop. The developed model is conducive to efficiently designing the flow channel for a fuel cell stack with large cell numbers.     

Anode optimization based on gradient porous control medium for passive liquid-feed direct methanol fuel cells

The direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) is a potential candidate to be used as a portable power source which still faces great challenges in structure optimization because of complex interactions and even conflicts between the reactant and product managements. This work presents an effective method for the anode optimization by using a gradient porous medium to realize more active control of the anode mass transfer mechanisms of a passive liquid-feed DMFC. This functional medium is made of a self-developed metal fiber sintered felt based on multi-tooth cutting and high-temperature sintering. Its structural features and processing parameters can be adaptively controlled according to the application requirement. Results indicate that the porosity, assembly pattern and thickness of this gradient porous medium have great effects on the cell performance. The DMFC is insensitive to the change of sintering process. The use of a gradient porosity promotes a higher cell performance than the uniform structure, especially when a lower porosity is used inward. How the methanol concentration affects the cell performance is also discussed in this study.     

Effects of a porous medium on the accelerated flow past a vertical porous surface

In the present work we investigate the effects of a porous medium on the accelerated flow past a vertical porous limiting surface. The solution of the problem is obtained in closed form by using the Laplace transform technique.     

填充有多孔介质的T型通道内冷热流体混合过程的大涡模拟

通过大涡模拟(large-eddy simulation,LES)对填充有烧结铜球多孔介质的T型通道内冷热流体混合过程的流动与传热情况进行了数值模拟,获得了混合区域内的瞬时温度和瞬时速度,通过时均值和均方根值来描述温度和速度的平均大小和波动程度。数值结果表明:在主管下游离多孔介质区域不远处的温度波动最为剧烈,在多孔介质的孔隙中流体速度波动最为剧烈。     

Controlling Mechanism and Resulting Spray Characteristics of Injection of Fuel Containing Dissolved Gas

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Numerical study of heat and mass transfer in MHD flow of nanofluid in a porous medium with Soret and Dufour effects

This article models the transport mechanism of mass and heat energy under temperature and concentration gradients. Mathematical models in the form of partial differential equations based on conservation laws for fluid flow and transfer of heat and mass subjected to thermal diffusion and diffusion thermos, heat generation porous medium, and buoyancy forces are developed under boundary layer approximations. These models along with models of nanostructures are solved numerically using the shooting method with the Runge–Kutta method of order five. Convergent solutions are obtained and are used for parametric analysis regarding thermal enhancement of a working fluid having nanoparticles of CuO, Al₂O₃, and TiO₂. Numerical experiments are performed and it is observed that the transport of heat is accelerated when the compositional gradient is increased. Similarly, a significant rise in the transport across concentration is noted when the temperature gradient is increased. The magnetohydrodynamic flow experienced retardation when the porous medium parameter and Hartmann number are increased. The temperature increased when the friction force produced heat and that heat is distributed to the particles of the fluid. Hence, viscous dissipation is responsible for widening the thermal boundary layer region.     

A universal model of opposed flow combustion of solid fuel over an inert porous medium

In this study, a universal model is developed to examine the behavior of combustion wave observed in porous solid matters (e.g., smoldering, self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS), diesel particulate filter (DPF) regeneration process). Analytical expressions of the combustion characters of solid combustible (e.g., diesel particulate matters trapped in a DPF) deposited over an inert porous medium are obtained employing large activation energy asymptotic taking into account the sensible transport processes; namely, heat transfer between the porous medium and gas phases, radiation heat transfer from the porous medium, heat loss from the porous medium to the environment, mass transfer of oxygen from the gas stream to the surface of solid fuel and the effective diffusion in modeling the species diffusion. Then it has been validated that the present model is applicable and adaptable for predicting the characteristics of smoldering combustion and thus SHS process. As a result, the features of combustion wave of the present phenomena would be useful to other processes. From practical point of view and for deep understanding of the behavior of combustion wave of these processes, we investigate the effects of various physical parameters over a wide range of conditions. We observe that the moving speed of the reaction front increases with the increase of porosity of the porous medium, mass transfer coefficient and initial fuel mass fraction; while it decreases owing to the increase of heat transfer rate from the porous medium to the gas, heat loss to the environment and radiative heat transfer. Furthermore, the results reveal that extinction tends to occur due to lower porosity of the porous medium, higher radiative heat transfer from the porous medium, higher heat transfer rate from the porous medium to the gas and higher heat losses from the porous medium to the environment. Even the observed near-extinction behavior in reaction front speed versus heat loss diagram is found to be similar what we got in gaseous premixed flame propagating through the porous medium. An extinction limit diagram has been presented as a function of radiation-conduction parameter and the gas flow velocity. In addition to, the impact of radiation and the combined effect of the inclusion of Knudsen diffusion and tortuosity are demonstrated in terms of the spatial temperature and species profiles to examine how these two parameters modify the reaction front structure. Furthermore, the governing equations have been solved numerically and it is observed that asymptotic analysis gives a good agreement with the numerical solution.     

Numerical and experimental investigation of heat and mass transfer in unsaturated porous media with low convective drying intensity

The heat and mass transfer in an unsaturated wet cylindrical bed packed with quartz particles was investigated theoretically and experimentally for relatively low convective drying rates. The medium was dried by blowing dry air over the top of the porous bed which was insulated by impermeable, adiabatic material on the bottom and sides. Local thermodynamic equilibrium was assumed in the mathematical model describing the multi‐phase flow in the unsaturated porous medium using the energy and mass conservation equations for heat and mass transfer during the drying. The drying model included convection and capillary transport of the moisture, and convection and diffusion of the gas. The wet and dry regions were coupled with a dynamic boundary condition at the evaporation front. The numerical results indicated that the drying process could be divided into three periods: the initial temperature rise period, the constant drying rate period, and the reduced drying rate period. The numerical results agreed well with the experimental data, verifying that the mathematical model can evaluate the drying performance of porous media for low drying rates. ©2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res, 37(5): 290–312, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/htj.20205     

Experimental investigation of a new thermal energy storage system using thermo‐sensitive magnetic fluid and porous medium

In this paper, a novel thermal energy storage (TES) system based on a thermo‐sensitive magnetic fluid (MF) in a porous medium is proposed to store low‐temperature thermal energy. In order to have a better understanding about the fluid flow and heat‐transfer mechanism in the TES system, four different configurations, using ferrofluid as the basic fluid and either copper foam or porous carbon with different porosity (90 and 100 PPI, respectively) as the packed bed, are investigated experimentally. Furthermore, two thermal performance parameters are evaluated during the heat charging cycle, which are thermal storage velocity and thermal storage capacity of the materials under a range of magnetic field strength. It is shown that heat conduction is the primary heat‐transfer mechanism in copper foam TES system, while magnetic thermal convection of the magnetic fluid is the dominating heat‐transfer mechanism in the porous carbon TES. In practical applications in small‐scale systems, the 90‐PPI copper foam should be selected among the four porous materials because of its cost efficiency, while porous carbon should be used in industrial scale systems because of its sensitivity to magnetic field and cost efficiency.     

Impact of alternative fuel properties on fuel spray behavior and atomization

In order to verify and solve the problem of NOx and PM emissions, it is necessary to directly observe the internal combustion chamber of a diesel engine. Many studies have been performed in recent years to verify the macroscopic and microscopic behavior of the injected fuel spray because observing it is not easy due to the difficulties of the experiment. Researchers have investigated the spray characteristics for various diesel injector nozzles over a wide range of temperatures and pressure, but there is lack of evaluation for the spray characteristics for biodiesel. At a time when rapid rise of fuel prices and depleting hydrocarbon resources of the world have forced us to look for alternative fuels biodiesel produced by transesterification of non-edible vegetable oils is promising to be an important additive/substitute to petro diesel. Biodiesel being an oxygenated and sulfur-free fuel leads to more complete combustion and lower emissions. But, the energy content or net calorific value of biodiesel is less than that of diesel fuel; also it has higher viscosity and density, than diesel fuel. A considerable improvement in these properties can be obtained by mixing diesel and biodiesel and then using the blends. Biodiesel and biodiesel/petro diesel blends, with their higher lubricity levels, are increasingly being utilized as an alternative. Present paper analyzed the correlation of injection parameters that will affect the spray characteristics of biodiesel. Observations for analyzing the effect of injection parameters on spray cone angle, break up length and fuel penetration were made. Finally the performance and emissions tests were studied. Atomization and vaporization of fuel are greatly influenced by viscosity and density of fuel and these properties are temperature dependent. Thus fuel inlet temperature plays a very important role in fuel atomization process. At higher temperature viscosity of fuel decreases which enhances the atomization of biofuels.     

Numerical study on flash‐boiling spray of multicomponent fuel

Flash‐boiling occurs when a fuel is injected into a combustion chamber where the ambient pressure is lower than the saturation pressure of the fuel. It has been known that flashing is a favorable mechanism for atomizing liquid fuels. On the other hand, alternative fuels, such as gaseous fuels and oxygenated fuels, are used to achieve low exhaust emissions in recent years. In general, most of these alternative fuels have high volatility and flash‐boiling takes place easily in the fuel spray when injected into the combustion chamber of an internal combustion engine under high pressure. In addition the multicomponent mixture of high‐ and low‐volatility fuels has been proposed in the previous study in order to control the spray and combustion processes in an internal combustion engine. It was found that the multicomponent fuel produces flash‐boiling with an increase in the initial fuel temperature. Therefore, it is important to investigate these flash‐boiling processes in fuel spray. In the present study, the submodels of a flash‐boiling spray are constructed. These submodels consider the bubble nucleation, growth, and disruption in the nozzle orifice and injected fuel droplets. The model is implemented in KIVA3V and the spray characteristics of multicomponent fuel with and without flashing are numerically investigated. In addition, these numerical results are compared with experimental data obtained in the previous study using a constant volume vessel. The flashing spray characteristics from numerical simulation qualitatively show good agreement with the experimental results. In particular, it is confirmed from both the numerical and experimental data that flash‐boiling effectively accelerates the atomization and vaporization of fuel droplets. This means that a lean homogeneous mixture can be quickly formed using flash‐boiling in the combustion chamber. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res, 35(5): 369–385, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/htj.20117     

超临界燃料喷射过程大涡模拟:状态方程的影响

针对Sandia实验室关于正庚烷喷雾的实验数据,基于CONVERGE软件采用大涡模拟方法对以正庚烷为燃料喷入超临界环境中的雾化过程进行了数值模拟。以实际气体状态方程Soave-Redlich-Kwong (SRK)和Peng-Robinson(PR)两个方程为基础,重点研究了两状态方程对超临界状态下燃料喷雾的发展过程、射流密度变化、燃料喷雾的质量分数随温度变化的影响,并用模拟所得与实验结果进行对比。结果表明,同一时间下PR方程模拟的燃料喷雾的贯穿度更大;两实际气体状态方程下射流表面都有大的密度梯度,并与实验所得的密度值相吻合;PR方程对于超临界工况的计算可能更优于SRK方程。燃料质量分数随温度的变化符合实际的情况,密度值的急剧变化验证了射流表面是一个介于液体与超临界流体之间的混合层,并可以通过密度梯度来推测混合层位置。     

Numerical modelling of a three-zone combustion for heavy fuel oil in inert porous media reactor

Numerical model for heavy fuel oil and air mixtures combustion is presented to simulate the behavior of the fuel in an inert porous medium reactor for hydrogen production. Three-zone combustion of oil and petroleum cokes separated by temperature ranges starting from ambient temperature to 560 K, from 560 K to 673 K, and above 673 K, is presented. Hydrogen production is achieved using water gas shift equilibrium reaction on the combustion products at different temperatures. Results show a high enthalpy contribution due to coke combustion formed in the low temperature oxidation reaction, being the most important reaction in relation to its zone size. Simulations increasing filtration velocity (from 0.05 to 0.9 m/s) has a favorable effect on the maximum temperature and the combustion front velocity. The effect of the simplified combustion model lowers computational time, with acceptable results for temperature as well as hydrogen production in contrast to laboratory tests and other software simulation such as COMSOL Multiphysics.     

Numerical simulation of emulsified fuel spray combustion with puffing and micro-explosion

The purpose of this study was to develop numerical simulation of spray combustion of emulsified fuel with considering puffing and micro-explosion. First, a mathematical model for puffing was proposed. In the proposed puffing model, the rate of mass change of a droplet during puffing was expressed by the evaporation rate of dispersed water and the mass change rate due to fine droplets spouted from the droplet surface. The mass change rate due to fine droplets was related to the evaporation rate of the dispersed water and each liquid content. This model had only one experimental parameter. The essential feature of this model was that it was simple to apply to numerical simulation of spray combustion. First, the validity of the proposed puffing model was investigated with the experimental results for a single droplet. The calculated results for a single droplet with the experimental parameter varying from 5.0 to 10 were in good agreement with the experimental results. Moreover, numerical simulation of spray combustion of emulsified fuel was carried out. The occurrence of puffing and micro-explosion was determined by the inner droplet temperature. When micro-explosion occurred, a droplet changed to vapor rapidly. When the proposed puffing model was used in numerical simulation of spray combustion, the experimental parameter in the puffing model was determined for each droplet by random numbers within the range 5.0-10. The calculated results of spray combustion of emulsified fuel without considering puffing or micro-explosions were different from the experimental results even where combustion reactions were almost terminated. Meanwhile, the calculated results when considering puffing and micro-explosions were in good agreement with experimental results at the same location.     

Fractional order simulation for unsteady MHD nanofluid flow in porous medium with Soret and heat generation effects

In this paper, unsteady magnetohydrodynamics nanofluid flow with thermo-diffusion and heat generation effects is studied. The fluid flow at the plate is considered exponentially accelerated through a porous medium. The governing system of equations is made dimensionless with the help of similarity transformation. A Caputo–Fabrizio fractional-order derivative is employed to generalize the momentum, energy, and concentration equations, and the exact expression is obtained using Laplace transformation techniques. To realize the physics of the problem, numerical results of velocity, temperature, and concentration profiles are obtained and presented through graphs. Also, the numerical values of the Nusselt number and Sherwood number are obtained and compared which strongly agree with the previous studies. From the results, it is concluded that velocity distribution decline by improving the value of the chemical reaction and magnetic field while the reverse trend is observed for volume fraction and micropolar parameter. It is also seen that the heat transfer process improves with heat generation and thermal radiation whereas, mass transfer declines with the chemical reaction parameter.     

Soret and Dufour effects on free convection boundary layers over an inclined wavy surface in a porous medium

This work studies the heat and mass transfer characteristics of natural convection near a vertical wavy cone in a fluid saturated porous medium with Soret and Dufour effects. The surface of the wavy cone is kept at constant temperature and concentration. The governing equations are transformed into a set of coupled differential equations, and the obtained boundary layer equations are solved by the cubic spline collocation method. The heat and mass transfer characteristics are presented as functions of Soret parameter, Dufour parameter, half angle of the cone, Lewis number, buoyancy ratio, and dimensionless amplitude. Results show that an increase in the Dufour parameter tends to decrease the local Nusselt number, and an increase in the Soret parameter tends to decrease the local Sherwood number. Moreover, a greater half angle of the cone leads to a greater fluctuation of the local Nusselt and Sherwood numbers with the streamwise coordinates.