Experimental and Theoretical Investigation of Heat Transfer in Vortex Combustion Engines

Author(s):  
E. Farvardin ◽  
M. H. Saidi ◽  
A. Ghafourian

Heat transfer phenomenon in a recently developed vortex engine has been surveyed. Cooler walls, better combustion performance and more stable relative to the other engines, make these engines very interesting. These advantages have been obtained by using a bidirectional swirl flow, containing a cool outer and a hot inner vortex, traveling upstream and downstream respectively. The most eminent benefit of these combustion chambers, having highly reduced wall temperature, is the result of convective heat release from the wall by the outer vortex. A thorough numerically and experimentally investigation has been performed on radiation and convection heat transfer to realize the exact heat transfer behavior of this engine. Results from flame structure observation indicate that flame area is much larger in vortex engine in comparison to regular engines due to vortex stretching of the flame which increases radiation heat transfer to walls. In spite of this increase, heat removal by outer swirl flow is high enough not only to compensate for increased radiation but also reduces the wall temperature substantially.

Author(s):  
S. Jahangirian ◽  
M. Abarham ◽  
A. Ghafourian ◽  
M. H. Saidi

A new experimental facility was designed, fabricated and tested to model and study the effect of bidirectional swirl flow on the rate of heat transfer to combustion chamber walls in many applications. Heat transfer to combustion chamber walls is an unwanted phenomenon. Reduction of this heat transfer can result in time and cost saving methods in design and fabrication of combustion chambers. The experimental study was performed by using propane and air with oxygen as fuel and oxidizer respectively. The location of injection ports and geometry of combustion chamber are flexible and could be varied. Tests were performed with different mass flow rates of fuel and oxidizer. For the same flow rates and with the presence of bidirectional flow, a wall temperature reduction of up to 50% was observed. In cases where only some of the oxidizer was injected from the chamber end to generate the bidirectional swirl flow, highest efficiency and lowest wall temperature existed. This can be due to better mixing of fuel and oxidizer and absence of hot spots in the combusting core. Further development of this technique enables combustion chamber manufacturers in a wide spectrum of industries such as gas turbine manufacturers to use less expensive and more available material in their production of combustors.


2006 ◽  
Vol 129 (2) ◽  
pp. 622-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Ghafourian ◽  
M. H. Saidi ◽  
S. Jahangirian ◽  
M. Abarham

A new experimental facility was designed, fabricated, and tested to model and study the effect of bidirectional swirl flow on the rate of heat transfer to combustion chamber walls. Reduction of this heat transfer can result in time and cost of design and fabrication methods of combustion chambers. The experimental study was performed using propane and air with oxygen as fuel and oxidizer, respectively. For similar flow rates, in cases where bidirectional flow was present, wall temperature reductions of up to 70% were observed. In cases where only some of the oxidizer was injected from the chamber end to generate the bidirectional swirl flow, the lowest wall temperature existed. This can be due to better mixing of fuel and oxidizer and absence of hot spots in the combustion core.


2000 ◽  
Vol 122 (4) ◽  
pp. 176-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mounir Ibrahim ◽  
Pavel Sokolov ◽  
Thomas Kerslake ◽  
Carol Tolbert

Two sets of experimental data for cylindrical canisters with thermal energy storage applications were examined in this paper: 1) Ground Experiments and 2) Space Experiments. A 2-D computational model was developed for unsteady heat transfer (conduction and radiation) with phase-change. The radiation heat transfer employed a finite volume method. The following was found in this study: 1) Ground Experiments, the convection heat transfer is equally important to that of the radiation heat transfer; Radiation heat transfer in the liquid is found to be more significant than that in the void; Including the radiation heat transfer in the liquid resulted in lower temperatures (about 15 K) and increased the melting time (about 10 min.); Generally, most of the heat flow takes place in the radial direction. 2) Space Experiments, Radiation heat transfer in the void is found to be more significant than that in the liquid (exactly the opposite to the Ground Experiments); Accordingly, the location and size of the void affects the performance considerably; Including the radiation heat transfer in the void resulted in lower temperatures (about 40 K). [S0199-6231(00)00304-X]


Author(s):  
Pablo E. Araya Go´mez ◽  
Miles Greiner

Two-dimensional simulations of steady natural convection and radiation heat transfer for a 14×14 pressurized water reactor (PWR) spent nuclear fuel assembly within a square basket tube of a typical transport package were conducted using a commercial computational fluid dynamics package. The assembly is composed of 176 heat generating fuel rods and 5 larger guide tubes. The maximum cladding temperature was determined for a range of assembly heat generation rates and uniform basket wall temperatures, with both helium and nitrogen backfill gases. The results are compared with those from earlier simulations of a 7×7 boiling water reactor (BWR). Natural convection/radiation simulations exhibited measurably lower cladding temperatures only when nitrogen is the backfill gas and the wall temperature is below 100°C. The reduction in temperature is larger for the PWR assembly than it was for the BWR. For nitrogen backfill, a ten percent increase in the cladding emissivity (whose value is not well characterized) causes a 4.7% reduction in the maximum cladding to wall temperature difference in the PWR, compared to 4.3% in the BWR at a basket wall temperature of 400°C. Helium backfill exhibits reductions of 2.8% and 3.1% for PWR and BWR respectively. Simulations were performed in which each guide tube was replaced with four heat generating fuel rods, to give a homogeneous array. They show that the maximum cladding to wall temperature difference versus total heat generation within the assembly is not sensitive to this geometric variation.


Author(s):  
Pei-Xue Jiang ◽  
Zhi-Hui Li ◽  
Chen-Ru Zhao

This paper presents the experimental and numerical investigation results of the convection heat transfer of CO2 at supercritical pressures in a 0.0992 mm diameter vertical tube at various inlet Reynolds numbers, heat fluxes and flow directions. The effects of buoyancy and flow acceleration resulted from the dramatic properties variation were investigated. Results showed that the local wall temperature varied non-linearly for both upward and downward flow when the heat flux was high. The difference of the local wall temperature between upward flow and downward flow was very small when other test conditions were held the same, which indicates that for supercritical CO2 flowing in a mini tube as employed in this study, the buoyancy effect on the convection heat transfer was quite insignificant, and the flow acceleration induced by the axial density variation with temperature was the main factor that lead to the abnormal local wall temperature distribution at high heat fluxes. The predicted values using the LB low Reynolds number turbulence model correspond well with the measured data. Velocity profiles and turbulence kinetic energy near the wall varying along the tube generated by the numerical simulations were presented to develop a better understanding.


2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-127
Author(s):  
Kamel Sidi-Ali ◽  
Khaled Oukil ◽  
Tinhinane Hassani ◽  
Yasmina Amri ◽  
Abdelmoumane Alem

This work analyses the contribution of radiation heat transfer in the cooling of a pebble bed modular reactor. The mathematical model, developed for a porous medium, is based on a set of equations applied to an annular geometry. Previous major works dealing with the subject have considered the forced convection mode and often did not take into account the radiation heat transfer. In this work, only free convection and radiation heat transfer are considered. This can occur during the removal of residual heat after shutdown or during an emergency situation. In order to derive the governing equations of radiation heat transfer, a steady-state in an isotropic and emissive porous medium (CO2) is considered. The obtained system of equations is written in a dimensionless form and then solved. In order to evaluate the effect of radiation heat transfer on the total heat removed, an analytical method for solving the system of equations is used. The results allow quantifying both radiation and free convection heat transfer. For the studied situation, they show that, in a pebble bed modular reactor, more than 70% of heat is removed by radiation heat transfer when CO2 is used as the coolant gas.


Author(s):  
Pei-Xue Jiang ◽  
Rui-Na Xu ◽  
Zhi-Hui Li ◽  
Chen-Ru Zhao

The convection heat transfer of CO2 at supercritical pressures in a 0.0992 mm diameter vertical tube at relatively high Reynolds numbers (Rein = 6500), various heat fluxes and flow directions are investigated experimentally and numerically. The effects of buoyancy and flow acceleration resulting from the dramatic property variations are studied. The Results show that the local wall temperature varied non-linearly for both upward and downward flow when the heat flux was high. The difference in the local wall temperature between upward and downward flow is very small when the other test conditions are held the same, which indicates that for supercritical CO2 flowing in a micro tube as employed in this study, the buoyancy effect on the convection heat transfer is insignificant and the flow acceleration induced by the axial density variation with temperature is the main factor leading to the abnormal local wall temperature distribution at high heat fluxes. The predicted temperatures using the LB low Reynolds number turbulence model correspond well with the measured data. To further study the influence of flow acceleration on the convection heat transfer, air is also used as the working fluid to numerically investigate the fluid flow and heat transfer in the vertical micro tube. The results show that the effect of compressibility on the fluid flow and heat transfer of air in the vertical micro tube is significant but that the influence of thermal flow acceleration on convection heat transfer of air in a vertical micro tube is insignificant.


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