scholarly journals Teach Second Law of Thermodynamics via Analysis of Flow through Packed Beds and Consolidated Porous Media

Fluids ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajinder Pal

The second law of thermodynamics is indispensable in engineering applications. It allows us to determine if a given process is feasible or not, and if the given process is feasible, how efficient or inefficient is the process. Thus, the second law plays a key role in the design and operation of engineering processes, such as steam power plants and refrigeration processes. Nevertheless students often find the second law and its applications most difficult to comprehend. The second law revolves around the concepts of entropy and entropy generation. The feasibility of a process and its efficiency are directly related to entropy generation in the process. As entropy generation occurs in all flow processes due to friction in fluids, fluid mechanics can be used as a tool to teach the second law of thermodynamics and related concepts to students. In this article, flow through packed beds and consolidated porous media is analyzed in terms of entropy generation. The link between entropy generation and mechanical energy dissipation is established in such flows in terms of the directly measurable quantities such as pressure drop. Equations are developed to predict the entropy generation rates in terms of superficial fluid velocity, porous medium characteristics, and fluid properties. The predictions of the proposed equations are presented and discussed. Factors affecting the rate of entropy generation in flow through packed beds and consolidated porous media are identified and explained.

2011 ◽  
Vol 133 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bastian Schmandt ◽  
Heinz Herwig

Losses in a flow field due to single conduit components often are characterized by experimentally determined head loss coefficients K. These coefficients are defined and determined with the pressure as the critical quantity. A thermodynamic definition, given here as an alternative, is closer to the physics of flow losses, however. This definition is based upon the dissipation of mechanical energy as main quantity. With the second law of thermodynamics this dissipation can be linked to the local entropy generation in the flow field. For various conduit components K values are determined and physically interpreted by determining the entropy generation in the component as well as upstream and downstream of it. It turns out that most of the losses occur downstream of the components what carefully has to be taken into account when several components are combined in a flow network.


A rigorous theory of dispersion in both granular and sintered spatially-periodic porous media is presented, utilizing concepts originating from Brownian motion theory. A precise prescription is derived for calculating both the Darcy-scale interstitial velocity vector v* and dispersivity dyadic D* of a tracer particle. These are expressed in terms of the local fluid velocity vector field v at each point within the interstices of a unit cell of the spatially periodic array and, for the dispersivity, the molecular diffusivity of the tracer particle through the fluid. Though the theory is complete, numerical results are not yet available owing to the complex structure of the local interstitial velocity field v. However, as an illustrative exercise, the theory is shown to correctly reduce in an appropriate limiting case to the well-known Taylor-Aris results for dispersion in circular capillaries.


Entropy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giedrė Streckienė ◽  
Vytautas Martinaitis ◽  
Juozas Bielskus

The continuous energy transformation processes in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems of buildings are responsible for 36% of global final energy consumption. Tighter thermal insulation requirements for buildings have significantly reduced heat transfer losses. Unfortunately, this has little effect on energy demand for ventilation. On the basis of the First and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the concepts of entropy and exergy are applied to the analysis of ventilation air handling unit (AHU) with a heat pump, in this paper. This study aims to develop a consistent approach for this purpose, taking into account the variations of reference temperature and temperatures of working fluids. An analytical investigation on entropy generation and exergy analysis are used, when exergy is determined by calculating coenthalpies and evaluating exergy flows and their directions. The results show that each component of the AHU has its individual character of generated entropy, destroyed exergy, and exergy efficiency variation. However, the evaporator of the heat pump and fans have unabated quantities of exergy destruction. The exergy efficiency of AHU decreases from 45–55% to 12–15% when outdoor air temperature is within the range of −30 to +10 °C, respectively. This helps to determine the conditions and components of improving the exergy efficiency of the AHU at variable real-world local climate conditions. The presented methodological approach could be used in the dynamic modelling software and contribute to a wider application of the Second Law of Thermodynamics in practice.


Author(s):  
Anahita Imanian ◽  
Mohammad Modarres

Cumulative hazard and cumulative damage are important models for reliability and structural integrity assessment. This article reviews a previously developed thermodynamic entropy–based damage model and derives and demonstrates an equivalent reliability function. As such, a thermodynamically inspired approach to developing new definitions of cumulative hazard, cumulative damage, and life models of structures and components based on the second law of thermodynamics is presented. The article defines a new unified measure of damage in terms of energy dissipation associated with multiple interacting irreversible processes that represent the underlying failure mechanisms that cause damage and failure. Since energy dissipation leads to entropy generation in materials, it has been shown and experimentally demonstrated that the use of the total entropy generated in any degradation process is measurable and can ultimately be used to represent the time of failure of structures and components. This description therefore connects the second law of thermodynamics to the conventional models of reliability used in life assessment. Any variability in the entropic endurance to failure and uncertainties about the parameters of the entropic-based damage model lead to the time-to-failure distribution. In comparison with the conventional probabilistic reliability methods, deriving the reliability function in terms of the entropy generation can offer a general and more fundamental approach to representation of reliability. The entropic-based theory of damage and the equivalent reliability approach are demonstrated and confirmed experimentally by applying the complex interactive corrosion-fatigue degradation mechanism to samples of aluminum materials.


1989 ◽  
Vol 200 ◽  
pp. 173-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald L. Koch ◽  
Raymond G. Cox ◽  
Howard Brenner ◽  
John F. Brady

The effect of spatial periodicity in grain structure on the average transport properties resulting from flow through porous media are derived from the basic conservation equations. At high Péclet number, the mechanical dispersion that is induced by the stochastic fluid velocity field in disordered media and is independent of the molecular diffusivity is absent in periodic media where the velocity field is deterministic. Instead, the fluid motion enhances diffusion by an amount proportional to U2l2/D when the bulk flow is in certain directions (of which there are an infinite number), and to D otherwise. The non-mechanical dispersion mechanisms associated with the zero velocity of the fixed grains is qualitatively similar in ordered and disordered media.


1988 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 766-775
Author(s):  
Subhash C. Jain ◽  
Forrest M. , Jr. ◽  
Tim H. Lee

Porous dikes have been proposed for use in blocking access of fish to cooling water intakes in power plants using large cooling ponds for heat dissipation. Flow through such dikes is neither of the Darcy type nor quadratic, the friction factor depending on both the Reynolds number and material properties. Full-scale tests of the dike material proposed for the LaSalle County power plant confirmed the material-property and Reynolds-number dependencies reported in the literature and permitted calibration of the head-loss parameters for the prototype material under two placement configurations. Limited tests on dike clogging by surface debris permitted quantification of the additional head loss which clogging could cause. Key words: porous media, cooling ponds, dikes, scale model tests.


2020 ◽  
Vol 194 ◽  
pp. 01034
Author(s):  
Haihua Luo ◽  
Qiang Shen ◽  
Yunfei Chen ◽  
Shien Sun ◽  
Junguang Lin ◽  
...  

In order to accept more electricity from renewable energy, cogeneration power plants are considering to reduce electricity production, which affects the heat supply. Here we present a molten salt heat storage system for coal-fired cogeneration power plants, which can supply high temperature steam to users and decouple the heat and electricity production. The first and second law-based analytical models for the cycle and a real device are built. Two water input methods are taken into account. The results show that the high and low temperatures in the two molten salt tanks influence the design of the components and the entropy generation distribution significantly. The pinch temperature difference in the discharge duration limits the lowest molten salt temperature. The device with real heat exchangers produces higher entropy generation and lower second law efficiency. Environmental water input requires more heat and entropy generation for the same steam supply. Recommendations are provided for practical designs.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (6 Part B) ◽  
pp. 4005-4022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Trancossi ◽  
Jose Pascoa

In a recent paper, Liversage and Trancossi have defined a new formulation of drag as a function of the dimensionless Bejan and Reynolds numbers. Further analysis of this hypothesis has permitted to obtain a new dimensionless formulation of the fundamental equations of fluid dynamics in their integral form. The resulting equations have been deeply discussed for the thermodynamic definition of Bejan number evidencing that the proposed formulation allows solving fluid dynamic problems in terms of entropy generation, allowing an effective optimization of design in terms of the Second law of thermodynamics. Some samples are discussed evidencing how the new formulation can support the generation of an optimized configuration of fluidic devices and that the optimized configurations allow minimizing the entropy generation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 141 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mansour Nasiri Khalaji ◽  
Isak Kotcioglu ◽  
Sinan Caliskan ◽  
Ahmet Cansiz

In this paper, a particular heat exchanger is designed and analyzed by using second law of thermodynamics. The heat exchanger operates with the cross flow forced convection having cylindrical, square, and hexagonal pin fins (tubular router) placed in the rectangular duct. The pin fins are installed periodically at the top and bottom plates of the duct perpendicular to the flow direction, structured in-line, and staggered sheet layouts. The entropy generation in the flow domain of the channels is calculated to demonstrate the rate of irreversibilities. To obtain the efficiencies, irreversibility, thermal performance factor, and entropy generation number (EGN), the heat exchanger is operated at different temperatures and flow rates by using hot and cold fluids. Optimization of the design parameters and winglet geometry associated with the performance are determined by entropy generation minimization. The variation of the EGN with Reynolds number for various tubular routers is presented. The Reynolds number is determined according to the experimental plan and the performance is analyzed with the method of effectiveness—number of transfer unit (NTU). Based on particular designs, it was determined that the increment in fluid velocity enhances the heat transfer rate, which in turn decreases the heat transfer irreversibility.


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