D.Ing. / According to literature 6% of South Africa’s primary energy consumption could be saved if heat pumps were used to their full technical potential. Although there is world-wide interest in the use of heat pumps and considerable effort has been expended on heat-pump research, heat pumps are not commonly used in South Africa. The objective of this thesis is to determine the possibility of a combined evaporator or condenser with a normal pump. This will reduce cost and space of a normal heat pump and make heat pumps economically more competitive against resistance element geysers. In order to investigate this combination research is done on semicircular heat exchangers, since this is the primary geometry of the heating channels in the condenser pump. Analyses is done experimentally on a standard 28.58 mm hard drawn copper tube, cut trough the middle, with a 1.6 mm copper plate in between to obtain a semicircular heat exchanger. Turbulent flow is investigated with the flat side of the semicircular heat exchanger being horizontal or vertical, a spiralled and a s-shape semicircular heat exchanger. In each case the heat transfer coefficient is determined with the use of the Wilson plot technique. It is found that there is a significant increase in Nusselt number for semicircular heat exchangers above a normal tube-in-tube heat exchanger but the pressure loss coefficient increase with an equal amount.

Most heat transfer tubes are designed for either fully uniform wall temperature or fully uniform wall heat flux boundary conditions under forced convection. Several applications, including but not limited to the solar collectors of renewable energy systems, do however operate with non-uniform boundary conditions. Limited research has been conducted on non-uniform wall heat flux heat transfer coefficients in circular tubes, especially for mixed convection conditions. Such works are normally numerical in nature and little experimental work is available. In this experimental investigation the effects of the circumferential heat flux distribution and heat flux intensity on the single phase (liquid) internal heat transfer coefficient were considered for a horizontal circular tube. Focus was placed on the laminar flow regime of water within a stainless steel tube with an inner diameter of 27.8 mm and a length to diameter ratio of 72. Different outer wall heat flux conditions, including fully uniform and partially uniform heat fluxes were studied for Reynolds numbers ranging from 650 to 2 600 and a Prandtl number range of 4 to 7. The heat flux conditions included 360˚ (uniform) heating, lower 180˚ heating, upper 180˚ heating, 180˚ left and right hemispherical heating, lower 90˚ heating, upper 90˚ heating and slanted 180˚ heating. Depending on the angle span of the heating, local heat fluxes of 6 631 W/m2 , 4 421 W/m2 , 3 316 W/m2 , 2 210 W/m2 and 1 658 W/m2 were applied. Results indicate that the local and average steady state Nusselt numbers are greatly influenced by the applied heat flux position and intensity. Highest average heat transfer coefficients were achieved for case where the applied heat flux was positioned on the lower half (in terms of gravity) of the tubes circumference, while the lowest heat transfer coefficients were achieved when the heating was applied to the upper half of the tube. Variations in the heat transfer coefficient were found to be due to the secondary buoyancy induced flow effect. The relative thermal performance of the different heating scenarios where characterised and described by means of newly developed heat transfer coefficient correlations for fully uniform heating, lower 180° heating, and upper 180° heating. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2018. / Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering / MEng / Unrestricted

Ce travail a été effectué dans le cadre d’études de la miniaturisation d’un cryo-réfrigérateur de type tube à gaz pulsé (TGP) et particulièrement pour mieux comprendre l’écoulement et le transfert de chaleur dans un régénérateur, l’élément clé du TGP.Nous présentons les études numérique et expérimentale du facteur de frottement et du nombre de Nusselt pour les écoulements stationnaires et continus à nombre de Reynolds modéré O(1 − 100) au sein d’un régénérateur micro-fabriqué. L’influence de la porosité et de la géométrie est étudiée. La micro-structure précisément contrôlée représente des canaux incurvés de largeur de 10, 20 et 40 μm et de profondeur de 100 à 300 μm qui forment un réseau de colonnes ayant des profiles de losanges ou sinusoïdaux. Les micro-canaux sont gravés sur un substrat de silicium par la technologie DRIE. Une technologie d’implantation de thermomètres à l’intérieur de la micro-structure de régénérateur a été développée et mise en œuvre. Les performances des micro-régénérateurs ont été étudiées selon deux approches : la première se base sur le rapport des pertes de charges dans l’écoulement et de l’efficacité du transfert thermique (NPH/NTU) ; la deuxième, sur le coefficient de transfert de chaleur globale proposé par Bejan. L’étude numérique de ces deux critères montre tout le potentiel des micro-structures proposées. / This research is done in the framework of miniaturisation of pulse tube cryocoolers studies and especially to gain a better understanding of the mass flow and heat transfert in the regenerator, which is a crucial component of these type of cryocoolers.In this work we present a numerical and experimental study of the Darcy-Weisbach friction factor and Nusselt number for a continuous and steady flow at moderate Reynolds number O(1−100) in a micro-machined regenerators. The influence of porosity from 40 to 80 % and of the geometry parameters are studied. Well-controlled microstructures represent convoluted channels of 10, 20 or 40 μm width and 100 or 300 μm depth generated by rhombic- or sinusoidal-shaped columns.The channels are etched in Silicon wafers using DRIE MEMS technology. The thermometers are integrated inside the regenerator’s micro-structure to measure the temperature evolution. The efficiency of the regenerators is estimated using two different approaches : the first, as a ratio of pressure drop losses and heat transfer efficiency (NPH/NTU) ; the second, as a volumetric heat transfer density coefficient proposed by Bejan. The numerical study of the efficiency shows theinterest of proposed micro-structures.

Thesis (M.S.) -- Mississippi State University. Department of Mechanical Engineering. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

The problem of low Mach number (non-Boussin´esq) conjugate laminar natural convection combined with surface radiation in a vertical annulus with a centrally located vertical heat generating rod is studied numerically, taking into account the variable transport properties of the fluid. Such problems arise often in practical applications like spent nuclear fuel casks, cooling of electrical and electronic equipment, convection in ovens, cooling of enclosed vertical bus bars and underground transmission cables. The physical model consists of a vertical heat generating rod, a concentric outer isothermal boundary and adiabatic top and bottom surfaces. The heat generation in the rod drives the natural convection in the annulus. Surface radiation is coupled to natural convection through the solid-fluid interface condition and the adiabatic condition of the top and bottom surfaces. A mathematical formulation is written using the governing equations expressing the conservation of mass, momentum and energy for the fluid as well as the energy balance for the solid heat generating rod. The governing equations are discretized on a staggered mesh and are solved using a pressure-correction algorithm. Steady-state solutions are obtained by time-marching of the time dependent equations. The discretized equations for the dependent variables are solved using the Modified Strongly Implicit Procedure. A global iteration is introduced on the variables at each time step for better coupling. The parameters of the problem are the heat generation and gap width based Grashof number, aspect ratio, radius ratio and the solid-to-fluid thermal conductivity ratio. The coupling of radiation introduces the wall emissivity and the radiation number as the additional parameters and also necessitates the calculation of radiation configuration factors between the elemental surfaces formed by the computational mesh. The radiant heat exchange is calculated using the radiosity matrix method. A parametric study is performed by varying Grashof number from 106 to 1010 , aspect ratio from 1 to 15, radius ratio from 2 to 8, the solid-to-fluid thermal conductivity ratio from 1 to 100, with the Prandtl number 0.7 corresponding to air as the working medium. The characteristic dimension and the outer boundary temperature are fixed. For Radiative calculations, and the emissivity is varied between 0.25 and 0.75. Converged solutions with laminar model could be obtained for high Grashof numbers also as the heat generation based Grashof number is generally two orders of magnitude higher than the temperature difference based Grashof number. Results are presented for the flow and temperature distributions in the form of streamline and isotherm maps. Results are also presented for the variation of various quantities of interest such as the local Nusselt numbers on the inner and outer boundaries, the axial variation of the centerline and interface temperatures, maximum solid, average solid and average interface temperature variations with Grashof number and the average Nusselt number variation for the inner and outer boundaries with Grashof number. The results show that simplification of conjugate problems involving heat generation by the prescription of an isoflux boundary condition on the rod surface is inadequate because a truly isoflux condition cannot be realised on the one hand and because the solid temperature distribution remains unknown with such an approach. The average Nusselt numbers on the inner and outer boundaries show an increasing trend with the Grashof number. For pure natural convection, the Boussin´esq model predicts higher temperatures in the solid and lower average Nusselt numbers on the inner and outer boundaries, compared to the non-Boussin´esq model and the Boussin´esq approximation appears to be adequate roughly upto a Grashof number of 109, beyond which the non-Boussin´esq model is to be invoked. The average pressure in the annulus is found to increase with an increase in the Grashof number. Radiation is found to cause convective drop and homogenize the temperature distribution in the fluid.

Rigorous bounds on heat transfer in rapidly rotating convection have existed for several years in the case of free-slip or stress-free boundary conditions. No-slip boundary conditions result in a phenomenon known as Ekman pumping, which significantly impacts the heat transport. A recent collaborative effort in which the author was involved significantly sharpened the bound on heat transfer in the presence of Ekman pumping. The resulting publication was targeted for an audience consisting primarily of physicists and other non-mathematicians. This work stems from the same effort, but is intended for a mathematical audience. Two additional, new results are presented that provide a more solid mathematical footing. These are firstly, a rigorous justification of the infinite Prandtl limit relied on in the referenced work, and secondly, a maximum principle for the temperature field, which provides the needed justification for the application of the background method.

One approach recently proposed for reducing the frictional resistance to liquid flow in microchannels is the patterning of micro-ribs and cavities on the channel walls. When treated with a hydrophobic coating, the liquid flowing in the microchannel wets only the top surfaces of the ribs, and does not penetrate into the cavities, provided the pressure is not too high. The net result is a reduction in the surface contact area between channel walls and the flowing liquid. For micro-ribs and cavities that are aligned normal to the channel axis (principal flow direction), these micropatterns form a repeating, periodic structure. This thesis presents numerical results of a study exploring the momentum and thermal transport in a parallel plate microchannel with such microengineered walls. The liquid-vapor interface (meniscus) in the cavity regions is approximated as flat in the numerical analysis. Two conditions are explored with regard to the cavity region: 1) The liquid flow at the liquid-vapor interface is treated as shear-free (vanishing viscosity in the vapor region), and 2) the liquid flow in the microchannel core and the vapor flow within the cavity are coupled through the velocity and shear stress matching at the interface. Predictions reveal that significant reductions in the frictional pressure drop (as large as 80%) can be achieved relative to the classical smooth channel Stokes flow. In general, reductions in the friction factor-Reynolds number product (fRe) are greater as the cavity-to-rib length ratio is increased (increasing shear-free fraction), as the relative module length (length of a rib-cavity module over the channel hydraulic diameter) is increased, as the Reynolds number decreases, and as the vapor cavity depth increases. The thermal transport results predict lower average Nusselt (Nu) numbers as the cavity-to-rib length ratio is increased (increasing shear-free fraction), as the relative module length (is increased, and as the Reynolds number decreases with little dependence on cavity depth. The ratio of Nu to fRe was evaluated to characterize the relative change in heat transfer with respect to the reduction in driving pressure. Results show that the benefits of reduction in driving pressure outweigh the cost of reduction in heat transfer at higher Reynolds numbers and narrower relative channel widths.

No description available.

No description available.

A computer program based on the discrete-element method has been developed to compute friction factors and Nusselt Numbers for fully-developed turbulent flows with randomly-rough surfaces. Formulations of the discrete-element model for fully-developed turbulent flows inside circular pipes and between infinite parallel plates with the necessary adaptations for randomly-rough surfaces are provided. Utilizing the output of a three-dimensional profilometer, proper description of the randomly-rough surface is necessary for use within the discrete-element model. Proper description of the randomly-rough surface is achieved by the McClain (2002) method of characterization. Predictions from the discrete-element model computer program are compared with the classical, laminar and turbulent, smooth-wall results. In addition to the smooth-wall evaluations, predictions are compared with experimental results for turbulent internal flows with deterministic surface roughness. Predictions from the model demonstrated excellent agreement in all cases. Friction factor and Nusselt Number predictions for fully-developed flows over randomly-rough surfaces are also presented. With the friction factor and Nusselt Number data, velocity profiles for flows over randomly-rough, deterministically-rough and smooth surfaces are provided for comparison.