Heat exchangers have a wide range of applications and engineers need accurate correlations to optimise the design of these heat exchangers. During the design process, the best compromise between high heat transfer coefficients and relatively low pressure drops is usually in the transitional flow regime. Limited research has been done on tube flow in the transitional flow regime. These studies considered either fully developed flow, or average measurements of developing flow across a tube length. No research has been done with the focus on developing flow in smooth tubes in the transitional flow regime. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to experimentally investigate the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of developing flow in the transitional flow regime. An experimental set-up was designed, built and validated against literature. Heat transfer and pressure drop measurements were taken at Reynolds numbers between 500 and 10 000 at three different heat fluxes (6.5, 8.0 and 9.5 kW/m2). A total of 398 mass flow rate measurements, 19 158 temperature measurements and 370 pressure drop measurements were taken. Water was used as the test fluid and the Prandtl number ranged between 3 and 7. The test section was a smooth circular tube and had an inner diameter and length of 11.52 mm and 2.03 m, respectively. An uncertainty analysis showed that the uncertainties of the Nusselt numbers and Colburn j-factors varied between 4% and 5% while the friction factor uncertainties varied between 1% and 17%. Five different flow regimes (laminar, developing laminar, transitional, low-Reynolds-number-end and turbulent) were identified in the first part of the tube during the experiments and nomenclature was developed to more clearly identify the boundaries of the different flow regimes. The developing laminar regime was unique to developing flow and decreased along the tube length. Both the start and end of transition were delayed along the tube length and the width of the transition region decreased slightly. This is in contrast with the results obtained in literature where the effect of the non-dimensional distance from the inlet on fully developed flow in the transition region was investigated. Transition was also slightly delayed with increasing heat flux, but secondary flow effects had no significant influence on the width of the transition region. The relationship between heat transfer and pressure drop was investigated and correlations were developed to predict the Nusselt number as a function of friction factor, Reynolds number and Prandtl number in the laminar, transitional, low-Reynolds-number-end and turbulent flow regimes. Overall, it can be concluded that the heat transfer characteristics of developing and fully developed flow differ significantly and more work needs to be done to fully understand the fundamentals before the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics are fully understood. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering / Unrestricted

Several applications, including those in the energy sector that require high thermal efficiency, such as those in the solar energy industry, require a careful thermal analysis of heat exchange components. In this regard, thermal resistance is a major cause of exergy destruction and must be minimised as much as possible, but also adequately designed. In the past, a number of correlations have been developed to predict heat transfer coefficients in compact heat exchangers. The designers of such heat exchangers often exploit the development of thermal boundary layers to achieve higher overall efficiency due to increases in local heat transfer coefficients. However, most of the correlations that have been developed for heat exchangers neglect the specific effect of the thermal boundary layer development in the inlet region, and instead only offer effective average heat transfer coefficients, which most users assume to be constant throughout the heat exchanger. This is often an over-simplification and leads to over-designed heat exchangers. In this study, focus is placed on annular flow passages with uniform heating on the inner wall. This geometry has many applications. This study aims to collect experimental heat transfer data for water at various flow rates and inlet geometries, to process the data and determine local and overall heat transfer coefficients, and to develop an improved local heat transfer coefficient correlation. Experimental tests were performed on a horizontal concentric tube-in-tube heat exchanger with a length of 1.05 m and a diameter ratio of 0.648. The surface of the inner tube was treated with thermochromic liquid crystals (TLCs), which allowed for high-resolution temperature mapping of the heated surface when combined with an automated camera position system in order to determine local heat transfer coefficients. Conventional in-line and out-of-line annular inlet configurations were evaluated for Reynolds numbers from 2 000 to 7 500, as well as the transition from laminar to turbulent flow for a single in-line inlet configuration. It was found that the local heat transfer coefficients were significantly higher at the inlets, and decreased as the boundary layers developed. With the high resolution of the results, the local heat transfer coefficients were investigated in detail. Local maximum and minimum heat transfer coefficients were identified where the thermal boundary layers merged for high turbulent flow cases. The annular inlet geometries only influenced the heat transfer for Reynolds numbers larger than 4 000, for which larger inlets are favoured. Out-of-line inlet geometries are not favoured for heat transfer. A new heat transfer correlation was developed from the experimental data, based on an existing heat transfer correlation for turbulent flow in an annular flow passage, considering the boundary layer development. The new correlation estimated the area-weighted heat transfer coefficients within 10% of the experimental data and closely followed trends for local heat transfer coefficients. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering / MEng / Unrestricted

Increasing the turbine inlet temperature of gas turbine engines significantly increases their power output and efficiency, but it also increases the likelihood of thermal failure. Internal passages with tiny ribs are typically cast into turbine blades to cool them, and the ability to accurately predict the flow and heat transfer within these channels leads to higher design reliability and prevention of blade failure resulting from local thermal loading. Prediction of the flow through these channels is challenging, however, because the flow is highly turbulent and anisotropic, and the presence of rotational body forces further complicates the flow. Large Eddy Simulations are used to study these flows because of their ability to predict the unsteady flow effects and anisotropic turbulence more reliably than traditional RANS closure models. Calculations in a stationary duct are validated with experiments in the developing flow, fully developed, and 180° bend regions to establish the accuracy and prediction capability of the LES calculations and to aid in understanding the major flow structures encountered in a ribbed duct. It is found that most flow and heat transfer calculations come to within 10-15% of the measurements, typically showing excellent agreement in all comparisons. In the developing flow region, Coriolis effects are found to destabilize turbulence and increase heat transfer along the trailing wall (pressure side), while decreasing leading wall heat transfer by stabilizing turbulence. Coriolis forces improve flow turning in the 180° bend by shifting the shape of the separated recirculation zone at the tip of the dividing wall and increasing the mainstream flow area. In addition, turbulence is attenuated near the leading wall throughout the bend, while Coriolis forces have little effect on trailing wall turbulence in the bend. Introducing and increasing centrifugal buoyancy in the developing flow region increases trailing wall heat transfer monotonically. Along the leading wall, buoyancy increases the size of the recirculation zones, shifting the peak heat transfer to a region upstream of the rib, which decreases heat transfer at low buoyancy parameters but increases it as the buoyancy parameter is increased beyond a value of 0.3. Centrifugal buoyancy in the 180° bend initially decreases the size of the recirculation zone at the tip of the dividing wall, increasing flow area and decreasing flow impingement. At high buoyancy, however, the recirculation zone shifts to the middle of the bend, increasing flow resistance and causing strong flow impingement on the back wall. The Boussinesq approximation is used in the buoyancy calculations, but the accuracy of the approximation comes into question in the presence of large temperature differences. A variable property algorithm is developed to calculate unsteady low speed flows with large density variations resulting from large temperature differences. The algorithm is validated against two test cases: Rayleigh-Bénard convection and Poiseuille-Bénard flow. Finally, design issues in rotating ribbed ducts are considered. The fully developed assumption is discussed with regard to the developing flow region, and controlling the recirculation zone in the 180° bend is considered as a way to determine the blade tip heat transfer and pressure drop across the bend. / Ph. D.

Automotive components are tested extensively in wind tunnels by automotive manufacturers and race teams. This is usually achieved using an accurate scale model representation of the component within the wind tunnel. Automotive heat exchangers, however, are comprised of numerous intricate geometries and are therefore impractical to produce at model scale. Instead they are simply modelled as pressure drops, achieved using a thin mesh or honeycomb of known porosity. Most commercial computational fluid dynamics solvers ignore the geometry of the heat exchanger and instead model it as a discontinuity with a known pressure drop and heat transfer. The pressure drop across an automotive heat exchanger, however, was found to vary with both the coolant temperature and the angle of inclination of the heat exchanger. This thesis initially presents a relationship between the pressure drop coefficient and the inclination angle for varying media porosities. Mathematical relationships for inclination angles of 0°, 15°, 30° and 45°. were derived relating this pressure drop coefficient to the porosity of the media. Weighted least squares is proposed over ordinary least squares when obtaining the Forchheimer equation coefficients from experimental measurements. Investigation extends into the thermo-fluid effects on a full scale automotive heat exchanger when inclined at 0 °, 15°, 30° and 45°. It was found, depending on the angle, that there was a difference in the pressure drop of up to 10% between the unheated and heated (100 C) heat exchanger. Based on the proposed mathematical relationship, this correlated to a 4% decrease in porosity in order to accurately model the automotive heat exchanger at subscale. The thesis concludes with experimental and numerical investigation into the heat transfer on a hydrodynamically and thermally developing ow within a radiator channel. Laser doppler anemometry measurements recorded a 1.5% increase in the centreline velocity compared to 0.8% obtained from numerical simulation.

[pt] Plantas industriais necessitam de algum tipo de medição, em especial a indústria química e de óleo e gás, que empregam em maior quantidade medidores de vazão, sobretudo os de princípio ultrassônico por sua maior confiabilidade. O desempenho metrológico desse tipo de medidor é sensível a imperfeições no perfil de escoamento, e por isso é recomendado que atendam aos requisitos de instalação quanto à distância de trechos retos especificados pela norma. No entanto, em alguns casos tais recomendações não conseguem ser atendidas devido ao espaço físico compacto, mas mesmo assim é mantida a instalação de tais instrumentos em locais inadequados. Por este motivo, a avaliação dos impactos provocados pelas incertezas de medição ocasionadas por irregularidades no perfil de escoamento torna-se relevante. O presente trabalho mostrou que após vários testes com o medidor de vazão do tipo clamp-on de dois canais, instalado em variadas posições longitudinais após seguidos trechos de curva na tubulação, é possível a partir de trechos retos equivalentes a 20 diâmetros utilizar o medidor como um medidor padrão itinerante para calibração de outros medidores de vazão dispostos em linha localizados adequadamente no campo, denominado calibração in-situ. Os resultados dos testes atingiram níveis de incerteza de vazão inferiores a 1 por cento, especificada para calibração de medidores operacionais. O trabalho também mostrou que o uso do fator do medidor numa calibração pode minimizar a influência da flutuação do escoamento sobre a incerteza de medição do medidor, estimando mais realisticamente sua incerteza na ausência de flutuações. / [en] Industrial plants need some kind of measurement, especially chemical and oil and gas industries, which uses a large amount of flow meters, mainly those that uses ultrasonic principle due to their greater reliability. The metrological performance of this type of meter is sensitive to imperfections present in the flow profile, and therefore must comply the installation requirements relative to the distance of straight sections without objects that cause any kind of disruption in the flow. However, in some cases such recommendations are not met due to the compact physical space, which does not preclude the installation of such instruments. For this reason, the evaluation of impacts on the uncertainties of measurement caused by irregularities in the flow becomes relevant. This work shows that using a two channels clamp-on flow meter, installed in various longitudinal positions after consecutive bend sections in the pipe, it is possible to, distance starting from 20 diameters, use the meter as the standard traveling meter for calibration of others flow meters arranged in-line, properly located in the field, process called in-situ calibration. The test results provided an uncertainty less than 1 percent, which is usually specified for operational meters. This work also shows that the meter factor can be used to minimize the influence of the flow rate fluctuation on the uncertainty of measurement, and thus to estimate more realistically its value when there is no fluctuation.