Thermal characterization of longitudinal merging of turbulent spots

This study presents the thermal behavior of two young turbulent spots merging into a longitudinal direction on an isothermal flat plate for the local Reynolds number between 6.1 × 10⁴ and 1.3 × 10⁵ in a low freestream turbulence water tunnel having a turbulent intensity of 1.16%. The two turbulent spots are generated by water injection through a 1-mm-diameter hole in the perpendicular direction of the mainstream flow with a dimensionless separating time (Δτ) of 42.08, 84.16, and 126.24. Thermochromic liquid crystals are utilized mutually with an image processing technique to extract the spot characteristics qualitatively and quantitatively. The results demonstrate that the following turbulent spot directly causes an increase in the local Nusselt number and heat rate within the footprint of the merging spots. The relatively highest increase in this study occurs when Δτ = 84.16. The average Nusselt number and effectiveness characterize differently in the intersection zone, non-intersection zone of the leading spot, and non-intersection zone of the following spot. The results confirm that turbulent spots under the boundary layer transition augment the heat transfer rate to the level of full turbulence by not only their spot maturity but also the merging mechanism. Finally, the heat transfer mechanism is discussed and the predictive formulas for the Nusselt number and heat flux of the longitudinal merging of turbulent spots for Δτ from 0 to 126.24 are provided.     

Thermal Performance Enhancement of Thermosyphon Heat Pipe with Binary Working Fluids

Thermal performance of a thermosyphon heat pipe using ethanol-water and TEG-water with variations of parameters such as the mixture content, the pipe diameter, and the working temperature have been studied in this research work. From the experiments, it is found that at low temperature of heat source (less than 80^oC), the ethanol-water mixture has a higher heat transfer rate than that of water and close to that of pure ethanol. In the case of TEG-water mixture, the heat transfer rate of the thermosyphon varies with the content of TEG in the mixture, and it is found that TEG in the mixture can increase the critical heat flux due to the flooding limit in a small thermosyphon. The boiling equation of Rohsenow and the condensation equation of Nusselt are modified to predict the heat transfer coefficients inside the thermosyphon. For the mixtures, the weighted average of the heat transfer coefficient of each component can be used to predict the total heat transfer coefficient. Furthermore, it is found that Faghri's equation can be used to predict the critical heat flux due to the flooding limit of the thermosyphon with the binary mixtures.     

Thermal behavior of spiral fin-and-tube heat exchanger having fly ash deposit

This research investigates the effect of fly-ash deposit on thermal performance of a cross-flow heat exchanger having a set of spiral finned-tubes as a heat transfer surface. A stream of warm air having high content of fly-ash is exchanging heat with a cool water stream in the tubes. In this study, the temperature of the heat exchanger surface is lower than the dew point temperature of air, thus there is condensation of moisture in the air stream on the heat exchanger surface. The affecting parameters such as the fin spacing, the air mass flow rate, the fly-ash mass flow rate and the inlet temperature of warm air are varied while the volume flow rate and the inlet temperature of the cold water stream are kept constant at 10 l/min and 5 °C, respectively.

From the experiment, it is found that as the testing period is shorter than 8 h the thermal resistance due to the fouling increases with time. Moreover, the deposit of fly-ash on the heat transfer surface is directly proportional to the dust–air ratio and the amount of condensate on heat exchange surface. However, the deposit of fly-ash is inversely proportional to the fin spacing. The empirical model for evaluating the thermal resistance is also developed in this work and the simulated results agree well with those of the measured data.