G.S.V.L. Narasimham

Forced-air precooling of spherical foods in bulk: A parametric study

In this paper, a mathematical model for forced-air precooling of spherical food products in bulk is developed. The foods are arranged in horizontal layers stacked one above the other to form a rectangular parallelepiped with a vertical gap in between the product layers. The foods are cooled by chilled air blown along the height of the package. The governing equations for the conduction heat transfer in the foods, simultaneous heat and mass transfer at the food-air interface and in the air stream are solved numerically using finite-difference methods. A comprehensive numerical study is performed by varying the process parameters over a wide range. Typical results showing the variation of moist air properties along the height of the package and the effect of each parameter on the process time are presented. The ranges of parameters for advantageous operation of the precooling system are identified. Correlations are obtained for the process time based on the product center and mass-averaged temperatures in terms of process parameters.

Combined natural convection heat and mass transfer from vertical fin arrays

Natural convection transport processes play an important role in many applications like ice-storage air-conditioning. A mathematical formulation of natural convection heat and mass transfer over a shrouded vertical fin array is developed. The base plate is maintained at a temperature below the dew point of the surrounding moist air. Hence there occurs condensation of moisture on the base plate, while the fins may be partially or fully wet. A numerical study is performed by varying the parameters of the problem. The local and average Nusselt numbers decrease in streamwise direction and tend to approach fully developed values for sufficiently large values of the fin length. The results show that beyond a certain streamwise distance, further fin length does not improve the sensible and latent heat transfer performance, and that if dry fin analysis is used under moisture condensation conditions, the overall heat transfer will be underestimated by about 50% even at low buoyancy ratios.

Analysis of heat and mass transfer during bulk hydraircooling of spherical food products

Hydraircooling is a technique used for precooling food products. In this technique chilled water is sprayed over the food products while cold unsaturated air is blown over them. Hydraircooling combines the advantages of both air- and hydrocooling. The present study is concerned with the analysis of bulk hydraircooling as it occurs in a package filled with several layers of spherical food products with chilled water sprayed from the top and cold unsaturated air blown from the bottom. A mathematical model is developed to describe the hydrodynamics and simultaneous heat and mass transfer occurring inside the package. The non-dimensional governing equations are solved using the finite difference numerical methods. The results are presented in the form of time-temperature charts. A correlation is obtained to calculate the process time in terms of the process parameters.

DEVELOPMENT OF CRYOGENIC LOOP HEAT PIPE

The design of a cryogenic loop heat pipe (CLHP) is presented in the paper. As the wick is required only in the evaporator section, very small pore size wicks can be used in applications with high thermal transport requirements and/or where the heat must be transported over a long distance against gravity. A FORTRAN program to solve the mathematical model and to determine the parameters for various boundary conditions has been developed. The CLHP is designed to transfer 5W heat at 70K using nitrogen or oxygen as working fluid. It will be a self priming type device which can operate against gravity with evaporator above the condenser as well as under microgravity condition. A G-M type single stage double inlet pulse tube refrigerator is coupled to the CLHP to test its performance. The mathematical model, design, fabrication integration of the heat pipe with the pulse tube system and testing with stainless steel wick at the evaporator will be described in the paper.

Time-Temperature Histories of Spherical Food Products during Bulk Forced-Air Precooling

A general mathematical model for forced air precooling of spherical food products in bulk is developed. The food products are arranged inline to form a rectangular parallelepiped. Chilled air is blown along the height of the package. The governing equations for the transient two-dimensional conduction with internal heat generation in the product, simultaneous heat and mass transfer at the product-air interface and one-dimensional transient energy and species conservation equations for the moist air are solved numerically using finite difference methods. Results are presented in the form of time-temperature histories. Experiments are conducted with model foods in a laboratory scale air precooling tunnel. The agreement between the theoretical and experimental results is found to be good. In general, a single product analysis fails to predict the precooling characteristics of bulk loads of food products. In the range of values investigated, the respiration heat is found to have a negligible effect.

Studies on the development and efficiency improvement of a 1.5 W at 25 K two stage pulse tube cooler

A high frequency two stage pulse tube cooler (PTC) has been designed using Sage software for a JT-PTC hybrid helium recondensation system. The cold end of the first stage regenerator is anchored at 80 K using a liquid nitrogen supply. Such a thermally coupled design simplifies the design without the need for considering flow distribution between the stages and ensures that entire flow is available to produce cooling power at 25 K. The pulse tube cooler is designed for maximal utilization of the 900 W PV power provided by the Pressure Wave Generator (PWG). With the first prototype, a no load temperature of 40.4 K was achieved at a filling pressure of 24.1 bar. The effect of filling pressure on the acoustic matching of the PTC and PWG was investigated. It is observed that filling pressure has a significant effect on the PWG piston stroke amplitude. Using phasor analysis, it is shown that the phase relationship at different sections of the two stage PTC is detrimentally affected by the pulse tube volume. A scheme for achieving advantageous phasing by reducing the pulse tube volume is proposed. This involves maintaining the hot heat exchanger, inertance tube and buffer volume at 80 K. With the modification it is shown that a beneficial phase reversal across second stage Regenerator is achieved. The method is currently under experimental investigation.

Thermodynamic Analysis of Single- and Double-Effect Vapour Absorption Systems Working with TFE-NMP Pair

A thermodynamic study of single- and double- effect vapour absorption systems working with the fluid pair Trifluoroethanol and N-methyl Pyrrolidone is presented, keeping in view the applications of the systems for refrigeration, air-conditioning and heat pumping. Results are presented in the form of graphs for the variation of the coefficient of performance, circulation ratio and exergetic efficiency. The performances of single- and double-effect systems working with the pairs Trifluoroethanol - N-methyl Pyrrolidone and water-lithium bromide are compared. For both single and double-effect systems, the water-lithium bromide pair has higher Coefficient of Performance and lower start-up temperature. Despite these facts, Trifluoroethanol - N-methyl Pyrrolidone can be a potential alternative to water-lithium bromide in view of the disadvantages of water-lithium bromide pair such as recrystallization, corrosion and freezing of the refrigerant at sub-zero temperatures

Development of a tube-in-tube heat exchanger for a cryocooler based helium recondensation system

This paper reports design, fabrication and testing of one of the recuperative heat exchangers for a small capacity helium recondensation system. A tube in tube heat exchanger, with multiple tubes in a coiled outer tube, has been designed to operate in the 300 K-100 K range. The key parameters of the heat exchanger are optimized by numerical analysis to obtain highest heat transfer coefficients and lowest pressure drops to meet the design goals. The pressure drop performance of the heat exchanger was tested and it is found that the annular pressure drop increases due to spacer string beyond the design toleration. Pressure drop was also measured after removing the spacer string and the results agree with the correlations available in literature. Spacer pressure drop should be considered in heat exchanger design.

CFD ANALYSIS OF CONJUGATE NATURAL CONVECTION IN A VERTICAL ANNULUS

Conjugate natural convection in a vertical annulus with a centrally located vertical heat generating rod is studied numerically. The governing equations are discretized on a staggered mesh and are solved using a pressure-correction algorithm. A parametric study is performed by varying the Grashof number, aspect ratio, and the solid-to-fluid thermal conductivity ratio over wide ranges with the Prandtl number fixed at 0.7. Results are presented for the variation of several 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 average Nusselt number from the conjugate analysis is found to be between the Nusselt numbers of the isothermal and the isoflux cases. The average Nusselt numbers on the inner and outer boundaries show an increasing trend with the Grashof number. Correlations are presented for the Nusselt number and the dimensionless temperatures of interest in terms of the parameters of the problem.