Gamze Baştürk

Numerical study of effect of oxygen fraction on local entropy generation in a methane-air burner

This study considers numerical simulation of the combustion of methane with air, including oxygen and nitrogen, in a burner and the numerical solution of local entropy generation rate due to high temperature and velocity gradients in the combustion chamber. The effects of equivalence ratio (Φ) and oxygen percentage (γ ) on combustion and entropy generation rates are investigated for different Φ (from 0.5 to 1.0) andγ values (from 10 to 30%). Combustion is simulated for the fuel mass flow rate resulting in the same heat transfer rate (Q)y to the combustion chamber in each case. Numerical calculation of combustion is performed individually for all cases with the use of the Fluent CFD code. Furthermore, a computer program has been developed to calculate the volumetric entropy generation rate and the other thermodynamic parameters numerically by using the results of the calculations performed with the FLUENT code. The predictions show that the increase of Φ (or the decrease of λ) significantly reduces the reaction rate levels. Average temperature in the combustion chamber increases by about 70 and 35% with increase ofγ (from 10 to 30%) and Φ (from 0.5 to 1.0) respectively. With increase ofγ from 10 to 30%, volumetric local entropy generation rate decreases by about 9 and 4% for Φ = 0.5 and 1.0 respectively, while total entropy generation rate decreases exponentially and the merit numbers increase. The ratio of the rates useful energy transfer to irreversibility therefore improves as the oxygen percentage increases

Numerical study on transient local entropy generation in pulsating turbulent flow through an externally heated pipe

This study presents an investigation of transient local entropy generation rate in pulsating turbulent flow through an externally heated pipe. The flow inlet to the pipe pulsates at a constant period and amplitude, only the velocity oscillates. The simulations are extended to include different pulsating flow cases (sinusoidal flow, step flow, and saw-down flow) and for varying periods. The flow and temperature fields are computed numerically with the help of the Fluent computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code, and a computer program developed by us by using the results of the calculations performed for the flow and temperature fields. In all investigated cases, the irreversibility due to the heat transfer dominates. With the increase of flow period, the highest levels of the total entropy generation rates increase logarithmically in the case of sinusoidal and saw-down flow cases whereas they are almost constant and the highest total local entropy is also generated in the step case flow. The Merit number oscillates periodically in the pulsating flow cases along the flow time. The results of this study indicate that flow pulsation has an adverse effect on the ratio of the useful energy transfer rate to the irreversibility rate.