Qiuwang Wang

A unified analysis on enhancing single phase convective heat transfer with field synergy principle

Numerical simulations were conducted to reveal the inherent relation between the filed synergy principle and the three existing mechanisms for enhancing single phase convective heat transfer. It is found that the three mechanisms, i.e., the decreasing of thermal boundary layer, the increasing of flow interruption and the increasing of velocity gradient near a solid wall, all lead to the reduction of intersection angle between velocity and temperature gradient. It is also revealed that at low flow speed, the fin attached a tube not only increases heat transfer surface but also greatly improves the synergy between the velocity and the temperature gradient.

Parametric study and multiple correlations on air-side heat transfer and friction characteristics of fin-and-tube heat exchangers with large number of large-diameter tube rows

In the present study, for industrial applications of large inter-coolers employed in multi-stage compressor systems the air-side laminar heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics of plain fin-and-tube heat exchangers with large number of tube rows and large diameter of the tubes arc investigated numerically through three-dimensional simulations based on the SIMPLE algorithm in Cartesian coordinates. The effects of parameters such as Reynolds number, the number of tube rows, tube diameter, tube pitches and fin pitch are examined, and the variations of heat transfer due to variations of fin materials are also observed. It is found that the heat transfer and fluid flow approach fully developed conditions when the number of tube rows is greater than six, and the tube diameter as well as the fin pitch have much more significant effects than the tube pitches, and the heat transfer of high-conductivity material is larger than that of low-conductivity material especially in the high Reynolds number regime. Due to the fact that the existing correlations are not valid for large tube diameters and number of tube rows, the heat transfer and flow friction of the presented heat exchangers are correlated in the multiple forms. The correlation is so obtained that it can be used for further studies such as performance prediction or geometrical optimization. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (Less)

An Experimental Study of Shell-and-Tube Heat Exchangers With Continuous Helical Baffles

Two shell-and-tube heat exchangers (STHXs) using continuous helical baffles instead of segmental baffles used in conventional STHXs were proposed, designed, and tested in this study. The two proposed STHXs have the same tube bundle but different shell configurations. The flow pattern in the shell side of the heat exchanger with continuous helical baffles was forced to be rotational and helical due to the geometry of the continuous helical baffles, which results in a significant increase in heat transfer coefficient per unit pressure drop in the heat exchanger. Properly designed continuous helical baffles can reduce fouling in the shell side and prevent the flow-induced vibration as well. The performance of the proposed STHXs was studied experimentally in this work. The heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop in the new STHXs were compared with those in the STHX with segmental baffles. The results indicate that the use of continuous helical baffles results in nearly 10% increase in heat transfer coefficient compared with that of conventional segmental baffles for the same shell-side pressure drop. Based on the experimental data, the nondimensional correlations for heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop were developed for the proposed continuous helical baffle heat exchangers with different shell configurations, which might be useful for industrial applications and further study of continuous helical baffle heat exchangers. This paper also presents a simple and feasible method to fabricate continuous helical baffles used for STHXs.

Fin Pattern Effects on Air-Side Heat Transfer and Friction Characteristics of Fin-and-Tube Heat Exchangers with Large Number of Large-Diameter Tube Rows

Air-side heat transfer and friction characteristics of nine kinds of fin-and-tube heat exchangers, with a large number of tube rows (6, 9, and 12, respectively) and large diameter of tubes (18 mm), are experimentally investigated. The test samples consist of three types of fin configurations: plain fin, slit fin, and fin with delta-wing longitudinal vortex generators. The working fluid in the tube is steam. Results show that when the number of tube is larger than 6, the heat transfer and friction performance for three kinds of fins is independent of the number of tube rows, and slit fin provides higher heat transfer and pressure drop than the other two fins. The heat transfer and friction factor correlations for all the heat exchangers were acquired with Reynolds numbers ranging from 4000 to 10000. The air-side performance of heat exchangers with plain fin, slit fin, and longitudinal vortex-generator fin were evaluated under three sets of criteria, and the results showed that the heat exchanger with slit fin has better performance than that with vortex-generator fin, especially at high Reynolds numbers.

Review of Improvements on Shell-and-Tube Heat Exchangers With Helical Baffles

Helical baffles are employed increasingly in shell-and-tube heat exchangers (helixchangers) for their significant advantages in reducing pressure drop, vibration, and fouling while maintaining a higher heat transfer performance. In order to make good use of helical baffles, serial improvements have been made by many researchers. In this paper, a general review is provided of developments and improvements on helixchangers, which includes the discontinuous helical baffles, continuous or combined helical baffles, and the combined multiple shell-pass helixchangers. Extensive results from experiments and numerical simulations indicate that these helixchangers have better flow and heat transfer performance than the conventional segmental baffled heat exchangers. Based on these new improvements, the conventional heat exchangers with segmental baffles might be replaced by helixchangers in industrial applications to save energy, reduce cost, and prolong the service life and operation time.

Effect of building re-entrant shape on performance of air-cooled condensing units

Provision of split-type air-conditioners in high-rise residential buildings has become fashionable in Hong Kong. Building re-entrants are most popular for placing the outdoor condensing units. Heat energy dissipated by these condensing units induces a buoyant airflow. Inadequate displacement of air may lead to an elevated temperature environment at the re-entrant, which could significantly affect the condenser performance at the upper floors and subsequently result in a degradation of the overall capacity and efficiency of the air-conditioners. In recent years, some innovative building designers go for sustainable housing design. Re-entrants of various shapes thus evolve. One of their concerns is whether these various shapes would incur more difficulties in the airflow and thereby, would intensify the condenser heat dissipation problem. This paper describes some investigations on different re-entrant shapes making use of the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques together with an energy evaluation model. The results show no evidence that the new re-entrant shapes will have adverse effects in comparison with the conventional design.

Application of a Genetic Algorithm for Thermal Design of Fin-and-Tube Heat Exchangers

Instead of the traditional trial-and-error process, a genetic algorithm (GA) is successfully applied to thermal design of fin-and-tube heat exchangers (FTHEs). The design method uses a GA to search and optimize structure sizes of FTHEs. The minimum total weight or total annual cost of FTHEs is taken as the objective function in the GA, respectively. Seven design parameters are varied for the optimization objectives. The implementation of the design method consists of a GA routine and a thermal design routine. In the GA routine, binary coding for tournament selection, uniform crossover, and one-point mutation is adopted. In the thermal design routine, thermal design of the FTHE is carried out according to the conditions of the structure sizes that the genetic algorithm generated, and the log-mean temperature difference method is used to determine the heat transfer area under the combined structure sizes for a given heat duty. Optimization shows that it is possible to achieve a great reduction in cost or weight, whenever such objectives have been chosen for minimization. The method is universal and may be used for thermal design and optimization of FTHEs under different specified duties.

Forced Convection Heat Transfer Enhancement by Porous Pin Fins in Rectangular Channels

The forced convective heat transfer in three-dimensional porous pin fin channels is numerically studied in this paper. The Forchheimer―Brinkman extended Darcy model and two-equation energy model are adopted to describe the flow and heat transfer in porous media. Air and water are employed as the cold fluids and the effects of Reynolds number (Re), pore density (PPI) and pin fin form are studied in detail. The results show that, with proper selection of physical parameters, significant heat transfer enhancements and pressure drop reductions can be achieved simultaneously with porous pin fins and the overall heat transfer performances in porous pin fin channels are much better than those in traditional solid pin fin channels. The effects of pore density are significant. As PPI increases, the pressure drops and heat fluxes in porous pin fin channels increase while the overall heat transfer efficiencies decrease and the maximal overall heat transfer efficiencies are obtained at PPI = 20 for both air and water cases. Furthermore, the effects of pin fin form are also remarkable. With the same physical parameters, the overall heat transfer efficiencies in the long elliptic porous pin fin channels are the highest while they are the lowest in the short elliptic porous pin fin channels.

CFD simulation on a thermal power plant with air‐cooled heat exchanger system in north China

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the overall flow and temperature field of the air in the whole power plant, especially around the air‐cooled heat exchanger (ACHE) to evaluate the feasibility of the thermal plant project.Design/methodology/approach – The commercial computational fluid dynamics code FLUENT with standard k‐e turbulent model was used. The buoyancy of the air was also considered.Findings – It is concluded that plume recirculation occurs in each case due to the wind effect and the suction of the fan. Installing a side board below or above the fan platform (side board I or side board II) is an effective method of avoiding the plume recirculation and, the higher the board, the better the effect. When the height of the side board I H1≥10 m or the height of the side board II H2≥12 m, the temperature distributions of the fan platform will be sufficient to meet the requirement.Research limitations/implications – A proper distance between the adjacent high buildings and the ACHE ...

DISCUSSION ON NUMERICAL STABILITY AND BOUNDEDNESS OF CONVECTIVE DISCRETIZED SCHEME

Existing methods for analyzing the stability of a discretized scheme for convection-diffusion terms are usually based on five assumptions, i.e., one-dimensional, linear, first kind of boundary condition, source term free, and uniform grid system. In this article we examine numerically whether deviation from one of the assumptions may enhance the stability of the discretized scheme. The second part of the article is devoted to the criterion of convective boundedness. It is shown that the convective boundedness criterion (CBC) proposed by Gaskell and Lau is only a sufficient condition. Another region in the normalized variable diagram is proposed within which any scheme defined is convectively bounded. Three new bounded high-resolution schemes defined in this region, SBECBC1, 2, and 3, are proposed, and numerical experiments for two advection problems and one diffusion-convection problem demonstrate the high-resolution ability of the SBECBCs for a sharp change in scalar profile.Existing methods for analyzing the stability of a discretized scheme for convection-diffusion terms are usually based on five assumptions, i.e., one-dimensional, linear, first kind of boundary condition, source term free, and uniform grid system. In this article we examine numerically whether deviation from one of the assumptions may enhance the stability of the discretized scheme. The second part of the article is devoted to the criterion of convective boundedness. It is shown that the convective boundedness criterion (CBC) proposed by Gaskell and Lau is only a sufficient condition. Another region in the normalized variable diagram is proposed within which any scheme defined is convectively bounded. Three new bounded high-resolution schemes defined in this region, SBECBC1, 2, and 3, are proposed, and numerical experiments for two advection problems and one diffusion-convection problem demonstrate the high-resolution ability of the SBECBCs for a sharp change in scalar profile.