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This paper describes an accurate model of the Electrical Power Subsystem (EPS) of the Thermal Analysis Support and Environment Characterization Laboratory (TASEC-Lab), a university experiment developed for using in high-altitude balloon missions to measure and analyze the convection heat transfer. A Li-ion battery and two high efficient DC–DC converters have been characterized through laboratory tests and fitting to the experimental results. The developed mathematical models described in this paper are used to carry out accurate EPS simulations and are validated by comparison with the experimental data. • Design and modeling of the electrical power subsystem of a stratospheric balloon experiment. • New Li-lion battery discharging model that describes the three main parts: initial decay, linear, and exponential decay. • Formulation of a new DC/DC converter efficiency model. • Simulation and model validation of the electrical power subsystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a computational heat transfer model of a rotary kiln used for the production of rutile titanium dioxide by the calcination of paste-like hydrous titanium dioxide. The work details the modelling of several chemical reactions occurring in the solid bed region along with turbulent convection of gas, radiation heat exchange among hot gas, refractory wall and the solid surface, and conduction in the refractory wall. Finite-difference techniques are used and the steady state thermal conditions are assumed. The kiln is divided into axial segments of equal length. The solution is of marching type and proceeds from the solid inlet to the solid outlet. The direction of gas flow is opposite to that of the solids. Mass balance of each species in the solid charge, and mass and energy balances of the solid and gas in an axial segment are used to obtain solids and gas temperatures, and species concentration at the exit of that segment. The kiln length predicted by the present model is 45.75 m as compared to 45 m of an actual kiln reported by Ginsberg and Modigell (2011). The steady-state axial gas and solid temperature profiles have been also satisfactorily validated with the numerical results of the aforementioned paper. The output data consist of refractory wall temperature distribution, the axial solids and gas temperature profiles, axial solids composition profile, the length required for drying of the solid charge and the total kiln length required to achieve 98% conversion of anatase TiO 2 to rutile TiO 2 . A detailed parametric study with respect to the controlling parameters such as percent water content (with respect to dry solids), solids flow rate, gas flow rate, kiln inclination angle and kiln rotational speed lent a good physical insight into the rutile-TiO 2 production process in a rotary kiln. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In consideration of droplet flash evaporation and film flash evaporation, a comprehensive mathematical model of vacuum flash evaporation cooling (VFEC) was presented in this paper. Pure water was considered to be the working fluid. The droplet flash evaporation was modeled based on the diffusion-controlled evaporation model, while the film flash evaporation was modeled based on the film penetration theory. The droplet flash model coincided well with the experimental results reported in the literature and the comprehensive mathematical model was validated by experiment results in this paper. The droplet temperature and diameter after droplet flash evaporation were obtained numerically, and then analyzed. The effect of droplet flash evaporation on the surface temperature distribution, heat flux density, and heat transfer ratio of different mechanisms was studied based on the model. It can be concluded that the droplet flash evaporation, which can be expressed by the ratio of droplet-wall impaction heat transfer, had a great effect on vacuum flash evaporation cooling heat transfer. The droplet-wall impaction and film flash heat transfer were dominant in the vacuum flash evaporation cooling. The spray characteristics such as droplet diameter and temperature decreased a lot after droplet flash evaporation, compared to the initial parameters (measured by the PDA). After taking droplet flash into account, the surface temperature decreased and the heat flux increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper presents experimental and numerical studies on periodic convection flow and heat transfer in a lid-driven arc-shape cavity with temperature differential. Three cases were considered: Gr=2×105, 5×105 and 1.2×106 at Re=100 (Gr = Grashof number; Re = Reynolds number). The mathematical model was proposed in our previous study. The current study performs an experiment to validate this model, to corroborate the existence of the periodic flow, and to more deeply probe the internal flow and temperature characteristics. The experimental setup primarily comprised an arc-shape cavity, a moving lid, a thermo-system, a smoke generator and an image acquisition system. The periodic convection flow in the cavity was visualized using kerosene smoke. The numerical and experimental results consistently reveal that the periodic flow pattern was observed in the case with Gr=5×105, whereas the steady-state flow pattern took place in the other two cases (Gr=2×105 and Gr=1.2×106). The numerical simulation produced reasonable and satisfactory agreement with the experiment for the periodic flow pattern and period. The difference between the predicted and measured periods is less than 5%. The transport properties, such as average kinetic energy, overall Nusselt number, stream function, phase space trajectory, local kinetic energy, velocity history and temperature distribution, were further analyzed and discussed in this paper. The proposed numerical simulation not only confirms the experimental observation, but also enhances the understanding of periodic convection in an arc-shape cavity subjected to a moving lid and temperature differential. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Mathematical modeling of the convective processes caused by impact of various forces on the fluid and gas media is rather important nowadays. The increased interest to these problems is caused also by the preparation of experiments on the International Space Station in the frame of the scientific project “Convection and Interfacial Mass Exchange” (CIMEX) of the European Space Agency. They are the experiments to investigate the convective flows of the fluids with a thermocapillary interface between liquid and gas phases. In the case, when a gas flow generates the tangential stresses on a free boundary of liquid, the additional characteristics of the convective flows should be identified. In this paper a stationary coupled problem of gravitational, thermocapillary convection in a horizontal layer with free boundary under conditions of a co-current gas flow is studied. The kinematic and dynamic conditions are fulfilled exactly on the gas–liquid interface. The exact solutions for different types of thermal boundary conditions have been obtained. An evaporation effect through the gas–liquid interface is modeled qualitatively with the help of a heat transfer condition. It has been found that the direction of the velocity at the gas–liquid interface is determined by the governing parameters. The equal-zero condition for the interface velocity has been found, as well. The paper presents the velocity and temperature profiles in the conditions, which correspond qualitatively to the CIMEX experiments. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper presents a numerical study on laminar forced convection of water in offset strip-fin microchannels network heat sinks for microelectronic cooling. A 3-dimensional mathematical model, consisting of N–S equations and energy conservation equation, with the conjugate heat transfer between the heat sink base and liquid coolant taken into consideration is solved numerically. The heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics in offset strip-fin microchannels heat sinks are analyzed and the heat transfer enhancement mechanism is discussed. Effects of geometric size of strip-fin on the heat sink performance are investigated. It is found that there is an optimal strip-fin size to minimize the pressure drop or pumping power on the constraint condition of maximum wall temperature, and this optimal size depends on the input heat flux and the maximum wall temperature. The results of this paper are helpful to the design and optimization of offset strip-fin microchannel heat sinks for microelectronic cooling. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The thermal gas mass flow meter is an important meter used in industrial measurement. When the environmental temperature changes, the measured gas physical parameters change correspondingly and the thermal gas mass flow meter output signal is affected, causing large measurement error. The influence of gas temperature on the sheathed probe measurements is analyzed in this paper based on experiments and heat transfer theory using a three dimensional probe and gas heat transfer mathematical model based on the heat conduction equation. The probe heat transfer process is analyzed under convection heat transfer coupling conditions. The experimental data were analyzed and compared against the theoretical results, with a maximum average relative error of only 4.56%. The rationality of the theoretical method is thus verified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The steady natural convection in a two-dimensional porous square cavity filled with a nanofluid and including internal heat generation is presented in this paper. The mathematical model considered consists of the Darcy equation for the momentum, while a new model is proposed for the energy and nanoparticles’ concentration equations. The system of partial differential equations is written in terms of a dimensionless stream function, temperature and concentration of the nanoparticles and is solved numerically using the finite difference method. The effects of the governing parameters, such as: Rayleigh number Ra , the Lewis number Le and the dimensionless ratio between the thermophoretic and Brownian coefficients N BT on the velocity, temperature and nanoparticles’ concentration, Nusselt and Sherwood numbers are studied. It is found that the addition of the nanoparticles into the fluid saturated porous medium reduces the temperature and enhances the heat transfer when the value of the thermal conductivity of the nanoparticles is much higher than the thermal conductivity of the solid structure of the porous medium. This addition has almost no effect on the flow and heat transfer characteristics when the values of the thermal conductivity of the nanoparticles and the thermal conductivity of the solid structure of the porous medium have close values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a transient model of internal catalytic combustion suitable for isolated channels and monolith reactors. Due to time-scales in the problem, the model considers a quasi-steady gas phase with a transient solid. The gas is described by axially varying bulk temperature and species. The gas includes lateral diffusion via transfer coefficients and the specification of a gas-phase species concentration at the wall; axial diffusion is neglected. The solid phase is a thermally thin shell with axially varying temperature, surface species, and surface species concentrations. The solid includes axial heat conduction and external heat loss by convection and radiation. The combustion process utilizes detailed gas and surface reaction models. The gas-phase model becomes a system of stiff ordinary differential equations with respect to axial position; the upstream (inlet) boundary conditions are specified and the axially varying solid properties are parameters in integration. The solid phase discretizes into a system of stiff ordinary differential-algebraic equations with respect to time. The time evolution of the system comes from alternating integrations of the quasi-steady gas phase and transient solid. The model is compared to two experimental cases using CO fuel: (1) steady-state conversion in an isothermal platinum tube and (2) transient propagation of a catalytic reaction inside a small platinum tube and includes external tube temperature measurements. This work presents sensitivity studies on important parameters including internal transfer coefficients, catalytic surface site density, external heat-loss, and others. Under mass-transfer limited conditions, global transfer coefficients are adequate to predict fuel conversion. Near light-off, the model predictions improve for the first case after adjusting the surface kinetics such that the net rate of CO adsorption increases compared to O 2 . For the second case, predictions of transient propagation speeds are good for equivalence ratios near unity and greater but require adjustment of external heat loss or kinetics to match under lean conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Metal foams are a class of cellular structured materials with open cells randomly oriented and mostly homogeneous in size and shape. In the last decade, several authors have discussed the interesting heat transfer capabilities of these materials as enhanced surfaces for air conditioning, refrigeration, and electronic cooling applications. This paper experimentally characterizes twenty-one aluminum and copper foam samples with different number of pores per linear inch (PPI), which vary between 5 and 40 and with porosity ranging between 0.896 and 0.956; samples of different heights (20 and 40mm) have been studied. The most important parameters both geometrical (porosity, pore density, and foam core height) and operative (air mass flow rate, imposed heat flux) affecting the heat transfer and fluid flow behavior of these enhanced surfaces are analyzed and discussed. The results are presented with reference to different performance parameters: overall and interstitial heat transfer coefficients, foam finned surface efficiency, normalized mean wall temperature, pumping power per area density, and pressure gradient. From the experimental measurements two correlations for the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop calculations have been developed, validated and here proposed. These models can be successfully used to optimize different foam heat exchangers for any given application. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Air is a cheap and safe fluid, widely used in electronic, aerospace and air conditioning applications. Because of its poor heat transfer properties, it usually flows through extended surfaces, such as finned surfaces, to enhance the convective heat transfer. In this paper, experimental results are reviewed and numerical studies during turbulent air forced convection through extended surfaces are presented. The thermal and hydraulic behavior of a reference trapezoidal finned surface, experimentally evaluated by present authors in an open-circuit wind tunnel, has been compared with numerical simulations carried out by using the commercial CFD software COMSOL Multiphysics. Once the model has been validated, numerical simulations have been extended to other rectangular finned configurations, in order to study the effects of the fin thickness, fin pitch and fin height on the thermo-hydraulic behavior of the extended surfaces. Moreover, several pin fin surfaces have been simulated in the same range of operating conditions previously analyzed. Numerical results about heat transfer and pressure drop, both for plain finned surfaces and for pin fin surfaces, have been compared with empirical correlations from the open literature, and more accurate equations have been developed and proposed. As shown with an optimization example, these new equations can be used as an easy-to-implement calculation approach for heat sink design in electronic thermal management. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The paper addresses results for the case of convective drying of particulate solids in a packed and in a fluid bed, analyzing agreement between the numerical results and the results of corresponding experimental investigation, as well as the differences between packed and fluid bed operation. In the fluid bed simulation model of unsteady simultaneous one-dimensional heat and mass transfer between solids, gas phase and bubble phase during drying process, based on two-phase bubbling model, it is assumed that the gas–solid interface is at thermodynamic equilibrium. The basic idea is to calculate heat and mass transfer between gas and particles (i.e., the drying process) in suspension phase as for a packed bed of particles, where the drying rate (evaporated moisture flux) of the specific product is calculated by applying the concept of a “drying coefficient”. Mixing of the particles (i.e., the impact onto the heat and mass transfer coefficients) in the case of fluid bed is taken into account by means of the diffusion term in the differential equations, using an effective particle diffusion coefficient. Model validation was done on the basis of the experimental data obtained with narrow fraction of poppy seeds characterized by mean equivalent particle diameter (dS , d =0.75mm), re-wetted with required (calculated) amount of water up to the initial moisture content (X 0 =0.54) for all experiments. Comparison of the drying kinetics, both experimental and numerical, has shown that higher gas (drying agent) temperatures, as well as velocities (flow-rates), induce faster drying. This effect is more pronounced for deeper beds, because of the larger amount of wet material to be dried using the same drying agent capacity. Bed temperature differences along the bed height are significant inside the packed bed, while in the fluid bed, for the same drying conditions, are almost negligible due to mixing of particles. Residence time is shorter in the case of a fluid bed drying compared to a packed bed drying. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper will show that so-called “Newton’s law of cooling” that is often used for calculating of heat transfer by convection is actually not a law, but a model of heat exchange (heat transfer). Limits of validity of this law were discovered and will be shown. Moreover, an existing practice of modernizing this law for the purpose of calculating convective heat transfer will be questioned. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, convective heat transfer effect on the non-Newtonian nanofluid flow in the horizontal tube with constant heat flux was investigated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). For this purpose, non-Newtonian nanofluid containing Al2O3 and Xanthan aqueous solution as a liquid single phase with two average particle sizes of 45 and 150nm and four particle concentrations of 1, 2, 4 and 6wt.% and two concentrations of Xanthan aqueous solutions (0.6,1.0wt.%) were used. Effect of particle size and concentration of Xanthan solution on convective heat transfer coefficient was investigated in different Reynolds numbers (500< Re <2500) for various axial locations of tube. The results showed that heat transfer coefficient and Nu number of non-Newtonian nanofluid increased with increasing concentration of Xanthan solution. By applying the modeling results, an equation was obtained for Nusselt number prediction using the dimensionless numbers. The results showed that the correlated data were in very good agreement with predicted data. The maximum error was around 5%. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper deals with the numerical solution of a three-dimensional problem of non-isothermal moisture transfer in the anisotropic structure of wood and corresponding wood deformations in convective drying. The simulation is based on the unsteady-state nonlinear diffusion of moisture and heat with respect to the orthotropic nature of wood. The moisture gradient and the temperature gradient are set as driving forces for mass and heat transfer. The model respects the dependence of material coefficients on temperature and moisture, the Soret effect, the Duffour effect and the anisotropic nature of wood. A matrix form of the multiphysics model for FEM solver was derived and numerical simulations were performed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The role of thermal mass is very important in natural ventilated buildings. Thermal mass can be classified as external thermal mass and internal thermal mass. In this paper, a heat balance model for naturally ventilated building is developed. The effect of external thermal mass is introduced by harmonic response method, and the effect of internal thermal mass is calculated by virtual sphere method which can lump different shapes and types into one virtual sphere. The effective convection heat transfer coefficient is presented to represents the effect of uneven distribution of internal thermal mass temperature. Through comparison with Li''s model and numerical calculation, it was found that the model is more suitable than the others, especially in estimating decrement factor of indoor air temperature. The errors of time lag become smaller when the fluctuation of indoor air temperature is smaller. Based on the model, a simple tool is developed to evaluate the indoor air temperature and required internal thermal mass for certain naturally ventilated buildings. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The gasification behavior of a fuel droplet has been studied. The convective heat transfer is focused on in most literature on droplet evaporation. In this paper, a mathematic model of droplet evaporation is improved. Considering the presence of simultaneous mass and heat transfer at the interface between phases, a proper heat transfer equation for droplet evaporation model is established. Based on the model, a computer simulation program was developed, and the predictions of the model are compared with the experimental data. Sample calculations show the capabilities of the model for droplet evaporation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Today, many researches have been directed on heat transfer of supercritical fluids; however, since the analysis of heat transfer in these fluids founded by a mathematical model based on the effective parameters is complicated, so in this paper, a group method of data handling (GMDH) type artificial neural network are used for calculating local heat transfer coefficient h x of supercritical carbon dioxide in a vertical tube with 2mm diameter at low Reynolds numbers (Re <2500) by empirical results obtained by Jiang et al. [1].At first, we considered h x as target parameter and G, Re, Bo ⁎ , x + and q w as input parameters. Then, we divided empirical data into train and test sections in order to accomplish modeling. We instructed GMDH type neural network by 80% of the empirical data. 20% of primary data which had been considered for testing the appropriateness of the modeling were entered into the GMDH network. Results were compared by two statistical criterions (R 2 and RMSE) with empirical ones. The results obtained by using GMDH type neural network are in excellent agreement with the experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper presents a thermal fluid analysis on the air cooling of a permanent magnet electric motor with a centrifugal impeller. A numerical model is developed for the heat transfer and fluid flow process. The flow rates of the cooling air are also experimentally measured. The agreement between the numerical model prediction and experimental data is reasonably good. Detailed structures of the cooling flow are presented. Convection heat transfer on the surface of the armature is quantified. Comments on the application of the motor architecture are given. Design modifications are proposed for performance improvements. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Due to its large apparent specific heat during the phase change period, microencapsulated phase change material slurry (MPCMS) has been suggested as a medium for heat transfer. In this paper, the convective heat transfer characteristics of MPCMS flowing in a circular tube were experimentally and numerically investigated. The enhanced convective heat transfer mechanism of MPCMS, especially in the thermal fully developed range, was analyzed by using the enthalpy model. Three kinds of fluid–pure water, micro-particle slurry and MPCMS were numerically investigated. The results show that in the phase change heat transfer region the Ste number and the Mr number are the most important parameters influencing the Nusselt number fluctuation profile and the dimensionless wall temperature. Reb , dp and c also influence the Nusselt number profile and the dimensionless wall temperature, but they are independent of phase change process. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The paper presents the geometry of infinite regular polyhedrons that can be used to construct the heat exchange units. The basic structural component of the infinite solid consists of six hexagons, which meet in the common vertex. The mathematical model of heat and mass transfer inside the labyrinth heat exchanger is shown. The first and the second Kirchhoff’s laws are used to simulate fluid flow distribution at hydraulic network created with connected basic solids. Heat balance equations are adopted to describe forced convection heat transfer inside developed heat exchanger. Good accordance among the experimental data and calculation results over whole simulation range is obtained. The efficiency and thermal characteristic of the labyrinth heat exchanger is presented in the form of graphs. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]