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An experimental investigation was carried out on high porosity metal foams subjected to array jet impingement with an objective to develop enhanced heat transfer configurations. In this study, we propose an integrated thermal management system (TMS) aimed toward leveraging the conjugate heat transfer capabilities of target plate, metal foam, and the jet plate--all made from aluminum and assembled such that a proper contact between them can be established. Steady-state heat transfer experiments were carried out for 10 and 20 pores per inch (PPI) aluminum foams of 0.93 porosity. Both metal foams were 12.7-mm thick. The normalized jet-to-jet spacing was varied from 2 to 12 times the jet diameter, while the jet diameter was fixed. The ratio of the jet plate thickness and jet diameter (nozzle aspect ratio) was 6.35, which ensured proper development of jets inside the nozzles. Experiments were conducted over a wide range of Reynolds number (based on jet diameter) varied from 100 to 5000. The obtained convective heat transfer coefficient for different configuration was evaluated in context with pressure drop. The analysis of experimental results reveal that large open area ratio jets combined with high porosity metal foams provide highly efficient and high-performance cooling for the investigated range of Reynolds numbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moving packed-bed heat exchangers in concentrated solar power (CSP) plants involves heat transfer between heated falling particles and supercritical carbon dioxide. The overall effective thermal conductivity of the moving packed bed and particle-side channel contact resistances are still the bottlenecks in achieving the desirable thermal transport levels. To this end, a novel moving packed bed heat exchanger consisting of an Octet lattice packed between the walls of the particle-side channel is proposed in this study. Granular flow analysis in Octet lattice moving packed bed heat exchanger (OLHX) was conducted through experiments and discrete element method (DEM)-based numerical simulations. The experimental images clearly demonstrated stagnation regions upstream of lattice fibers, void regions downstream of the fiber junctions, and wavy-type unobstructed flow on the lateral sides of the fibers. DEM simulations were successful in capturing all these critical flow phenomena. Larger flow velocities were observed on the lateral sides of the fibers in the simulations. Also, when the particles in the silo were emptied, the final images showed an accumulation of particles on the inter-fiber as well as fiber-channel wall junctions. Moreover, the fiber connections resulted in some regions devoid of particle contact on the channel endwall, which means that these regions would suffer from poor thermal exchange. The overall mass flowrate increased with increasing porosity for a fixed particle diameter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phase change materials (PCMs) are an effective medium for thermal management of avionics because of their ability to absorb, store, and release high heat loads while operating within narrow temperature range in confined spaces. Despite hosting several benefits, PCM systems suffer from low thermal conductivity issue. Strategically placed fins in a volume filled with PCM has the potential to significantly improve the transient thermal performance of PCMs by improving the overall thermal conductivity and providing enhanced heat transfer surface area. Furthermore, avionics can be subjected to varying gravity conditions during flight that can have significant influence on the overall thermal performance of PCMs. This emphasizes the need to characterize the PCM performance under various gravity conditions that can impart different buoyancy induced effects in a confined system. To this end, numerical investigation to study the melting characteristics of PCM-fin configuration subjected to three different gravity conditions, i.e., (a) microgravity, (b) terrestrial gravity, and (c) hypergravity, is conducted. The influence of these three conditions on the performance of PCM-fin combination configuration is investigated and finally the temperature field, melt fraction, and melting time is reported. The performance of PCM-fin system is compared with the corresponding PCM-only configuration to highlight the benefits of adding fins under each investigated gravity condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Particle-to-supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) heat exchanger is a critical component in next-generation concentrating solar power (CSP) plants. The inherently low heat transfer between falling particles and sCO2 imposes a challenge toward economic justification of levelized cost of electricity produced through solar energy. Introduction of integrated porous media with the walls bounding particle flow has the potential to enhance the overall particle-to-sCO2 heat exchanger performance. This paper presents an experimental study on heat transfer characterization of additively manufactured lattice frame material based on Octet-shaped unit cell with particles and air as working fluids. The lattice structures were additively manufactured in stainless steel (SS) 316L and SS420 (with 40% bronze infiltration) via Binder jetting process, where the lattice porosities were varied between 0.75 and 0.9. The mean particle diameters were varied from 266 µm to 966 µm. The effective thermal conductivity and averaged heat transfer coefficient were determined through steady-state experiments. It was found that the presence of lattice enhances the effective thermal conductivity by 2-4 times when compared to packed bed of particles alone. Furthermore, for gravity-assisted particle flow through lattice panel, significantly high convective heat transfer coefficients ranging from 200 W/m2K to 400 W/m2K were obtained for the range of particle diameters tested. The superior thermal transport properties of Octet-shape-based lattice frame for particle flow makes it a very promising candidate for particle-to-sCO2 heat exchanger for CSP application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]