A passive autocatalytic hydrogen recombiner (PAR) is a self-starting device, without operator action or external power input, installed in nuclear power plants to remove hydrogen from the containment building of a nuclear reactor. A new mechanistic model of PAR has been presented and validated by experimental data and results of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. The model allows to quickly and accurately predict gas temperature and composition, catalyst temperature and hydrogen recombination rate. It is assumed in the model that an exothermic recombination reaction of hydrogen and oxygen proceeds at the catalyst surface only, while processes of heat and mass transport occur by assisted natural and forced convection in non-isothermal and laminar gas flow conditions in vertical channels between catalyst plates. The model accounts for heat radiation from a hot catalyst surface and has no adjustable parameters. It can be combined with an equation of chimney draft and become a useful engineering tool for selection and optimisation of catalytic recombiner geometry.

The paper deals with a study of the effect of regulating elements on local values of heat transfer coefficients along shaped heat exchange surfaces with forced air convection. The use of combined methods of heat transfer intensification, i.e. a combination of regulating elements with appropriately shaped heat exchange areas seems to be highly effective. The study focused on the analysis of local values of heat transfer coefficients in indicated cuts, in distances expressed as a ratio x/s for 0; 0.33; 0.66 and 1. As can be seen from our findings, in given conditions the regulating elements can increase the values of local heat transfer coefficients along shaped heat exchange surfaces. An optical method of holographic interferometry was used for the experimental research into temperature fields in the vicinity of heat exchange surfaces. The obtained values correspond very well with those of local heat transfer coefficients αx, recorded in a CFD simulation.

The reason for undertaking this study was to determine the possible involvement of natural convection in the global heat transfer, that occurs in the heated steel rods bed. This problem is related to the setting of the effective thermal conductivity of the bars bed. This value is one of the boundary conditions for heating modeling of steel rods bundles during heat treatment. The aim of this study was to determine for which geometry of the bed bars, there will be no free convection. To analyze the problem the Rayleigh criterion was used. It was assumed that for the value of the number Ra < 1700 convection in the bed bars does not occur. For analysis, the results of measurements of the temperature distribution in the unidirectionally heated beds of bars were used. It has been shown, that for obtained, during the test, differences of temperature between the surfaces of adjacent rods, convection can occur only when the diameter of the rod exceeds 18 mm.

The effect of rotating magnetic field on the heat transfer process in a magnetically assisted bioreactor was studied experimentally. Experimental investigations are provided for the explanation of the influence of the rotating magnetic field on natural convection. The heat transfer coefficients and the Nusselt numbers were determined as a function of the product of Grashof and Prandtl dimensionless numbers. Moreover, the comparison of the thermal performance between the tested set-up and a vertical cylinder was carried out. The relative enhancement of heat transfer was characterized by the rate of the relative heat transfer intensification. The study showed that along with the intensity of the magnetic field the heat transfer increased.

The present work aims at studying the effects of orientation, size, position, and the combination of multiple internal diathermal obstructions in a fluid-saturated square porous enclosure, generally encountered in thermal insulations. The overall objective is to suppress the natural convection fluid flow and heat transfer across a differentially heated porous enclosure. To serve this purpose, multiple diathermal obstructions are employed to mechanically protrude into a porous medium. It is sought to estimate the effect of various types of orientation, clustering and alternate positioning of obstructions by considering number of obstructions (Np), length of obstructions (λ), modified Rayleigh number (Ra*) on local and average Nusselt number (Nu). The Darcy model for porous media is solved using Finite difference method along with Successive Accelerated Replacement scheme. One of the findings is that the value of the Nusselt number decreases by increasing both, the number of obstructions as well as the length of obstructions irrespective of its orientation and positioning. The reduction in Nusselt number is significant with obstructions attached on lower half of the hot wall and/or on upper half of cold wall. In addition, the overall reduction in Nusselt number is slightly greater with obstructions attached explicitly to the cold wall.

In this work, steady flow-field and heat transfer through a copper-water nanofluid around a rotating circular cylinder with a constant nondimensional rotation rate α varying from 0 to 5 was investigated for Reynolds numbers of 5–40. Furthermore, the range of nanoparticle volume fractions considered is 0–5%. The effect of volume fraction of nanoparticles on the fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics are carried out by using a finite-volume method based commercial computational fluid dynamics solver. The variation of the local and the average Nusselt numbers with Reynolds number, volume fractions, and rotation rate are presented for the range of conditions. The average Nusselt number is found to decrease with increasing value of the rotation rate for the fixed value of the Reynolds number and volume fraction of nanoparticles. In addition, rotation can be used as a drag reduction technique.

Experimental investigation of natural convection heat transfer in heated vertical tubes dissipating heat from the internal surface is presented. The test section is electrically heated and constant wall heat flux is maintained both circumferentially and axially. Four different test sections are taken having 45 mm internal diameter and 3.8 mm thickness. The length of the test sections are 450 mm, 550 mm, 700 mm and 850 mm. Ratios of length to diameter of the test sections are taken as 10, 12.22, 15.56, and 18.89. Wall heat fluxes are maintained at 250–3341 W/m2. Experiments are also conducted on channels with internal rings of rectangular section placed at various distances. Thickness of the rings are taken as 4 mm, 6 mm, and 8 mm. The step size of the rings varies from 75 mm to 283.3 mm. The nondimensional ring spacing, expressed as the ratios of step size to diameter, are taken from 1.67 to 6.29 and the non-dimensional ring thickness, expressed as the ratios of ring thickness to diameter are taken from 0.089 to 0.178. The ratios of ring spacing to its thickness are taken as 9.375 to 70.82. The effects of various parameters such as length to diameter ratio, wall heat flux, ring thickness and ring spacing on local steady-state heat transfer behavior are observed. From the experimental data a correlation is developed for average Nusselt number and modified Rayleigh number. Another correlation is also developed for modified Rayleigh number and modified Reynolds number. These correlations can predict the data accurately within ±10% error.

The production of thermal energy from solar energy by flat collectors finds nowadays many applications due to their innumerable economic and environmental interests. Currently, conservation of energy resources has become a global priority. On the other hand, given the dizzying demand for energy, has led specialists to find new techniques, such as renewable energies (solar, wind and geothermal). The present work is a contribution, by numerical simulation, to the study of heat transfer in flat solar collectors. On the basis of some experimental data, several simulation calculations have been carried out in order to determine the influencing parameters allowing better performance of the sensors and ensuring a good homogeneity of the temperature distributions. Based on the observation that, due to the low thermophysical properties of the air used as heat transfer fluid, solar air collectors rather give poor yields. It has been found very useful to have ‘baffling’ obstacles of various shapes and forms in the solar collector duct. This increases the thermal transfer of a coolant, which clearly improves the thermal efficiency of the solar air collector. This article consists mainly of studying the effects on heat transfer of turbulent forced convection by baffles of zigzag shapes, placed in a rectangular channel, using the finite volume method. The pressure-velocity coupling has been processed by the SIMPLEC algorithm. The results are presented in terms of the average Nusselt number and temperature field for different positions.

The instability characteristics of a dielectric fluid layer heated from below under the influence of a uniform vertical alternating current (AC) electric field is analyzed for different types of electric potential (constant electric potential/ electric current), velocity (rigid/free) and temperature boundary conditions (constant temperature/heat flux or a mixed condition at the upper boundary). The resulting eigenvalue problem is solved numerically using the shooting method for various boundary conditions and the solution is also found in a simple closed form when the perturbation heat flux is zero at the boundaries. The possibility of a more precise control of electrothermal convection (ETC) through various boundary conditions is emphasized. The effect of increasing AC electric Rayleigh number is to hasten while that of Biot number is to delay the onset of ETC. The system is more stable for rigid-rigid boundaries when compared to rigid-free and least stable for free-free boundaries. The change of electric potential boundary condition at the upper boundary from constant electric potential to constant electric current is found to instill more stability on the system. Besides, increase in the AC electric Rayleigh number and the Biot number is to reduce the size of convection cells.

The airflow through a two-dimensional horizontal rectangular cross-section channel in the presence of two baffles has been numerically examined and analyzed in the steady turbulent regime. The baffles were of the zig-zag type or plane one. The calculations are based on the finite volume approach and the average Navier–Stokes equations along with the energy equation, have been solved using the SIMPLE algorithm. The nonuniform structured quadrilateral-type element mesh is used in this study. The fluid flow patterns represented for Reynolds numbers based on the hydraulic diameter of the channel ranging from 5000 to 20 000. Effects of various Reynolds number values on flow fields, dimensionless axial velocity profiles, as well as local and average friction coefficients in the test channel is presented. The obtained results show that the flow structure is characterized by strong deformations and large recirculation regions. In general, the fluid velocity and skin friction loss rise with the increase in the flow rate and hence the Reynolds number.

The generic mathematical model and computational algorithm considering hydrodynamics, heat and mass transfer processes during casting

and forming steel ingots and castings are offered. Usage domains for turbulent, convective and non-convective models are determined

depending on ingot geometry and thermal overheating of the poured melt. The expert system is developed, enabling to choose a

mathematical model depending on the physical statement of a problem.

This paper presents an extended finite element method applied to solve phase change problems taking into account natural convection in the liquid phase. It is assumed that the transition from one state to another, e.g., during the solidification of pure metals, is discontinuous and that the physical properties of the phases vary across the interface. According to the classical Stefan condition, the location, topology and rate of the interface changes are determined by the jump in the heat flux. The incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with the Boussinesq approximation of the natural convection flow are solved for the liquid phase. The no-slip condition for velocity and the melting/freezing condition for temperature are imposed on the interface using penalty method. The fractional four-step method is employed for analysing conjugate heat transfer and unsteady viscous flow. The phase interface is tracked by the level set method defined on the same finite element mesh. A new combination of extended basis functions is proposed to approximate the discontinuity in the derivative of the temperature, velocity and the pressure fields. The single-mesh approach is demonstrated using three two-dimensional benchmark problems. The results are compared with the numerical and experimental data obtained by other authors.

Two-dimensional numerical investigations of the fluid flow and heat transfer have been carried out for the laminar flow of the louvered fin-plate heat exchanger, designed to work as an air-source heat pump evaporator. The transferred heat and the pressure drop predicted by simulation have been compared with the corresponding experimental data taken from the literature. Two dimensional analyses of the louvered fins with varying geometry have been conducted. Simulations have been performed for different geometries with varying louver pitch, louver angle and different louver blade number. Constant inlet air temperature and varying velocity ranging from 2 to 8 m/s was assumed in the numerical experiments. The air-side performance is evaluated by calculating the temperature and the pressure drop ratio. Efficiency curves are obtained that can be used to select optimum louver geometry for the selected inlet parameters. A total of 363 different cases of various fin geometry for 7 different air velocities were investigated. The maximum heat transfer improvement interpreted in terms of the maximum efficiency has been obtained for the louver angle of 16° and the louver pitch of 1.35 mm. The presented results indicate that varying louver geometry might be a convenient way of enhancing performance of heat exchangers.

In this paper, effect of Hall currents on the thermal instability of couple-stress fluid permeated with dust particles has been considered. Following the linearized stability theory and normal mode analysis, the dispersion relation is obtained. For the case of stationary convection, dust particles and Hall currents are found to have destabilizing effect while couple stresses have stabilizing effect on the system. Magnetic field induced by Hall currents has stabilizing/destabilizing effect under certain conditions. It is found that due to the presence of Hall currents (hence magnetic field), oscillatory modes are produced which were non-existent in their absence.