Offset strip fin channels promote higher heat transfer rate than plain fins due to the periodic disruption of boundary layers in the offset channels and downstream flow mixing. The enhanced convection heat transfer in laminar air flows (50 < Re < 2000; Pr = 0.7) is computationally investigated. By considering the fin height h to be much larger than the inter-fin spacing s (or s/h <<1) which is representative of many practical applications, a two-dimensional flow channel is modeled. With thin fins ( t/s ) < 20%, the effect of fin offset length l (1 ≤ l/s ≤ 35) on the convective enhancement is explored. Higher heat transfer coefficients are found to be obtained with shorter fin lengths and higher flow Reynolds number Re . This effect, however, diminishes for low Re and very large fin offset length and performance asymptotically approaches that of plain rectangular fin channels. The frictional loss also increases correspondingly, and is primarily due to flow acceleration and boundary-layer disruption. This penalty is offset by a 2.5–3 times higher heat transfer rate capacity for fixed pressure drop condition relative to plain fins. For a fixed heat transfer rate application, offset-strip fins are shown to yield 40%–50% smaller surface area cores.

Hot wire anemometer (HWA) measurements of turbulent gas flow have been performed in upward forced convection experiments at pressures ranging from 0.6 MPa to 6.3 MPa and fluid temperatures ranging from 293 K to 673 K. The results are relevant to deteriorated turbulent heat transfer (DTHT) and flow laminarization in strongly heated gas flows which could occur in gas-cooled Very High Temperature Reactors. The HWA signals were analyzed to directly confirm the occurrence of flow laminarization phenomenon due to strong heating. An X-probe was used to collect radial and axial velocity fluctuation data for pressurized air and pure nitrogen flowing through a circular 16.8 mm diameter flow channel in a 2.7 m long graphite test section for local Reynolds numbers varying from 500 to 22,000. Analyses of the Reynolds stresses and turbulence frequency spectra were carried out and used as indicators of laminar, transition or fully turbulent flow conditions. Low Reynolds stresses indicated the existence of laminar or transitional flow until the local Reynolds number reached a large value, ∼11,000 to 16,000, much higher than the conventional Re = 4,000–5,000 for transition to fully turbulent flow encountered in pipe flows. The critical Reynolds number indicating the completion of transition approximately doubled as the pressure was increased from 0.6 MPa to 2.8 MPa.

A numerical investigation of a single highly confined bubble moving through a millimeter-scale channel in the absence of phase change is presented. The simulation includes thermal boundary conditions designed to match those of completed experiments. The channel is horizontal with a uniform-heat-generation upper wall and an adiabatic lower boundary condition. The use of a Lagrangian framework allows for the simulation of a channel of arbitrary length using a limited computational domain. The liquid phase is a low-Reynolds-number unsteady laminar flow, and the phase interactions are modeled using the Volume-of-Fluid method with full geometric reconstruction of the liquid/gas interface. Results are presented for two bubble sizes, two liquid flow rates, and two Prandtl numbers. The paper focuses on heat transfer in the rearward wake of the bubble. Nusselt numbers for the higher Prandtl number case are shown to follow a power law relationship with distance behind the bubble. Important dynamical structures include a pair of vortical structures at the rear of the bubble associated with cold fluid being brought near the wall and fluid jets oriented in the transverse direction to either side of the bubble.

Experimental condensation heat transfer data from our previous studies were collected to find a suitable heat transfer correlation for three-dimensional surface enhanced heat transfer tubes. Dimples/protrusions and petal arrays make up the enhanced surface of the 1EHT tube, while longitudinal grooves and dimples constitute that of the other two 2EHT tubes. Working fluids investigated includes three refrigerants R22, R32, R410A and three enhanced tubes have a same nominal inner diameter of 12.7mm. Due to the unique and complex surface structure of three EHT tubes, a constant is proposed and utilized for each EHT tube to estimate the impact of enhanced surfaces on interfacial turbulence, boundary layer disruption, flow separation and secondary flow generation. In addition, the Cavallini correlation modified with the constant can predict almost all the data points within a ±5% error band, which can be a good example for how to predetermine the heat transfer coefficient of three-dimensional enhanced tubes with a unique surface.

In this paper a numerical and experimental investigation on impinging jets with metal foam is carried out. The channel is partially filled with porous media. The physical model and geometry has been made considering that the lower impinging surface is heated at uniform heat flux, q w , and the upper surface is adiabatic. The flow is 2D, unsteady, laminar, and incompressible. The distance between the upper confining surface and the lower heated surface is H (40 mm). Fully developed fluid dynamic and thermal flow is assumed at the outlet sections and the fluid is air. The porous material is considered as homogeneous and isotropic. All the thermophysical properties of the fluid and the solid matrix of the porous medium are assumed constant except for the variation in density with the temperature giving rise to the buoyancy forces. Metal foam of 10 PPI is considered. It was investigated many configuration taking into account the ratio s/H and D j /H. The values of ratio s/H ranging from 0 to 1 while values of the ratio D j /H raging from 0.3–1.2. Results in terms of wall temperature profiles, local and average Nusselt numbers are presented for different Reynolds values. For the considered parameters, it is obtained that Nusselt number has a weak dependence of D j /H, in fact, for the ratio equal to 0.3, it is noted that Nu is higher than the ratio equal to 0.6.

For supercritical pressure fluid upward pipe flow, turbulent mixed convection heat transfer deterioration, which is generally considered to be caused by buoyancy, is often put a deep concern for safety issues. The deterioration is typically characterized by a localized wall temperature peak. Sometimes, there will be another moderate temperature peak after the first one. However, due to the lack of reliable measure method, the understanding of the flow structure for these two localized temperature peaks were still limited. In order to investigate the detailed mechanism for these two peaks and further understand the effect of buoyancy, a numerical study of supercritical pressure carbon dioxide pipe flow mixed convection heat transfer deterioration was conducted in this paper. The SST k -omega model was selected as turbulence model. A variable turbulent Prandtl number model was adopted in the study to improve simulation accuracy. The variation of flow field and turbulence behavior were carefully analyzed. The results show that, the localized wall temperature rise is due to the suppressed turbulence in the near wall region. For the first localized temperature peak, the suppressed turbulence is due to the acceleration of near wall fluid. While for the second one, the restrained turbulence is due to the acceleration of core flow fluid.

In order to investigate the flow and heat transfer fluctuations in the near-wall region downstream a backward facing step, a Time-resolved Stereoscopic Particle Image Velocimetry (TS-PIV) and a high-speed infrared thermography (IRT) combined system was constructed. Using this measurement system, the time series of the velocity in the vicinity of the heated wall and the heat transfer on the heated wall were measured at Reynolds number, which is based on the step height and inlet mainstream velocity, of 2.5 × 10 3 . It confirmed the validity of the velocity fluctuation obtained by using TS-PIV. The results showed that the forward and downwash flows correspond to the enhancement of the heat transfer in the near-wall region. Also, the vortex structure in the yz plane was detected by Q yz -criterion, and the locational relationship between the vortex structure and the heat transfer enhancement was investigated.

An experimental study on local flow boiling heat transfer performance in two longitudinal dimple-grooved tubes and an equivalent smooth tube was performed. All three test cooper tubes have the same inner diameter of 11.5 mm; the working fluid is the near-azeotropic mixture, R410A; and all test runs are conducted in a 2 m long horizontal tube-in-tube heat exchanger. Constant evaporation temperature at 10 °C was maintained when heat flux ranging from 32 kW/m 2 to 37 kW/m 2 and refrigerant quality varied from inlet 0.1 to outlet 0.9 at mass flux 150 kg/(m 2 s). The local heat transfer coefficients were obtained for all test conditions using refrigerant R410A. The test results for evaporation were presented compared to the equivalent smooth tube. Wall temperature and local and average heat flux is measured; heat flux effect and surface superheat effect is discussed on the tube side evaporation. The enhanced heat transfer area of two longitudinal dimple-grooved tubes are 1.02 and 1.03, respectively.

We investigate the unsteady heat transfer in harmonically excited liquid-film flows falling under the action of gravity over an electrically-heated inclined glass-substrate, by simultaneous application of planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF), particle image and particle tracking velocimetry (PIV/PTV), and infrared thermography (IR). These non-intrusive optical techniques allow us to recover detailed information on the film-height ( PLIF), the velocity field underneath the wavy interface (PIV/PTV), and the free-surface (gas-liquid interface) temperature (IR), with high spatial and temporal resolution. Based on these data and knowledge of the applied heat-flux and substrate temperature at the measurement location, the local and instantaneous heat-transfer coefficient (HTC) is also evaluated. Preliminary results from select flow-regions suggest significant deviations compared to expectations from equivalent steady flows.

Heat exchanger performance data commonly contain redundant heat transfer rate measurements. Due to measurement uncertainties involved in the experiments, these redundant heat transfer rates have some discrepancies. While it is a common practice and adopted by engineering standards to use the arithmetic mean of heat transfer measurements, the resulting performance indicators of heat exchangers do not result in a minimum uncertainty possible. Also, this approach fails to resolve discrepancies in resulting transport performance parameters depending on the use of UA-LMTD method or effectiveness-NTU method. In this paper, heat exchanger performance data with two heat transfer measurements from hot and cold fluid streams are combined to produce a least uncertainty of the performance indicators. Individual measurements of mass flow rates and temperatures are corrected by most likely errors based on their respective uncertainties. The validity of this method has been demonstrated by Monte-Carlo simulations. Using air conditioning heat exchanger performance data under dry and wet surface conditions, it is demonstrated that the proposed method leads to a minimum uncertainty of the calculated variables.

Thermo-fluid characteristics of laterally perforated-finned heat sinks (LA-PFHSs) are investigated through experiments in laminar forced convection flows, in order to understand the key parameters affecting thermo-fluid transport phenomena and, in turn, parameters that play important roles to correlate heat transfer coefficients of LA-PFHSs. For this purpose, the Nusselt numbers of the LA-PFHSs are calculated using the well-accepted technique in the literature that was proposed to model Nusselt numbers of the slotted-finned heat sinks. Square cross sectional perforations at three different sizes are distributed along the length of the LA-PFHSs in inline configurations. Each perforation size is tested under five different porosities. The accuracy of the experiments are validated by comparing the pressure drops and Nusselt numbers of the imperforated heat sink against the correlated values obtained from the well-accepted correlations in the literature. Results indicate that the flow interactions over the perforations with each other are dominant mechanisms that affect transport phenomena in LA-PFHSs. The flow interactions with each other are proportional to the ratio of the perforation size to the solid distance between two-adjacent perforations. Therefore, this dimensionless geometrical parameter is found as the key parameter affecting thermo-fluid transport phenomena and, in turn, correlations to predict heat transfer coefficients of LA-PFHSs. At the end, suggestions are provided to develop physics-based correlations to predict heat transfer coefficients of LA-PFHSs through future research.

A revolutionary cooling system is designed for a multi-fuel rotary engine (200 cc, 40 hp). The patented cooling system includes a water cooled array of engine housings, an innovative rotor and hydrodynamic bearings set cooled with a secondary oil cooling system. The oil conduits, however, are incorporated into water jackets, therefore the heat is further transferred to the water flow. Numerous fins and ribs are utilized as deflectors in water jackets thus controlling water flow to carry heat from the “hot” side of the engine housing to the “cold” side, which minimize temperature differential over the housing as well as reducing peak temperature. Numerical simulation indicated hot spots and uneven temperature distribution issues were controlled in the water jackets. Testing the optimized water jackets as part of the cooling system was also shown in successful in controlling temperature, hot spots and cavitation on the rotary engine with multi-fuels testing, such as kerosene, JP-5, JP-8, alcohol, gasoline, and E85. The potential of applying current water cooling system in other rotary engines is feasible.

In the study numerical simulations are performed to investigate the saturated fluid flow through a two dimensional microchannel (1000μm×200μm, with a superheated bottom wall) by building a comprehensive physical method and updating the standard solver in the OpenFOAM software package. On basis of previous numerical study, most of the numerical methods for the micro-scale flow boiling emphasizes the mass transfer and interfacial heat exchange. Simultaneously, geometric reconstruction technology for liquid-vapor interface is widely used, which evidently captures the interfacial boundary characteristic accurately but costs lots of computational resources. In the present study, the temperature recovery model is adopted to maintain the liquid-vapor interface temperature, and an interface-cell searching algorithm is added into the model, while the geometric interface reconstruction technology is abandoned. For the validation of the new codes developed in OpenFOAM, 1-d Stefan Problem and the experimental results of Mukherjee are both utilized to compare with our simulation results. The growth process of a single bubble in the laminar flow regime is studied in order to explore the underlying mechanism of flow boiling in microchannels. The qualitative investigation for effects of wall superheat, Reynolds number, contact angle and surface tension on heat transfer are comprehensively discussed. In general, heat flux of the bottom wall increases because of the motion of liquid-vapor interface. Wall superheat determines the rate of bubble growth on the heated wall, which is roughly proportional to wall heat flux due to the Fourier’s Law. The distribution of velocity and temperature fields in the channel refresh progressively with increasing inflow Reynolds number, which speeds up the evolution of interface position and augments the wall heat flux significantly. Furthermore, the area of thin liquid film between the wall and the bubble is enlarged by reducing the contact angle, thus augmenting the wall heat flux by several times compared with the single phase microchannel flow. However, surface tension and gravitational acceleration are found to be negligible in the present study.

An Experimental investigation was conducted to compare the evaporation characteristics of R410A inside three newly developed horizontal enhanced heat transfer (EHT) tubes with the same OD12.70mm and ID11.50mm, and the result of them are compared with that of a plain tube. The inner enhanced surface of 1EHT tube consists of dimples/protrusions and petal arrays, while that of 2EHT-1 tube and 2EHT-2 tube is composed by longitudinal grooves and dimples of different depths. The mass velocities are in the range of 70kg/m 2 s-200kg/m 2 s with a nominal saturation temperature fixed at 279K and the vapor quality in the test section varies from 0.2∼0.9. As the mass flux increases, both the heat transfer coefficient and pressure penalty increase accordingly. The heat transfer coefficient of EHT tubes can achieve 1.14–1.53 times higher than that of the smooth tube while the pressure gradients is 1.43–1.83 times larger than that of smooth tubes. Besides, the enhancement ratios of all the enhanced surface tubes are larger than their respective surface area ratio, and the enhancement ratio comparisons of heat transfer coefficient are made to obtain the enhancing mechanism. The results show that the EHT tubes appear higher performance at low mass fluxes. In all, the EHT1 tube has the best heat transfer performance at low mass velocity, which can be attributed to its special enhanced inner surface, resulting in the increase of nucleation sites, flow separation and turbulent fluctuations. The other two 2EHT tubes can enhance the evaporation greatly with small respective surface ratios as well as relatively little pressure drop penalty, and them shows outstanding performance especially at high mass velocity.

An experimental investigation was performed to study the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of refrigerant R-134a boiling in a chevron-patterned brazed plate heat exchanger (BPHE) at low mass flux. The heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop characteristics are analyzed in relation to varying mass flux (30–50 kgm −2 s −1 ), saturation pressure (675 kPa and 833 kPa), heat flux (0.8 and 2.5 kWm −2 ), and vapor quality (0.1–0.9). The two-phase pressure drop shows a strong dependence on mass flux and significant saturation temperature drop at high mass flux. The two-phase heat transfer coefficient was both strongly dependent on heat flux (at vapor qualities below 0.4) and on mass flux (at vapor qualities above 0.4). There was also apparent dryout, as depicted by decreased heat transfer at high vapor qualities. These observations suggest that both nucleate and convective boiling mechanisms prevailed. Existing transition correlations however suggest that the experimental data is rather convection-dominant and not a mix of convection and nucleate boiling. The experimental data further strongly suggest the prevalence of both macrochannel and minichannel type flows. Several acknowledged semi-empirical transition criteria were employed to verify our observations. These criteria mostly support our observations that R-134a evaporating at low mass fluxes in a BPHE with a hydraulic diameter of 3.4 mm, has heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics typically indicative of macrochannel as well as minichannel flows. Disagreement however exists with accepted correlations regarding the prevalence of convective or nucleate boiling.

In this article, longitudinal vortex generator (LVG) for heat transfer enhancement in rectangular channel is investigated numerically and experimentally. Two symmetrical delta shaped plates are placed vertically at the bottom of a rectangular channel and a pair of longitudinal vortices are generated and transferred downstream. These vortices were clockwise and counterclockwise, respectively. Correspondingly, the flow has the tendency to shoot to the surface opposite to the one with the LVG, then it separates into two steams and runs back to the LVG surface. Local heat transfer enhancement in the rectangular channel varies due to this fountain effect. Size effects were discussed for two types of LVG. With the same height, the wider LVG has better thermal performance within the rectangular geometry limit. One specific LVG was fabricated and tested experimentally and results show significant heat transfer enhancement. It indicated that the LVG can enhance the heat transfer significantly and the numerical results are reliable.

Non-uniform heat fluxes are commonly observed in thermo-electronic devices that require distinct thermal management strategies for effective heat dissipation and robust performance. The limited research available on non-uniform heat fluxes focus mostly on microchannel heat sinks while the fundamental component, i.e. a single microchannel, has received restricted attention. In this work, an experimental setup for the analysis of variable axial heat flux is used to study the heat transfer in a single microchannel with fully developed flow under the effect of different heat flux profiles. Initially a hot spot at different locations, with a uniform background heat flux, is studied at different Reynolds numbers while varying the maximum heat fluxes in order to compute the heat transfer in relation to its dependent variables. Measurements of temperature, pressure, and flow rates at a different locations and magnitudes of hot spot heat fluxes are presented, followed by a detailed analysis of heat transfer characteristics of a single microchannel under non-uniform heating. Results showed that upstream hotspots have lower tube temperatures compared to downstream ones with equal amounts of heat fluxes. This finding can be of importance in enhancing microchannel heat sinks effectiveness in reducing maximum wall temperatures for the same amount of heat released, by redistributing spatially fluxes in a descending profile.

In the wake of utilization of novel materials in various thermal applications open cell metal foams have received attention due to their inherent properties such as large surface area to volume ratio and higher thermal conductivity. Additionally, complex tetradecahedron structure promotes mixing and makes them a good candidate for heat transfer applications. In this paper, a relative comparison has been made between the thermal-hydraulic performance of aluminum and copper metal foam heat exchangers with the same geometry under dry and wet operating conditions. Heat exchanger consisting of round tube with annular layer of metal foam have been considered. Experiments have been conducted using a closed-loop wind tunnel to measure the heat transfer performance and pressure drop. The impact of base metal (aluminum and copper) on the heat transfer rate has been evaluated at varying air flow rates and upstream relative humidity. It has been found that due to similar geometry (flow depth, face area, pore size) both aluminum and copper foam samples have comparable pressure drop under dry conditions. However, the pressure gradient was noticeably different for two samples under wet operating conditions. An obvious difference in heat transfer rate for aluminum and copper metal foam heat exchangers was observed under both dry and wet operating conditions. The findings have been explained in terms of the impact of the thermal conductivity of base metal and condensate retention.

Stable homogeneous colloidal suspensions of nanoparticles in a liquid solvents are termed as nanofluids. In this review the results for the forced convection heat transfer of nanofluids are gleaned from the literature reports. This study attempts to evaluate the experimental data in the literature for the efficacy of employing nanofluids as heat transfer fluids (HTF) and for Thermal Energy Storage (TES). The efficacy of nanofluids for improving the performance of compact heat exchangers were also explored. In addition to thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity the rheological behavior of nanofluids also play a significant role for various applications. The material properties of nanofluids are highly sensitive to small variations in synthesis protocols. Hence the scope of this review encompassed various sub-topics including: synthesis protocols for nanofluids, materials characterization, thermo-physical properties (thermal conductivity, viscosity, specific heat capacity), pressure drop and heat transfer coefficients under forced convection conditions. The measured values of heat transfer coefficient of the nanofluids varies with testing configuration i.e. flow regime, boundary condition and geometry. Furthermore, a review of the reported results on the effects of particle concentration, size, temperature is presented in this study. A brief discussion on the pros and cons of various models in the literature is also performed — especially pertaining to the reports on the anomalous enhancement in heat transfer coefficient of nanofluids. Furthermore, the experimental data in the literature indicate that the enhancement observed in heat transfer coefficient is incongruous compared to the level of thermal conductivity enhancement obtained in these studies. Plausible explanations for this incongruous behavior is explored in this review. A brief discussion on the applicability of conventional single phase convection correlations based on Newtonian rheological models for predicting the heat transfer characteristics of the nanofluids is also explored in this review (especially considering that nanofluids often display non-Newtonian rheology). Validity of various correlations reported in the literature that were developed from experiments, is also explored in this review. These comparisons were performed as a function of various parameters, such as, for the same mass flow rate, Reynolds number, mass averaged velocity and pumping power.

A pulsating heat pipe (PHP) was fabricated by a 3-D printer, and its heat transfer characteristics were investigated by experiments. A graphene-laden PLA (PolyLactic Acid) filament was used as a 3-D printing material. Ten square channels having a cross section of 1.5 mm × 1.5 mm and a length of 80 mm were made inside the PHP and the ends of channels were connected. Since the graphene-laden PLA filament allows electric currents to pass through, the 3-D printed PHP was electroplated by copper to maintain its airtightness. Ethanol was used as the working fluid. The filling ratio of the working fluid was 50 %. In experiments, an evaporator section of the PHP was heated by a heater and a condenser section was cooled using a water-cooling jacket. The heater power was changed from 2.0 W to 8.0 W while the cooling water temperature and its flow rate were kept at 4.0 °C and 0.25 LPM, respectively. The transient temperature distribution of the PHP was measured by thermocouples. Moreover, because the graphene-laden PLA is nontransparent, an X-ray imaging system was also employed to observe the two-phase flow phenomena occurring in channels of the PHP. From the experimental results, the continuous heat transport from the evaporator to the condenser section of the PHP was confirmed with vapor-liquid two-phase flow characteristics observed inside the channels.