Thermal Hydraulic Analysis of a Water Tank With Large Aspect Ratio

A special-shaped water tank with large aspect ratio and limited volume for cooling was investigated using computational fluid dynamics. The influence of a separator on the heat transfer ability in the water tank is analyzed. When there is no separator, the arrangement of cooling pipes is very important to the heat transfer and temperature field in the water tank. The total heat flux of the pipe bundle and the temperature field will become bad if the pipe bundle is arranged not uniform in the water tank. Adding a separator can greatly enhance the integral natural convection of cold and hot water in the water tank and a uniform temperature field and regular velocity field could be got. The heat transfer ability for the structure with a separator is better than the structure without a separator, and is not sensible to the arrangement of the pipe bundle. The heat transfer ability also did not change when the position of separator and pipe bundle exchanged, and is not a strong function of the distance between separator and the pipe bundle or the wall of the water tank. Finally, the inclination of the water tank is discussed.