Uniform and non-uniform inlet temperature of a vertical hot water jet injected into a rectangular tank
In most of real-world applications, such as the case of heat stores, inlet is not kept at a constant temperature but it may vary with time during charging process. In this paper, a vertical water jet injected into a rectangular storage tank is measured experimentally and simulated numerically. Two cases of study are considered; one is a hot water jet with uniform inlet temperature (UIT) injected into a cold water tank, and the other is a cold water jet with non-uniform inlet temperature (NUIT) injected into a hot water tank. Three different temperature differences and three different flow rates are studied for the hot water jet with UIT which is injected into a cold water tank. Also, three different initial temperatures with constant flow rate as well as three different flow rates with constant initial temperature are considered for the cold jet with NUIT which is injected into a hot water tank. Turbulence intensity at the inlet as well as Reynolds number for the NUIT cases are therefore functions of inlet temperature and time. Both experimental measurements and numerical calculations are carried out for the same measured flow and thermal conditions. The realizable k-ε model is used for modeling the turbulent flow. Numerical solutions are obtained for unsteady flow while pressure, velocity, temperature and turbulence distributions inside the water tank are analyzed. The simulated results are compared to the measured results, and they show a good agreement at low temperatures.
Unsteady Buoyancy-Induced and Turbulent Flow from a Hot Horizontal Jet Entrance into a Solar Water Storage
Experimental visualizations and numerical CFD calculations of a horizontal hot water jet entering cold water into a rectangular storage tank are described. Three different temperature differences and their corresponding Reynolds numbers are considered. Both experimental visualization and numerical calculations are carried out for the same flow and thermal conditions. The realizable ε − k model is used for modeling the turbulent flow while the buoyancy is modeled using a Boussinesq approximation. Polynomial approximation of the water properties are used to compare with the Boussinesq approximation. Numerical solutions are obtained for unsteady flow while pressure, velocity, temperature and turbulence distributions inside the water tank as well as Froude number are analyzed. The experimental visualizations are performed at intervals of five seconds for all different cases. The simulated results are compared with the visualized results, and both of them show the stratification phenomena and buoyancy force effects due to temperature difference and density variation. After certain times, depending on the case condition, the flow tends to reach a steady-state. Key-words:Turbulent flow, realizable ε − k turbulence model, unsteady flow, heat transfer, jet, solar storage, CFD, flow visualization.
Effects of reservoir volume on performance of pulse tube cooler.
A pulse tube cooler has the advantages of long-life and low-vibration over conventional cryocoolers such as G-M and Stirling coolers because of the absence of moving parts at low temperature. On the other hand, the combination of a reservoir and orifice is indispensable to optimize the performance of pulse tube coolers. In order to make the pulse tube cooler compact for practical applications, the volume of reservoir should be minimized. This paper analyzes the effects of the reservoir volume on the thermodynamic performance of various components in a simple orifice and a double-inlet pulse tube cooler by combining a linearized model with a thermodynamic analysis. Expressions of entropy production for those components are presented. The results show that the reservoir volume has a significant influence on the entropy production in the various components when the reservoir to pulse tube volume ratio is smaller than about 5. The ratio is important to determine the minimum reservoir volume for a pulse tube cooler. Optimum settings for a double-inlet pulse tube cooler are also discussed.