This study investigates the integration of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) with proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) to improve the system efficiency and minimise exergy losses from unused hydrogen. The paper offers new insights into the efficiency-power density trade-off of SOFC+PEMFC combined systems by simultaneously evaluating the systems’ efficiency trends and their overall volume and mass. The SOFC+PEMFC is thermodynamically analysed and compared for the first time against an SOFC stand-alone system with anode off-gas recirculation (AOGR), another approach to increase efficiency by maximising the direct conversion of fuel into power. Simulations are run to reveal the impact of varying stack operating parameters, fuel utilisation, cell voltage, and operating temperature on the system efficiency, shape of the system’s operational envelope, and overall volume and mass. An exergy analysis identifies major loss sources in the system and proposes pathways for improvement. The results demonstrate that integrating an SOFC with a PEMFC increases system efficiency to 55%, comparable to AOGR, while reducing the total system volume and mass by 20% and 23%, respectively. This study provides new insights into the potential use of SOFCs in volume and mass-limited applications such as long-distance transportation to reduce pollutant emissions.

An experimental study was conducted to search the reduction of friction in fully developed turbulent pipe flow using different types of polyacrylamides as friction reducing polymers. Pressure drop measurements determined the friction reduction. Three different polymer types Superfloc A110, Superfloc A130 and Superfloc A150 were used to examine the effect of polymer concentration, Reynolds number and polymer type on friction reduction. The Darcy friction factor was obtained for each polymer type at the polymer concentration ranging from 0 to 500 wppm and a Reynolds number range of 10000-80000. It was observed that friction factor decreased with increment in polymer concentration and Reynolds number for each polymer. Higher molecular weight polymers are more effective at reducing friction. With increasing concentration of polymer, the measured data approaches the Virk asymptote, which represents the maximum friction reduction limit by the polymers. The percentage of friction reduction increased with increasing concentration of polymer up to 100 wppm for each polymer type and then began to decrease for polymer concentrations higher than 100 wppm. An empirical formula was obtained to calculate the Darcy friction factor as a function of Reynolds number and polymer concentration for Superfloc A110.

Printed circuit heat exchangers (PCHE) are designed to improve heat recovery and energy saving in supercritical CO₂ (S-CO₂) power cycles. In the current study, a modified channel PCHE is proposed based on the regular straight channel and a zigzag channel. The thermal–hydraulic performance of four different types of PCHE is numerically investigated and the methods are verified by both experimental and numerical results. The numerical results are presented for a Reynolds number based on the inlet conditions between 5 000 and 25 000. From the numerical results, the local pressure loss and local heat transfer coefficients are analyzed and discussed. Subsequently, the global Nusselt number and Fanning friction coefficients are discussed. It is found that the inserted straight section contributes to uniform flow, resulted in significant pressure loss reduction with a slight decrease in heat transfer. The modified channel can reduce the Fanning friction coefficient by 33.1%-84.7% while the global Nusselt number reduction is about 3.6%-30.3%. This leads to a maximum performance evaluation criterion (PEC) enhancement of 45.9%.

We use direct numerical simulations (DNS) to investigate the turbulent modulation due to the presence of bubbles in vertical channels flowing downward. The Reynolds number for single-phase flow based on half channel height h^* and friction velocity is Re_τ= 180. A density and viscosity ratio of ρ_d^*/ρ_c^*=0.01 and μ_d^*/μ_c^*=0.018 is chosen for two void fractions of ϵ=1.2% and ϵ=2.4%. For each void fraction three different bubble sizes are simulated: D/h=0.2130, 0.2684 and 0.3382, where D denotes the diameter of the bubbles. Numerical simulations are based on multiple markers Coupled Level-Set/Volume-of-Fluid (CLSVOF) method. To improve the efficiency of this method, a fast pressure-correction method is used in order to enable the simulation to exploit a constant coefficient Poisson equation which can be solved with FFT-based technique. Extensive verification and validation were performed and perfect accuracy and agreement are obtained. In all the simulations performed in this work, the new Poisson solver showed a minimum speedup of 22 times. Accumulation of bubbles in the core region of the channel for all cases is observed, which forms a bubble-free layer in the near-wall region. The presence of bubbles resulted in considerable modification in the mean velocity profile compared to single-phase flow. Another common observation is that all the components of velocity fluctuations in the near-wall region decrease with increasing void fraction and decreasing wall layer thickness. The opposite happens in the core region, where the presence of bubbles favours turbulence. With respect to the bubble size, the wall-normal and spanwise velocity fluctuations decrease in the near-wall region for smaller bubbles, however, the streamwise velocity fluctuations remained almost unaffected. The investigation of turbulent kinetic budgets shows that, unlike single-phase flow, the dissipation terms rises to large values in the core region of the channel. This behaviour is referred to the presence of bubbles and hence enhancement of turbulent kinetic energy in the core region.

In a conventional continuous annealing line, the energy supplied to steel strip during heating is not recovered while cooling it. Therefore, an alternative heat transfer technology for energy efficient continuous annealing of steel was developed. This technology enables reusing the heat extracted during cooling of the strip in the heating part of the process. This is achieved by thermally linking the cooling strip to the heating strip via multiple rotating heat pipes. In this context, the dynamic simulation of a full heat pipe assisted annealing line is performed. The dynamic simulation consists of the interaction of computational building blocks, each comprising of a rotating heat pipe and strip parts wrapped around the heat pipe. The simulations are run for different installation configurations and operational settings, with the heat pipe number varying between 50 and 100 and with varying strip line speed and dimensions. The heat pipes are sized to be 0.5 m in diameter and 3 m in length. The simulation results show that the equipment is capable of satisfying the thermal cycle requirements of annealing both at steady-state and during transition between steady-states following changes in boundary conditions. With this concept, energy savings of up to 70% are feasible.

Flow and heat transfer of merging and bouncing droplets are studied for different Weber and Reynolds numbers and eccentricities of droplets by means of direct numerical simulation. Droplets are allowed to deform under the hydrodynamic forces of the surrounding flow. A coupled level-set and volume of fluid (CLSVOF) method is used to capture the highly deformable topology of the droplets. The method is coupled with a fast pressure solver, developed by Dodd and Ferrante, 2014, in order to circumvent the expensive iterative solvers commonly used. The temperature distribution inside the droplet and its consequent effect on the Nusselt number is studied. The results show that the Reynolds number and the initial configuration of droplets is of more important than the effect of the surface tension which governs the extent of deformations.

Rotating wickless and stationary capillary cylindrical heat pipes are widely used heat transfer devices. Transient behavior of such heat pipes has been investigated numerically with computational fluid dynamics and lumped parameter models. In this paper, the advantages of both methods are combined into a novel engineering model that is low in computational cost but still accurate and rich in the details it provides. The model describes the interior dynamics of the heat pipe with a 2D representation of a cylindrical heat pipe. Liquid and vapor volumes are coarsely meshed in the axial direction. The cells are allowed to change in size in the radial direction during simulation. This allows for tracking the liquid/vapor interface without having to implement fine meshing. The model includes the equations for mass, momentum and energy and is applicable to both rotating and stationary heat pipes. The predictions of the model are validated with other experimental, numerical, and analytical works having an average deviation of less than 4%. The effects of various parameters on the system are explored. The presented model is suitable for the simulation of heat pipe systems in which both the level of detail and the computational cost are crucial factors.

Fuel efficiency improvement and harmful emission reduction are the paramount driving forces for development of gas turbine combustors. Lean-burn combustors can accomplish these goals, but require specific flow topologies to overcome their sensitivity to combustion instabilities. Large Eddy Simulations (LES) can accurately capture these complex and intrinsically unsteady flow fields, but estimating the appropriate numerical resolution and subgrid model(s) still remain challenges. This paper discusses the prediction of non-reacting flow fields in the DLR gas turbine model combustor using LES. Several important features of modern gas turbine combustors are present in this model combustor: multiple air swirlers and recirculation zones for flame stabilisation. Good overall agreement is obtained between LES outcomes and experimental results, both in terms of time-averaged and temporal RMS values. Findings of this study include a strong dependence of the opening angle of the swirling jet inside the combustion chamber on the subgrid viscosity, which acts mainly through the air mass flow split between the two swirlers in the DLR model combustor. This paper illustrates the ability of LES to obtain accurate flow field predictions in complex gas turbine combustors making use of open-source software and computational resources available to industry.

This work investigates fully developed turbulent flows of carbon-dioxide close to its vapour-liquid critical point in a channel with a hot and a cold wall. Two direct numerical simulations are performed at low Mach numbers, with the trans-critical transition near the channel centre and the cold wall, respectively. An additional simulation with constant transport properties is used to selectively investigate the effect of the non-linear equation of state on turbulence. Compared to the case where the pseudo-critical transition occurs in the channel center, the case with the pseudo-critical transition close to the cold wall reveals that compressibility effects can exist in the near-wall region even at low Mach numbers. An analysis of the velocity streaks near the hot and the cold walls also indicates a greater degree of streak coherence near the cold wall. A comparison between the constant and variable viscosity cases at the same Reynolds number, Mach number and having the same isothermal wall boundary conditions reveals that variable viscosity increases turbulence near the cold wall and also causes higher velocity gradients near the hot wall. We also show that the extended van Driest transformation results in a better agreement of the velocity profile with the log-law of the wall compared to the standard van Driest transformation. The semi-locally scaled turbulent velocity fluctuations and the turbulent kinetic energy budgets on the hot and the cold sides of the channel collapse on top of each other, thereby establishing the validity of Morkovin’s hypothesis.