Turbulent and Transitional Modeling of Drag on Oceanographic Measurement Devices

Computational fluid dynamic techniques have been applied to the determination of drag on oceanographic devices (expendable bathythermographs). Such devices, which are used to monitor changes in ocean heat content, provide information that is dependent on their drag coefficient. Inaccuracies in drag calculations can impact the estimation of ocean heating associated with global warming. Traditionally, ocean-heating information was based on experimental correlations which related the depth of the device to the fall time. The relation of time-depth is provided by a fall-rate equation (FRE). It is known that FRE depths are reasonably accurate for ocean environments that match the experiments from which the correlations were developed. For other situations, use of the FRE may lead to depth errors that preclude XBTs as accurate oceanographic devices. Here, a CFD approach has been taken which provides drag coefficients that are used to predict depths independent of an FRE

HT2008-56233 Slip-flow and Conjugate Heat Transfer in Rectangular Microchannels

ABSTRACT Slip-flow and conjugate heat transfer in rectangular microchannels are studied numerically for thermally developing laminar flow subjected to constant wall temperature (T) and constant wall heat flux (H2) boundary conditions. A three-dimensional numerical code based on finite volume method is developed to solve the coupled energy equations in the wall and fluid regions together with temperature jump at the wall-fluid boundary. A modified convection-diffusion coefficient at the wall-fluid interface is defined to incorporate the temperature-jump boundary condition. The numerical code is validated by comparing the present results with the published data. The effect of rarefaction and wall conduction on the heat transfer in the entrance region is analyzed in detail. Results show that the wall conduction has a considerable influence on the developing Nusselt number along the channel for the H2 boundary condition, particularly at low Knudsen numbers. In the case of the T thermal boundary condition, negligible influence of wall conduction on the Nusselt number is observed for all Knudsen numbers considered

Improved perturbation solutions for laminar natural convection on a vertical cylinder

The method of extended perturbation series is applied to solve for laminar natural convection from an isothermal, thin vertical cylinder. The series in terms of the transverse curvature parameter ξ extended to five terms and is subsequently improved by applying the Shanks transformation twice. The validity of the solution is extended up to ξ =10 and possibly even beyond. Up to ξ =10, the results for wall shear as well as the local and average Nusselt numbers agree very closely with those of local nonsimilarity and finite difference solutions. The ease of computation coupled with high accuracy makes the present approach far more attractive than the currently popular local nonsimilarity and finite difference methods. Its success with the present problem should motivate applications to a host of nonsimilar boundary layer flows. Die Methode der erweiterten Störungsserien wird auf die laminare freie Konvektion am isothermen senkrechten dünnen Zylinder angewendet. Die Serien in Ausdrücken des Krümmungsparameters ξ werden auf 5 Terme ausgedehnt und weiter durch doppelte Auswertung der Shank-Transformation verbessert. Die Lösung gilt mindestens bis ξ =10, vielleicht sogar weiter. Bis ξ =10 stimmen die Lösungen für die Wandschubspannung und die örtliche und mittlere Nußelt-Zahl gut überein mit jenen, die auf der örtlichen Nicht-Ähnlichkeit und finiten Differenzen beruhen. Die leichte Berechenbarkeit und die hohe Genauigkeit machen diesen Lösungsweg attraktiver als die heute populären Verfahren der örtlichen Nicht-Ähnlichkeit und der finiten Differenzen. Der hier aufgezeigte Erfolg sollte zur Anwendung auf nicht-ähnliche Grenzschichtströmungen motivieren.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46653/1/231_2005_Article_BF01459764.pd

Modeling Thermal Comfort and Optimizing Local Renewal Strategies-A Case Study of Dazhimen Neighborhood in Wuhan City

Modeling thermal comfort provides quantitative evidence and parameters for effective and efficient urban planning, design, and building construction particularly in a dense and narrow inner city, which has become one of many concerns for sustainable urban development. This paper aims to develop geometric and mathematical models of wind and thermal comfort and use them to examine the impacts of six small-scale renewal strategies on the wind and thermal environment at pedestrian level in Dazhimen neighborhood, Wuhan, which is a typical case study of urban renewal project in a mega-city. The key parameters such as the solar radiation, natural convection, relative humidity, ambient crosswind have been incorporated into the mathematical models by using user-defined-function (UDF) method. Detailed temperature and velocity distributions under different strategies have been compared for the optimization of local renewal strategies. It is concluded that five rules generated from the simulation results can provide guidance for building demolition and reconstruction in a neighborhood and there is no need of large-scale demolition. Particularly, combining the local demolition and city virescence can both improve the air ventilation and decrease the temperature level in the study area

Homotopy semi-numerical modeling of non-Newtonian nanofluid transport external to multiple geometries using a revised Buongiorno Model

A semi-analytical solution for the convection of a power-law nanofluid external to three different geometries (i.e. cone, wedge and plate), subject to convective boundary condition is presented. A revised Buongiorno model is employed for the nanofluid transport over the various geometries with variable wall temperature and nano-particle concentration conditions (nonisothermal and non-isolutal). Wall transpiration is included. The dimensional governing equations comprising the conservation of mass, momentum, energy and nanoparticle volume fraction are transformed to dimensionless form using appropriate transformations. The transformed equations are solved using a robust semi-analytical power series method known as the Homotopy analysis method (HAM). The convergence and validation of the series solutions is considered in detail. The variation of order of the approximation and computational time with respect to residual errors for temperature for the different geometries is also elaborated. The influence of thermophysical parameters such as wall temperature parameter, wall concentration parameter for nanofluid, Biot number, thermophoresis parameter, Brownian motion parameter and suction/blowing parameter on the velocity, temperature and nanoparticle volume fraction is visualized graphically and tabulated. The impact of these parameters on the engineering design functions e.g. coefficient of skin fraction factor, Nusselt number and Sherwood number is also shown in tabular form. The outcomes are compared with the existing results from the literature to validate the study. It is found that thermal and solute Grashof numbers both significantly enhance the flow velocity whereas they suppress the temperature and nanoparticle volume fraction for the three different configurations i.e. cone, wedge and plate. Furthermore, the thermal and concentration boundary layers are more dramatically modified for the wedge case, as compared to the plate and cone. This study has substantial applications in polymer engineering coating processes, fiber technology and nanoscale materials processing systems

Bioconvection nanofluid slip flow past a wavy surface with applications in nano-biofuel cells

A theoretical study is presented to examine free convective boundary layer flow of water-based bio-nanofluid containing gyrotactic microorganisms past a wavy surface. Buongiorno’s nanofluid model with passively controlled boundary condition is applied to investigate the effects of the emerging parameters on the physical quantities namely, skin friction, Nusselt numbers and density number of motile microorganisms. The effects of the both hydrodynamic and thermal slips are also incorporated. Local similarity and non-similarity solutions are obtained using the seventh-order Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg method (RKF7) coupled with shooting quadrature. In order to compare our numerical results with the existing data, the active mass flux boundary condition is also used to benchmark MAPLE numerical solutions with earlier similar and non-similar solutions for a smooth stationary surface. It is found that the passive boundary condition reduces the skin friction and enhances local Nusselt numbers. Also the wavy surface is found to result in higher skin friction and higher local Nusselt numbers compared with a stationary surface. It is found that motile micro-organism density number is elevated with increasing bioconvection Péclet number whereas the motile micro-organism species boundary layer thickness is reduced with increasing bioconvection Lewis number. The work finds applications in heat transfer enhancement in bio-inspired nanoparticle-doped fuel cells

Heat transfer and entropy generation analysis of HFE 7000 based nanorefrigerants

In this study, two dimensional numerical simulations of forced convection flow of HFE 7000 based nanofluids in a horizontal circular tube subjected to a constant and uniform heat flux in laminar flow was performed by using single phase homogeneous model. Four different nanofluids considered in the present study are Al2O3, CuO, SiO2 and MgO nanoparticles dispersed in pure HFE 7000. The simulations were performed with particle volumetric concentrations of 0, 1, 4 and 6% and Reynolds number of 400, 800, 1200 and 1600. Most of the previous studies on the forced convective flow of nanofluids have been investigated through hydrodynamic and heat transfer analysis. Therefore, there is limited number of numerical studies which include both heat transfer and entropy generation investigations of the convective flow of nanofluids. The objective of the present work is to study the influence of each dispersed particles, their volume concentrations and Reynolds number on the hydrodynamic and thermal characteristics as well as the entropy generation of the flow. In addition, experimental data for Al2O3-water nanofluid was compared with the simulation model and high level agreement was found between the simulation and experimental results. The numerical results reveal that the average heat transfer coefficient augments with an increase in Reynolds number and the volume concentration for all the above considered nanofluids. It is found that the highest increase in the average heat transfer coefficient is obtained at the highest volume concentration ratio (6%) for each nanofluids. The increase in the average heat transfer coefficient is found to be 17.5% for MgO-HFE 7000 nanofluid, followed by Al2O3-HFE 7000 (16.9%), CuO-HFE 7000 (15.1%) and SiO2-HFE 7000 (14.6%). However, the results show that the enhancement in heat transfer coefficient is accompanied by the increase in pressure drop, which is about (9.3 - 28.2%). Furthermore, the results demonstrate that total entropy generation reduces with the rising Reynolds number and particle volume concentration for each nanofluid. Therefore, the use of HFE 7000 based MgO, Al2O3, CuO and SiO2 nanofluids in the laminar flow regime is beneficial and enhances the thermal performance