Bubble counter based on photoelectric technique for leakage detection of cryogenic valves

In order to overcome the inconvenience of manual bubble counting, a bubble counter based on photoelectric technique aiming for automatically detecting and measuring minute gas leakage of cryogenic valves is proposed. Experiments have been conducted on a self-built apparatus, testing the performance with different gas inlet strategies (bottom gas-inlet strategy and side gas-inlet strategy) and the influence of gas pipe length (0, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 m) and leakage rate (around 10, 20, 30, 40 bubbles/min) on first bubble time and bubble rate. A buffer of 110 cm3 is inserted between leakage source and gas pipe to simulate the down- stream cavum adjacent to the valve clack. Based on analyzing the experimental data, experiential parameters have also been summarized to guide leakage detection and measurement for engineering applications. A practical system has already been suc- cessfully applied in a cryogenic testing apparatus for cryogenic valves.

Measurement of boiling heat transfer coefficient in liquid nitrogen bath by inverse heat conduction method

Inverse heat conduction method (IHCM) is one of the most effective approaches to obtaining the boiling heat transfer coefficient from measured results. This paper focuses on its application in cryogenic boiling heat transfer. Experiments were conducted on the heat transfer of a stainless steel block in a liquid nitrogen bath, with the assumption of a 1D conduction condition to realize fast acquisition of the temperature of the test points inside the block. With the inverse-heat conduction theory and the explicit finite difference model, a solving program was developed to calculate the heat flux and the boiling heat transfer coefficient of a stainless steel block in liquid nitrogen bath based on the temperature acquisition data. Considering the oscillating data and some unsmooth transition points in the inverse-heat-conduction calculation result of the heat-transfer coefficient, a two-step data-fitting procedure was proposed to obtain the expression for the boiling heat transfer coefficients. The coefficient was then verified for accuracy by a comparison between the simulation results using this expression and the verifying experimental results of a stainless steel block. The maximum error with a revised segment fitting is around 6%, which verifies the feasibility of using IHCM to measure the boiling heat transfer coefficient in liquid nitrogen bath.