Constructal entransy dissipation rate minimization for "disc-to-point" heat conduction

Based on constructal theory,"disc-to-point" heat conduction is optimized by minimizing the entransy dissipation rate whereby a critical point is determined that distributes the high-conductivity material according to optimized radial or branch patterns.The results show that the critical point is determined by the product of the thermal conductivity ratio of the two materials and the volume fraction of the high-conductivity material allocated to the entire volume.The notion of optimal heat transfer performance can be attributed to the disc based on the entransy dissipation extremum principle.Comparing the results based on EDR minimization (entransy dissipation rate minimization) with those based on MTD minimization (maximum temperature difference minimization),one finds that the performance derived from the two optimization procedures are different.When the product of the thermal conductivity ratio and volume fraction is 30,the critical point of the former procedure is that for which the nondimensional radius of the disc equals 1.75,while that of the latter procedure is that for which this radius of the disc equals 2.18.Comparing heat transfer performances from the two procedures,the mean heat transfer temperature difference is decreased more for the former procedure thereby receiving an improved performance quota.

Constructal entransy dissipation rate minimization for heat conduction based on a tapered element

Based on constructal theory,the structure of a tapered element and high-conductivity link is optimized by taking the minimization of the entransy dissipation rate as the optimization objective.The results show that the mean temperature difference of the heat transfer cannot always decrease when the internal complexity of the control-volume increases.There exists an optimal constructal order leading to the minimum mean temperature difference for heat transfer.The thermal current density in high-conductivity links with variable shapes does not linearly depend on the length.Therefore,the optimized constructs based on the minimization of the entransy dissipation rate are different from those based on the minimization of the maximum temperature difference.Compared with the construct based on the minimization of the maximum temperature difference,the construct based on the minimization of the entransy dissipation rate can reduce the mean temperature difference,and improve the heat transfer performance significantly.Because entransy describes the heat transfer ability more suitably,various constructal problems in heat conduction may be addressed more effectively using this basis.

Constructal entransy dissipation rate minimization for a heat generating volume cooled by forced convection

The geometry of a heat generating volume cooled by forced convection is optimized by applying the entransy dissipation extremum principle and constructal theory, while the optimal spacing between the adjacent tubes and the optimal diameter of each tube are obtained based on entransy dissipation rate minimization. The results of this work show that the optimal constructs based on entransy dissipation rate minimization and maximum temperature difference minimization, respectively, are clearly different. For the former, the porosity of the volume of channels allocated to the heat generating volume is 1/2; while for the latter, the larger the porosity is, the better the performance will be. The optimal construct of the former greatly decreases the mean thermal resistance and improves the global heat transfer performance of the system compared with the optimal construct of the latter. This is identical to the essential requirement of the entransy dissipation extremum principle that the required heat transfer temperature difference is minimal with the same heat transfer rate (the given amount of heat generated in the heat generating volume) based on the entransy dissipation extremum principle.