An Experimental Analysis of Gas-Liquid Flow Breakdown in a T-Junction

When a gas-liquid two-phase flow(GLTPF)enters a parallel separator through a T-junction,it generally splits unevenly.This phenomenon can seriously affect the operation efficiency and safety of the equipment located downstream.In order to investigate these aspects and,more specifically,the so-called bias phenomenon(all gas and liquid flowing to one pipe,while the other pipe is a liquid column that fluctuates up and down),laboratory experiments were carried out by using a T-junction connected to two parallel vertical pipes.Moreover,a GLTPF prediction model based on the principle of minimum potential energy was introduced.The research results indicate that this model can accurately predict the GLTPF state in parallel risers.The boundary of the slug flow and the churn flow in the opposite pipe can be predicted.Overall,according to the results,the pressure drop curves of the two-phase flow in the parallel risers are basically the same when there is no bias phenomenon,but the pressure drop in the parallel riser displays a large deviation when there is a slug flow-churn flow.Only when the parallel riser is in a state of asymmetric flow and one of the risers produces churn flow,the two-phase flow is prone to produce the bias phenomenon.

Investigating the Effects of Injection Pipe Orientation on Mixing and Heat Transfer for Fluid Flow Downstream a T-Junction

At T-junctions, where hot and cold streams flowing in pipes join and mix, significant temperature fluctuations can be created in very close neighborhood of the pipe walls. The wall temperature fluctuations cause cyclical thermal stresses which may induce fatigue cracking. Temperature fluctuation is of crucial importance in many engineering applications and especially in nuclear power plants. This is because the phenomenon leads to thermal fatigue and might subsequently result in failure of structural material. Therefore, the effects of temperature fluctuation in piping structure at mixing junctions in nuclear power systems cannot be neglected. In nuclear power plant, piping structure is exposed to unavoidable temperature differences in a bid to maintain plant operational capacity. Tightly coupled to temperature fluctuation is flow turbulence, which has attracted extensive attention and has been investigated worldwide since several decades. The focus of this study is to investigate the effects of injection pipe orientation on flow mixing and temperature fluctuation for fluid flow downstream a T-junction. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach was applied using STAR CCM+ code. Four inclination angles including 0 (90), 15, 30 and 45 degrees were studied and the mixing intensity and effective mixing zone were investigated. K-omega SST turbulence model was adopted for the simulations. Results of the analysis suggest that, effective mixing of cold and hot fluid which leads to reduced and uniform temperature field at the pipe wall boundary, is achieved at 0 (90) degree inclination of the branch pipe and hence may lower thermal stress levels in the structural material of the pipe. Turbulence mixing, pressure drop and velocity distribution were also found to be more appreciable at 0 (90) degree inclination angle of the branch pipe relative to the other orientations studied.

Modified Pressure Loss Model for T-junctions of Engine Exhaust Manifold

The T-junction model of engine exhaust manifolds significantly influences the simulation precision of the pressure wave and mass flow rate in the intake and exhaust manifolds of diesel engines. Current studies have focused on constant pressure models, constant static pressure models and pressure loss models. However, low model precision is a common disadvantage when simulating engine exhaust manifolds, particularly for turbocharged systems. To study the performance of junction flow, a cold wind tunnel experiment with high velocities at the junction of a diesel exhaust manifold is performed, and the variation in the pressure loss in the T-junction under different flow conditions is obtained. Despite the trend of the calculated total pressure loss coefficient, which is obtained by using the original pressure loss model and is the same as that obtained from the experimental results, large differences exist between the calculated and experimental values. Furthermore, the deviation becomes larger as the flow velocity increases. By improving the Vazsonyi formula considering the flow velocity and introducing the distribution function, a modified pressure loss model is established, which is suitable for a higher velocity range. Then, the new model is adopted to solve one-dimensional, unsteady flow in a D6114 turbocharged diesel engine. The calculated values are compared with the measured data, and the result shows that the simulation accuracy of the pressure wave before the turbine is improved by 4.3% with the modified pressure loss model because gas compressibility is considered when the flow velocities are high. The research results provide valuable information for further junction flow research, particularly the correction of the boundary condition in one-dimensional simulation models.

Mechanical Stress Analysis of a 600MW Supercritical Boiler Superheater Outlet Header

The mechanical stress distribution and the stress concentrations of the superheater outlet header of a 600MW supercritical boiler were analyzed by the finite element method. The results showed that the stress concentrated at the inside conjunction area between the pipe and the header cylinder , and the value of the maximum mechanical stress concentration factor is 2.51.

Numerical simulation on dynamic behaviors of bubbles flowing through bifurcate T-junction in microfluidic device

Based on the volume of fluid(VOF) method, a numerical model of bubbles splitting in a microfluidic device with T-junction is developed and solved numerically. Various flow patterns are distinguished and the effects of bubble length,capillary number, and diameter ratio between the mother channel and branch are discussed. The break-up mechanism is explored in particular. The results indicate that the behaviors of the bubbles can be classified into two categories: break-up and non-break. Under the condition of slug flowing, the branches are obstructed by the bubbles that the pressure difference drives the bubbles into break-up state, while the bubbles that retain non-break state flow into an arbitrary branch under bubbling flow condition. The break-up of the short bubbles only occurs when the viscous force from the continuous phase overcomes the interfacial tension. The behavior of the bubbles transits from non-break to break-up with the increase of capillary number. In addition, the increasing of the diameter ratio is beneficial to the symmetrical break-up of the bubbles.

Effects on the mixing process of a coiled tube after a T-junction:Simulation and correlation

Simulations were performed to examine the effects of a coiled tube after a T-junction on the mixing and flow characteristics. A coiled tube was found to have two effects: inducing a radial flow and flattening the axial velocity distribution, which enhances and weakens the mixing, respectively. In the straight tube section connecting the Tjunction and coiled tube, the latter may dominate and cause the mixing to deteriorate. An experiment was performed with the Villermaux/Dushman method to verify the simulation results. Based on a mixing performance simulation with various fluid and geometric structure parameters, a dimensionless correlation was obtained that can be used to determine the mixing intensity along the coiled tube with a deviation of less than 1.5%.These results provide guidance for designing a coiled tube or optimizing the operating conditions to meet the mixing requirements of specific chemical processes.

Large eddy simulation of hot and cold fluids mixing in a T-junction for predicting thermal fluctuations

Temperature fluctuations in a mixing T-junction have been simulated on the FLUENT platform using the large eddy simulation （LES） turbulent flow model and a sub-grid scale Smagorinsky-Lilly model. The normalized mean and root mean square temperatures for describing time-averaged temperature and temperature fluctuation intensity, and the velocity are obtained. The power spectrum densities of temperature fluctuations, which are key parameters for thermal fatigue analysis and lifetime evaluation, are analyzed. Simulation results are consistent with experimental data published in the literature, showing that the LES is reliable. Several mixing processes under different conditions are simulated in order to analyze the effects of varying Reynolds number and Richardson number on the mixing course and thermal fluctuations.

Universality of Periodic Oscillation Induced in Side Branch of a T-Junction in Numerical Simulation

The flow instability through the side branch of a T-junction is analyzed in a numerical simulation. In a previous experimental study, the authors clarified the mechanism of fluid-induced vibration in the side branch of the T-junction in laminar steady flow through the trunk. However, in that approach there were restrictions with respect to extracting details of flow behavior such as the flow instability and the distribution of wall shear stress along the wall. Here the spatial growth of the velocity perturbation at the upstream boundary of the side branch is investigated. The simulation result indicates that a periodic velocity fluctuation introduced at the upstream boundary is amplified downstream, in good agreement with experimental result. The fluctuation in wall shear stress because of the flow instability shows local extrema in both the near and distal walls. From the numerical simulation, the downstream fluid oscillation under a typical condition has a Strouhal number of 1.05, which approximately agrees with the value obtained in experiments. Therefore, this periodic oscillation motion is a universal phenomenon in the side branch of a T-junction.

An Analysis of the Influence of Protective Films on the Inner Surfaces of CCPP Headers and Steam Pipelines on Their Thermal Stress State

At present, the main attention of researchers is paid to the deterioration of heat transfer when heating the outer surface of the pipe with the liquid or steam, flowing inside it, in the presence of films or deposits on its inner surface. However, when pipe is heating by heat carrier medium, flowing inside it, film on the inner pipe surface serve a dual protective function, protecting the pipe from corrosion and reducing its thermal stress. The article represents the results of the computational analysis of protective films influence on the thermal stressed state of headers and steam pipelines of combined-cycle power plants (CCPP) heat-recovery steam generators at different transient operating conditions particularly at startups from different initial temperature states and thermal shock. It is shown that protective films have a significant influence on the stresses magnitude and damage accumulation mainly for great temperature disturbances (for thermal shock). Calculations were carried out at various thicknesses of films and assuming that their thermal conductivity less than thermal conductivity of the steam pipelines metal.

Determination of interfacial tension and viscosity under dripping flow in a step T-junction microdevice

Microfluidic approaches for the determination of interfacial tension and viscosity of liquid-liquid systems still face some challenges.One of them is liquid-liquid systems with low interfacial and high viscosity,because dripping flow in normal microdevices can’t be easily realized for the systems.In this work,we designed a capillary embedded step T-junction microdevice to develop a modified microfluidic approach to determine the interfacial tension of several systems,specially,for the systems with low interfacial tension and high viscosity.This method combines a classical T-junction geometry with a step to strengthen the shear force further to form monodispersed water/oil(w/o)or aqueous two-phase(ATP)droplet under dripping flow.For systems with low interfacial tension and high viscosity,the operating range for dripping flow is relative narrow whereas a wider dripping flow operating range can be realized in this step Tjunction microdevice when the capillary number of the continuous phase is in the range of 0.01 to 0.7.Additionally,the viscosity of the continuous phase was also measured in the same microdevice.Several different systems with an interfacial tension from 1.0 to 8.0 m N·m^(-1) and a viscosity from 0.9 to 10 m Pa·s were measured accurately.The experimental results are in good agreement with the data obtained from a commercial interfacial tensiometer and a spinning digital viscometer.This work could extend the application of microfluidic flows.

Fluid Vibration Induced in T-Junction with Double Side Branches

A T-junction is a fundamental fluid element prevalent in pipe networks of water supplies and power plants. In the present study, a double T-junction was investigated for flow instability and fluid vibration. Both axi-aligned and skewed double T-junctions are examined from viewpoint of flow instability. With single-phase flow in an open-ended double T-junction, fluid vibration is induced in both side branches because of a high shear rate with a point of inflection. The frequency of vibration in the downstream branch is higher than that in the upstream branch. Except for the upstream branch in the skewed double T-junction, the frequency is higher than that in a single T-junction. The fluid vibrations are closely associated with the fluid interference created by the presence of the two side branches.

Design and fluid-structure interaction analysis for a microfluidic T-junction with chemo-responsive hydrogel valves

Due to the deformation ability even under small loads, hydrogels have been widely used as a type of soft materials in various applications such as actuating and sensing, and have attracted many researchers to study their behaviors. In this paper, the behavior of hydrogel micro-valves with reverse sensitivity to the p H inside a T-junction flow sorter is investigated. With the fluid-structure interaction(FSI) approach, the effects of various parameters such as the inlet pressure and the p H value on the stress and deformation of the micro-valves are examined, and the results with and without FSI,including the flow rate and the closure p H, are compared. In order to reduce the response time of hydrogels, the effects of three different patterns on the performance of the microvalves are explored. Eventually, it is concluded that FSI is a key influential factor in designing and analyzing the behaviors of hydrogels.

A Study on Control System of Robot Working Unit for Automatically Welding Nipples onto Header of Boiler

The difficult problem of automatically welding nipples onto the header is first analyzed in this paper, and then the overall structure and operating principle of the robot working unit are introduced. The robot and the measuring device are located by employing the traveling lorry, and this unit enables the robot to adjust the tracks according to the errors received from the measuring device, and then the nipples are welded properly. This paper emphases on the development of the master-slave control system, in which the prograrmmable Logic Controller (PLC) is used as the master computer.

Hopping-Aware Cluster Header Capability for Sensor Relocation in Mobile IoT Networks

Mobile sensor nodes such as hopping sensors are of critical importance in data collection.However,the occurrence of sensing holes is unavoidable due to the energy limitation of the nodes.Thus,it is evident that the relocation of mobile sensors is the most desirable method to recover the sensing holes.The previous research conducted by the authors so far demonstrated the most realistic hopping sensor relocation scheme,which is suitable for the distributed environment.In previous studies,the cluster header plays an essential role in detecting the sensing hole and requesting the neighboring cluster to recover the sensing hole that occurred in the sensor node.However,the limitations of the cluster header in the previously proposed relocation protocol are not fully considered.Because the cluster header jumps more frequently than non-header nodes,its energy con-sumption is relatively high compared to other nodes.Therefore,it is most likely to lead to header node failure and can lead to data loss on the network.In this paper,the jumping ability and energy consumption of the cluster header are seriously considered.Additional ability to replace cluster headers in case of failure is also implemented.Simulation results show that the data collection time can be further increased,which demonstrates the validity of the proposed algorithms.

The trend of mechanizing road header for coal mine entry

In discussing coal mine entry construction with rock bolt technology, examinedthe craft and machinery problems as well as the conditions in which to use each kind ofmachine and tool.It exposed the intrinsic flaws of the widely used road header.The problemis that it was designed according to early timbering support state but is not suitable forrock bolt technology.The way to improve the function of existing road headers is notthrough parallel operations but using the SUDM (Shield Union Driving Machine), which isa new machine that improves construction.This article proposed a few solutions in designto solve this problem.

STUDY ON THE METHODS OF STRUCTURALDYNAMIC MODIFICATION OPTIMIZATION OF ROAD HEADERS

In this paper, taking AM-50 Road Heaer as an example, the metheds of structural dynamic modification optimization for road headers are studied using experimental modal analysis and physical parameters analysis. The machine’s modal model and lumped mass model are established and the vibration response simulation is calculated for the two models with the load spectral measured. On the above basis, the dynamic parameters of the models are optimised and some useful results have been obtained.The research methods in this paper can be used for the reference to the other lager type mining machines.

Impact of Portable Executable Header Features on Malware Detection Accuracy

One aspect of cybersecurity,incorporates the study of Portable Executables(PE)files maleficence.Artificial Intelligence(AI)can be employed in such studies,since AI has the ability to discriminate benign from malicious files.In this study,an exclusive set of 29 features was collected from trusted implementations,this set was used as a baseline to analyze the presented work in this research.A Decision Tree(DT)and Neural Network Multi-Layer Perceptron(NN-MLPC)algorithms were utilized during this work.Both algorithms were chosen after testing a few diverse procedures.This work implements a method of subgrouping features to answer questions such as,which feature has a positive impact on accuracy when added?Is it possible to determine a reliable feature set to distinguish a malicious PE file from a benign one?when combining features,would it have any effect on malware detection accuracy in a PE file?Results obtained using the proposed method were improved and carried few observations.Generally,the obtained results had practical and numerical parts,for the practical part,the number of features and which features included are the main factors impacting the calculated accuracy,also,the combination of features is as crucial in these calculations.Numerical results included,finding accuracies with enhanced values,for example,NN_MLPC attained 0.979 and 0.98;for DT an accuracy of 0.9825 and 0.986 was attained.

Secure Web Application Technologies Implementation through Hardening Security Headers Using Automated Threat Modelling Techniques

This paper investigates whether security headers are enforced to mitigate cyber-attacks in web-based systems in cyberspace. The security headers examined include X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, Strict-Transport-Security, Referrer-Policy, Content-Security-Policy, and Permissions-Policy. The study employed a controlled experiment using a security header analysis tool. The web-based applications (websites) were analyzed to determine whether security headers have been correctly implemented. The experiment was iterated for 100 universities in Africa which are ranked high. The purposive sampling technique was employed to understand the status quo of the security headers implementations. The results revealed that 70% of the web-based applications in Africa have not enforced security headers in web-based applications. The study proposes a secure system architecture design for addressing web-based applications’ misconfiguration and insecure design. It presents security techniques for securing web-based applications through hardening security headers using automated threat modelling techniques. Furthermore, it recommends adopting the security headers in web-based applications using the proposed secure system architecture design.

Investigation of Hydroabrasion in Slurry Pipeline Elbows and T-junctions

The present study demonstrates the comparison of erosion rate of critical pipeline parts, namely elbow and T-junction which face the maximum erosion in a pipeline and may cause an early damage and failure of the system. CFD （computational fluid dynamics） with an Eulerian-Lagrangian approach coupled with an approved erosion model is applied to visualize the 3-D flow behavior of slurry flow in both parts and to predict the erosion rate and the location of erosion at the internal surfaces. The analysis of slurry erosion is performed in five steps; geometry and grid generation, grid study/refinement, fluid flow solution, solid particles tracking and finally, the erosion calculation. In previous publications in literature considering transportation of gas-solid flows in pipe parts, the application ofT-junctions instead of elbows for specified conditions in order to reduce the erosion is recommended. In this article, it is approved that for liquid-solid flows, the Stokes number is reasonably smaller than the values for gas-solid flows. This causes the solid particles tightly couple to the fluid phase and to travel more closely with the fluid streamlines. The effects of important influencing parameters such as feed flow velocity, solid concentration, particle size and shape are investigated in detail in current work. It was found that for liquid-solid flows, the erosion of T-junction for all of the mentioned influencing parameters, due to its geometrical specifications and Stokes number variation in comparison with gas-solid flows, is reasonably higher than erosion of elbow. Due to these findings, in contrary to the gas-solid mixture flows, application of T-junction instead of elbow for liquid-solid flow transportation is not recommended.

Refrigerant Distribution Characteristics in Vertical Header of Flat-Tube Heat Exchanger without Internal Protrusion

A heat exchanger that arranges flat tubes horizontally has a vertical header that distributes the refrigerant to each tube. When the heat exchanger works as an evaporator, differences in flow conditions at each branch, such as the ratio and distribution of vapor and liquid, due to the differences in densities and momentums of vapor and liquid in the two-phase flow make equal distribution difficult. This paper describes the distribution characteristics of a four-branch header that has a rectangular cross-section without the internal protrusion of flat tubes in the case of the inflow of the refrigerant R32 from the bottom of the header by using an equipment that can estimate the distribution ratio of the liquid and vapor phase to each branch. This paper also discusses the distribution characteristics on the basis of the flow visualization in the header. The flow visualization shows that a liquid level that contains vapor phase exists in the header and affects the distribution greatly.