Mathematical Modelling and Design of Helical Coil Heat Exchanger for Production of Hot Air for Fluidized Bed Dryer

In global industrialization, efforts have been made to increase the rate of heat transfer in heat exchanger, minimizing the size of heat exchanger to reduce cost as well as increasing the effectiveness. Helical coil heat exchanger (HCHE) has been proven to be effective in improving heat transfer due to its large surface area. In this study, HCHE was designed to provide hot air needed for fluidized bed drying processes. The HCHE design model was fabricated and evaluated to study the efficiency of the hot air output for a laboratory fluidized bed dryer. The mathematical model for estimation of the final (output) temperature of air, Taf, passing through the HCHE was developed and validated experimentally. The drying of bitter kola particulates was carried out with a drying temperature of 50C 3C and a bed height-to-bed diameter ratio (H/D) of 1.5. The time taken to dry bitter kola particulates to 0.4% moisture content was 1 hour 45 minutes. Hence, HCHE is recommended for use in the production of hot for laboratory-scale fluidized bed dryers.

Localized Theoretical Analysis of Thermal Performance of Individually Finned Heat Pipe Heat Exchanger for Air Conditioning with Freon R404A as Working Fluid

This work contributes to the improvement of energy-saving in air conditioning systems. The objective is to apply the thermal efficiency of heat exchangers for localized determination of the thermal performance of heat exchangers with individually finned heat pipes. The fundamental parameters used for performance analysis were the number of fins per heat pipe, the number of heat pipes, the inlet temperatures, and the flow rates of hot and cold fluids. The heat exchanger under analysis uses Freon 404A as a working fluid in an air conditioning system for cooling in the Evaporator and energy recovery in the Condenser. The theoretical model is localized and applied individually to the Evaporator, Condenser, and heat exchanger regions. The results obtained through the simulation are compared with experimental results that use a global approach for the heat exchanger. The thermal quantities obtained through the theoretical model in the mentioned regions are air velocity, Nusselt number, thermal effectiveness, heat transfer rate, and outlet temperature. The comparisons made with global experimental results are in excellent agreement, demonstrating that the localized theoretical approach developed is consistent and can be used as a comprehensive analysis tool for heat exchangers using heat pipes.

Localized Theoretical Analysis of Thermal Performance of Individually Finned Heat Pipe Heat Exchanger for Air Conditioning with Freon R404A as Working Fluid

This work contributes to the improvement of energy-saving in air conditioning systems. The objective is to apply the thermal efficiency of heat exchangers for localized determination of the thermal performance of heat exchangers with individually finned heat pipes. The fundamental parameters used for performance analysis were the number of fins per heat pipe, the number of heat pipes, the inlet temperatures, and the flow rates of hot and cold fluids. The heat exchanger under analysis uses Freon 404A as a working fluid in an air conditioning system for cooling in the Evaporator and energy recovery in the Condenser. The theoretical model is localized and applied individually to the Evaporator, Condenser, and heat exchanger regions. The results obtained through the simulation are compared with experimental results that use a global approach for the heat exchanger. The thermal quantities obtained through the theoretical model in the mentioned regions are air velocity, Nusselt number, thermal effectiveness, heat transfer rate, and outlet temperature. The comparisons made with global experimental results are in excellent agreement, demonstrating that the localized theoretical approach developed is consistent and can be used as a comprehensive analysis tool for heat exchangers using heat pipes.

Vertical Air Mass Exchange Driven by the Local Circulation on the Northern Slope of Mount Everest

To better understand vertical air mass exchange driven by local circulation in the Himalayas, the volume flux of air mass is estimated in the Rongbuk Valley on the northern slope of Mount Everest, based on a volume closure method and wind-profiler measurements during the HEST2006 campaign in June 2006. Vertical air mass exchange was found to be dominated by a strong downward mass transfer from the late morning to late night. The average vertical air volume flux was 0.09 m s-1, which could be equivalent to a daily ventilation of 30 times the enclosed valley volume. This vertical air mass exchange process was greatly affected by the evolution of the South Asian summer monsoon （SASM）, with a strong downward transfer during the SASM break stage, and a weak transfer during the SASM active stage.

Adaptive inverse control of air supply flow for proton exchange membrane fuel cell systems

To prevent the oxygen starvation and improve the system output performance, an adaptive inverse control （AIC） strategy is developed to regulate the air supply flow of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell （PEMFC） system in this paper. The PEMFC stack and the air supply system including a compressor and a supply manifold are modeled for the purpose of performance analysis and controller design. A recurrent fuzzy neural network （RFNN） is utilized to identify the inverse model of the controlled system and generates a suitable control input during the abrupt step change of external disturbances. Compared with the PI controller, numerical simulations are performed to validate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed AIC strategy.

Urban Boundary-Layer Stability and Turbulent Exchange during Consecutive Episodes of Particle Air Pollution in Beijing,China

Based on measurements at the Beijing 325-m Meteorological Tower,this study reports an analysis of atmospheric stability conditions and turbulent exchange during consecutive episodes of particle air pollution in Beijing(China),primarily due to haze and dust events(15–30 April 2012).Of particular interest were relevant vertical variations within the lower urban boundary layer(UBL).First,the haze and dust events were characterized by different atmospheric conditions,as quite low wind speed and high humidity are typically observed during haze events.In addition,for the description of stability conditions,the bulk Richardson number(RiB) was calculated for three different height intervals: 8–47,47–140,and 140–280 m.The values of RiB indicated an apparent increase in the occurrence frequency of stably-stratified air layers in the upper height interval—for the 140–280-m height interval,positive values of RiB occurred for about 85% of the time.The downward turbulent exchange of sensible heat was observed at 280 m for the full diurnal cycle,which,by contrast,was rarely seen at 140 m during daytime.These results reinforce the importance of implementing high-resolution UBL profile observations and addressing issues related to stably-stratified flows.

CO_2 exchange at air-sea interface in the Huanghai Sea

During the Huanghai Sea Circulation and Material Flux Expedition in Spring 1996, fco_2 in surface water and atmosphere was measured. The fco2 in surface water varied in a range from 220 to 360 uatm1) while atmospheric concentration was nearly constant at 360μatm, showing that the Huanghai Sea surface waters were undersaturated with respect to atmospheric Co during the time of investigation. A model was developed in this study in order to estimate the Co flux at the air-sea interface. The model incorporates the time-series variations of the distributions in SST (sea surface temperature), salinity, mixed-layer depth, atmospheric fco2, gas-transfer velocity, and CZCS chlorophyll concentration in the Huanghai Sea and was calibrated with the observed fco2 data. The primary parameter affecting fco2 in surface water is the variation of SST through time. The annual fluxes of Co are estimated as 0. 033 Gt C from the sea into the atmosphere and 0. 044 Gt C from the air into sea. The Huanghai Sea, thus behaves as a CO2 sink absorbing 0. 011 Gi C of CO2 a year. which.corresponds to about 0. 5 % of global oceanic absorption capacity.

Simulation and heat exchanger network designs for a novel single-column cryogenic air separation process

To realize the industrialization of the novel single-column air separation process proposed in previous work,steady-state simulation for four different configurations of the single-column process with ternary(nitrogen,oxygen and argon)is developed.Then,exergy analysis of the single-column processes is also carried out and compared with the conventional double-column air separation process at the same capacity.Furthermore,based on the steady-state simulation of single-column processes,the different heat exchanger networks(HENs)for the main heat exchanger and subcooler in each process are designed.To obtain better performance for this novel process,optimization of process configuration and operation is investigated.The optimal condition and configuration for this process is consisted as:feedstock is divided into two streams and the reflux nitrogen is compressed at the approximate temperature of 301 K.In addition,HEN is optimized to minimize the utilities.HENs without utilities are obtained for the four different configurations of single-column process.Furthermore,capital costs of the HEN for different cases are estimated and compared.

Quantitative Estimation of Air Mass Exchange by Along-Valley Wind in the Rongbuk Valley

For a better understanding of the air mass exchange processes between the surface and free atmos-phere in the Himalayas,a Himalayan exchange between the surface and troposphere 2007 (HEST2007) campaign was carried out in the Rongbuk Valley,on the northern slope of Mt.Qomolangma,in June 2007.The wind,tem-perature and radiation conditions were measured during the campaign.Using these observation data,together with the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) reanalysis data,the air mass exchange between the inside of the valley and the outside of the valley is quantitatively estimated,based on a closed-valley method.The air mass is strongly injected into the Rongbuk Valley in the after-noon,which dominates the diurnal cycle,by a strong downward along-valley wind,with a maximum down-ward transfer rate of 9.4 cm s?1.The total air volume flux injected into the valley was 2.6×1011 m3 d?1 in 24 hours in June 2007,which is 15 times the total volume of the val-ley.The air mass transfer into the valley also exhibited a clear daily variation during the HEST2007 campaign,which can be affected by the synoptic situations through the adjustment of local radiation conditions.

Modeling of Air Temperature for Heat Exchange due to Vertical Turbulence and Horizontal Air Flow

In order to calculate the air temperature of the near surface layer in urban environment,the surface layer air was divided into several layers in the vertical direction,and some energy balance equations were developed for each air layer,in which the heat exchange due to vertical turbulence and horizontal air flow was taken into account.Then,the vertical temperature distribution of the surface layer air was obtained through the coupled calculation using the energy balance equations of underlying surfaces and building walls.Moreover,the measured air temperatures in a small area(with a horizontal scale of less than 500 m)and a large area(with a horizontal scale of more than 1 000 m)in Guangzhou in summer were used to validate the proposed model.The calculated results agree well with the measured ones,with a maximum relative error of 4.18%.It is thus concluded that the proposed model is a high-accuracy method to theoretically analyze the urban heat island and the thermal environment.

Role of sea ice in air-sea exchange and its relation to sea fog

Synchronous or quasi-synchronous stereoscopic sea-ice-air comprehensive observation was conducted during the First China Arctic Expedition in summer of 1999. Based on these data, the role of sea ice in sea-air exchange was studied. The study shows that the kinds, distribution and thickness of sea ice and their variation significantly influence the air-sea heat exchange. In floating ice area, the heat momentum transferred from ocean to atmosphere is in form of latent heat; latent heat flux is closely related to floating ice concentration; if floating ice is less, the heat flux would be larger. Latent heat flux is about 21 23 6 W·m -2, which is greater than sensible heat flux. On ice field or giant floating ice, heat momentum transferred from atmosphere to sea ice or snow surface is in form of sensible heat. In the floating ice area or polynya, sea-air exchange is the most active, and also the most sensible for climate. Also this area is the most important condition for the creation of Arctic vapor fog. The heat exchange of a large-scale vapor fog process of about 500000 km 2 on Aug. 21 22,1999 was calculated; the heat momentum transferred from ocean to air was about 14 8×10 9 kW. There are various kinds of sea fog, radiation fog, vapor fog and advection fog, forming in the Arctic Ocean in summer. One important cause is the existence of sea ice and its resultant complexity of both underlying surface and sea-air exchange.

REGRESSION OF HEAT AND MOISTURE EXCHANGE DIAGRAM OF SWISS LUWA AIR WASHER

The thesis has changed the heat and moisture exchange curves of Swiss Luwa air washer into double efficiency formulas which are widely used in our country with a computer, and also worked out the regression formula of heat transfer efficiency(X). This has created favourable condition for us to use computer in our calculation of Luwa air washer.

Ventilation of indoor formaldehyde and estimation of its emission and air exchange rate

Residents living in the cold areas such as Harbin generally experience a residence time of approximately 6 months in chilly winter without frequent natural ventilation. To find out the influence of a short period of ventilation on the indoor formaldehyde concentration inside a new building, an investigation was conducted for the instance of twice ventilation in a day through window opening. The results showed that the initial concentration of formaldehyde was 3.53 -8. 48 times as high as the concentration after 10 min ventilation. After closing the window, the indoor formaldehyde concentration increased with time and followed an exponential equation of C = C0 exp（ - b ＊ t） ＋ （ a ＋ Cu, ） [ 1 - exp（ - b ＊ t） ] with correlation coefficient （ R^2 ） of 0. 945 - 0. 999, based on the statistical analysis of 14 groups of measurement data. The developed equation can be used to estimate the emission rate of indoor formaldehyde sources and the air exchange rate of the test room simultaneously.

Interannual variations of the air-sea carbon dioxide exchange in the different regions of the Pacific Ocean

Interannual variations of the air-sea CO2 exchange from 1965 to 2000 in the Pacific Ocean are studied with a Pacific Ocean model. Two numerical experiments are performed, including the control run that is forced by climatological monthly mean physical data and the climate-change run that is forced by interannually varying monthly mean physical data. Climatological monthly winds are used in both runs to calculate the coefficient of air-sea CO2 exchange. The analysis through the differences between the two runs shows that in the tropical Pacific the variation of export production induced by interannual variations of the physical fields is negatively correlated with that of the air-sea CO2 flux, while there is no correlation or a weak positive correlation in the subtropical North and South Pacific. It indicates that the variation of the physical fields can modulate the variation of the air-sea CO2 flux in converse ways in the tropical Pacific by changing the direct transport and biochemical process. Under the interannually varying monthly mean forcing, the simulated EOF 1 of the air-sea CO2 flux is basically consistent with that of sea surface temperature （SST） in the tropical Pacific, but contrary in the two subtropical Pacific Ocean. The correlation coefficient between the regionally integrated air-sea CO2 flux and area-mean SST shows that when the air-sea CO2 flux lags SST by about 5 months, the positive coefficient in the three regions is largest, indicating that in the tropical Pacific or on the longer time scale in the three regions, physical processes control the fiux-SST relationship.

Incomplete fluid-air exchange technique for idiopathic macular hole surgery

AIM: To explore an improved procedure involving incomplete fluid-air exchange for idiopathic macular hole(IMH), and the closure rate, visual function, and the visual field of macular holes(MHs) were evaluated.METHODS: This prospective randomized controlled study, included 40 eyes of 40 patients with IMH who were treated with pars plana vitrectomy and peeling of the internal limiting membrane. They were grouped by random digital table. Twenty-one eyes underwent incomplete fluidair exchange(IFA) and 19 eyes underwent traditional complete fluid-air exchange(CFA) as the control group. Outcomes included best-corrected visual acuity(BCVA), intraocular pressure, and optical coherence tomography, light adaptive electroretinography, and visual field evaluations.RESULTS: All MHs <400 μm were successfully closed. BCVAs before and 6 mo after surgery were 0.82±0.41 logMAR and 0.28±0.17 logMAR in IFA group and 0.86±0.34 logMAR and 0.34±0.23 logMAR in CFA group, respectively. The electroretinogram analysis of patients in IFA group revealed increases in b-wave amplitudes at 1, 3, and 6 mo after surgery. Additionally, patients in IFA group showed an amplitude increase of 28.6% from baseline at 6 mo(P<0.05), while no obvious improvements were noted in CFA group. Although there were no statistically significant improvements in either group, the IFA group showed a slight increase in mean sensitivity(P>0.05).CONCLUSION: IFA is a reliable method that offers comparable closure rate to CFA and facilitates improvements in visual function.

Sister chromatid exchange and DNA damage in human lymphocytes induced by air-dust in Lanzhou City: involvement in free radicals

The air-dust samples collected from petro-chemical industrial region in the suburb of Lanzhou and from a certain rural region 64 km away from the city were extracted, with a mixed solvent (benzene: hexane: isopropanol=7:2:1) for 8 hours. A strong free radical signal at g= 2.00 of air-dust itself and a hyperfine splitting EPR signal of extract from air-dust have been detected. The sister chromatid exchange frequency (SCE) was increased by extracts of both dusts from the industrial region and from the rural region. If a chemical is able to increase SCE up to twice as high as the control, this chemical is considered to be mutagenic and/or carcinogenic. The double SCE frequency concentration is 23 μg/ml for the dust extract obtained from the industrial region and 47μg/ml for that from the rural region. Extracts were able to damage to DNA template. Results indicated that the mutagenicity and/or carcinogenicity of the extracts obtained from the petro-chemical industrial region were stronger than that of the extracts from the rural region.

Achieving Cooler Soil as an Effective Heat Sink for Earth-to-Air Heat Exchanger (EAHE) Cooling Technology in Malaysia Tropical Climate

This research is intended to explore the capacity of Malaysia soil in becoming a more effective heat sink for the application of Earth-to-Air Heat Exchanger (EAHE) Cooling Technology in Malaysia. EAHE Cooling Technology consists of buried pipes underground where the ambient air is channeled through from the pipe inlet and produces cooler air at its outlet. Within the buried pipes, heat exchange process occurs between the air and the soil that surrounding the pipe. This building cooling technology has been applied in many countries, mostly in temperate or hot and arid climate where the diurnal temperature is large. However, minimal resources were found on the study of EAHE application to buildings in Malaysia, hence there is room to develop. A parametric study on EAHE cooling application in Malaysia was done through field experiment and concluded that among many parameters affecting the technology performance, the soil temperature which surrounded the pipe was the most influential factor. The study recommended to further reduce the soil temperature to achieve a cooler outlet temperature. In response to that, this research conducted a parametric study of soil temperature under three different soil surface conditions: bare, shaded with timber pallettes and insulated with used tyres at 1.0 m and 1.5 m underground. The data was logged for a month and the result has shown significant reduction in the soil temperature underground below the shaded and insulated soil surface as compared to below bare soil surface condition. The insulated soil surface produced the best result where the soil temperature was reduced up to 26.9°C. The main contribution of this paper is to highlight that the soil surface treatment can be used to reduce solar heat gain within the soil underground and thus improving the performance of EAHE Cooling Technology particularly for the application in Malaysia tropical climate.

Soil Nature Effect Investigation on the Ground-to-Air Heat Exchanger for the Passive Cooling of Rooms

The building sector consumes much energy either for cooling or heating and is associated to greenhouse gas emissions. To meet energy and environmental challenges, the use of ground-to-air heat exchangers for preheating and cooling buildings has recently received considerable attention. They provide substantial energy savings and contribute to the improvement of thermal comfort in buildings. For these systems, the ground temperature plays the main role. The present work aims to investigate numerically the influence of the nature of soil on the thermal behavior of the ground-to-air heat exchanger used for building passive cooling. We have taken into account in this work the influence of the soil nature by considering three types of dry soil: clay soil, sandy-clay soil and sandy soil. The mixed convection equations governing the heat transfers in the earth-to-air heat exchanger have been presented and discretized using the finite difference method with an Alternate Direction Implicit (ADI) scheme. The resulting algebraic equations are then solved using the algorithm of Thomas combined with an iterative Gauss-Seidel procedure. The results show that the flow is dominated by forced convection. The examination of the sensitivity of the model to the type of soil shows that the distributions of contours of streamlines, isotherms, isovalues of moisture are less affected by the variations of the nature of soil through the variation of the diffusivity of the soil. However, it is observed that the temperature values obtained for the clay soil are higher while the sandy soil shows lower temperature values. The values of the ground-to-air heat exchanger efficiency are only slightly influenced by the nature of the soil. Nevertheless, we note a slightly better efficiency for the sandy soil than for the sandy-clayey silt and clayey soils. This result shows that a sandy soil would be more suitable for geothermal system installations.

Heating and Cooling Performance of Earth-Tube Heat Exchanger in a Mechanical Ventilated Farrowing House

Earth tempering of stable air has attracted great attention as a sustainable air conditioning method in pig houses. At summer time air cooling of income air strongly reduces heat stress and required ventilation rate. At winter time heating costs can be reduced. The effect of air condition using geothermal energy was investigated in a farrowing house. Underneath the foundation of the farrowing house 88 non perforated ribbed tubes （diameter： 20 cm） were piped in a depth of 1.6-2.0 m. Over a period of 12 month following data were recorded at hourly intervals and analyzed： outside air temperature, as well as air temperature in the air supply duct and in the compartments. Incoming air （supply duct） was heated up to 20 ℃ during winter time and in summer time cooled by up to 15 ℃ compared to the outside air temperature. In contrast to the outside air diurnal variation, temperature fluctuations of the incoming air were reduced by 90%. Due to cooling of the incoming air at summer time the stable inside temperature could be limited to maximal 29 ℃（maximum outside temperature was 35℃）. Earth-tube heat exchangers with non perforated ribbed tubes were very efficient for air conditioning in farrowing houses. They were a cost effective supplement for sustainable cooling and heating of farrowing houses.