Numerical Modelling of Coupled Heat and Mass Transfer in Porous Materials: Application to Cinder Block Bricks

In this work, we present numerical modelling of coupled heat and mass transfer within porous materials. Our study focuses on cinder block bricks generally used in building construction. The material is assumed to be placed in air. Moisture content and temperature have been chosen as the main transfer drivers and the equations governing these transfer drivers are based on the Luikov model. These equations are solved by an implicit finite difference scheme. A Fortran code associated with the Thomas algorithm was used to solve the equations. The results show that heat and mass transfer depend on the temperature of the air in contact with the material. As this air temperature rises, the temperature within the material increases, and more rapidly at the material surface. Also, thermal conductivity plays a very important role in the thermal conduction of building materials and influences heat and mass transfer in these materials. Materials with higher thermal conductivity diffuse more heat.

New Progress of Magnetically-coupled Resonant Wireless Power Transfer Technology

近些年,无线电能传输技术受到了越来越广泛的关注。作为一种中等距离无线电能传输技术,自从美国麻省理工学院于2007年发表其研究成果后,磁耦合谐振式无线电能传输技术就成为了研究热点问题。该文在对无线电能传输技术进行总体介绍的基础上,主要对磁耦合谐振式无线电能传输技术进行概括论述。首先分析了磁耦合谐振式无线电能传输技术的基本结构和工作原理,介绍了目前运用于分析该技术的主要理论;接着对该技术目前的传输水平和热点问题进行了分类阐释,主要分为传输特性、新材料的应用、干扰问题和实际应用,介绍了目前的研究现状;最后在当前研究热点问题的基础之上,对该技术有待研究的问题以及发展趋势进行了展望。

Transfer matrix method for determination of the natural vibration characteristics of elastically coupled launch vehicle boosters

The analysis of natural vibration characteristics has become one of important steps of the manufacture and dynamic design in the aerospace industry. This paper presents a new scenario called virtual cutting in the context of the transfer matrix method of linear multibody systems closed- loop topology for computing the free vibration characteristics of elastically coupled flexible launch vehicle boosters. In this approach, the coupled system is idealized as a triple-beam system-like structure coupled by linear translational springs, where a non-uniform free-free Euler-Bemoulli beam is used. A large thrust-to-weight ratio leads to large axial accelera- tions that result in an axial inertia load distribution from nose to tail. Consequently, it causes the development of significant compressive forces along the length of the launch vehicle. Therefore, it is important to take into account this effect in the transverse vibration model. This scenario does not need the global dynamics equations of a system, and it has high computational efficiency and low memory requirements. The validity of the presented scenario is achieved through com- parison to other approaches published in the literature.

Numerical simulation of aluminum holding furnace with fluid-solid coupled heat transfer

To predict three-dimensional temperature distribution of molten aluminum and its influencing factors inside an industrial aluminum holding furnace,a fluid-solid coupled method was presented.The fluid-solid coupled mathematics models of aluminum holding furnace in the premixed combustion processing were established based on mass conservation,moment conservation,momentum conservation,energy conservation and chemistry species conservation.Computational results agree well with the test data of the typical condition.The maximum combustion temperature is 1 850 K.The average temperature of the molten aluminum is 1 158 K,and the maximum temperature difference is about 240 K.The average temperature increases 0.3 ℃ while the temperature of combustion air increases 1 ℃.The optimal excess air ratio is 1.25-1.30.

Coupled Transfer of Water and Heat in Red Soil: Experiment and Numerical Modelling

Coupled transfer of soil water and heat in closed columns of homogeneous red soil was studied under laboratory conditions. A coupled model was constructed using soil physical theory, empirical equations and experimental data to predict the coupled transfer. The results show that transport of soil water was affected by temperature gradient, and the largest net water transport was found in the soil column with initial water content of 0.148 m3 m-3. At the same time, temperature changes with the transport of soil water was in a nonlinear shape as heat parameters were function of water content, and the changes of temperature were positively correlated with the net amount of water transported. Numerical modelling results show that the predicted values of temperature distribution were close to the observed values, while the predicted values of water content exhibited limited deviation at both ends of the soil column due to the slight temperature changes at both ends. It was indicated that the model proposed here was applicable.

Unsteady heat-moisture transfer of wet airway in deep mining

To study the mechanism of unsteady heat-moisture transfer of wet surrounding rock in deep mining, a series of experiments with different initial and boundary conditions were carried out. Test results show that rock temperature decreases quickly at the initial stage, and reduces slowly to be a constant value finally for transient heat-moisture transfer. The quasi-steady surface temperature of wet airway is lower than that of dry airway due to the moisture transfer. The diffusion radius is less than the cooling radius owing to the large diffusion resistance. The outlet airflow enthalpy of wet airway is much larger than that of dry airway. Latent heat caused by the moisture transfer plays a significant role in a deep thermal environment. For periodic heat-moisture transfer, temperature, humidity and enthalpy of outlet airflow and rock temperature also change periodically. The wave amplitude of rock temperature decreases gradually with increasing distance away from the airway surface, and the wave phase of rock temperature is also behind that of airflow. Moreover, direction of the heat-moisture transfer between airway and airflow is bidirectional, which is different from results of transient transfer.

Mass transfer enhancement and hydrodynamic performance with wire mesh coupling solid particles in bubble column reactor

It is of vital significance to investigate mass transfer enhancements for chemical engineering processes.This work focuses on investigating the coupling influence of embedding wire mesh and adding solid particles on bubble motion and gas-liquid mass transfer process in a bubble column.Particle image velocimetry(PIV)technology was employed to analyze the flow field and bubble motion behavior,and dynamic oxygen absorption technology was used to measure the gas-liquid volumetric mass transfer coefficient(kLa).The effect of embedding wire mesh,adding solid particles,and wire mesh coupling solid particles on the flow characteristic and kLa were analyzed and compared.The results show that the gas-liquid interface area increases by 33%-72%when using the wire mesh coupling solid particles strategy compared to the gas-liquid two-phase flow,which is superior to the other two strengthening methods.Compared with the system without reinforcement,kLa in the bubble column increased by 0.5-1.8 times with wire mesh coupling solid particles method,which is higher than the sum of kLa increases with inserting wire mesh and adding particles,and the coupling reinforcement mechanism for affecting gas-liquid mass transfer process was discussed to provide a new idea for enhancing gas-liquid mass transfer.

Controlling Roll Temperature by Fluid-Solid Coupled Heat Transfer

Currently, when magnesium alloy sheet is rolled, the method of controlling roll temperature is simple and inaccurate. Furthermore, roll temperature has a large influence on the quality of magnesium alloy sheet; therefore, a new model using circular fluid flow control roll temperature has been designed. A fluid heat transfer structure was designed, the heat transfer process model of the fluid heating roll was simplified, and the finite di erence method was used to cal?culate the heat transfer process. Fluent software was used to simulate the fluid?solid coupling heat transfer, and both the trend and regularity of the temperature field in the heat transfer process were identified. The results show that the heating e ciency was much higher than traditional heating methods(when the fluid heat of the roll and tempera?ture distribution of the roll surface was more uniform). Moreover, there was a bigger temperature di erence between the input and the output, and after using reverse flow the temperature di erence decreased. The axial and circum?ferential temperature distributions along the sheet were uniform. Both theoretical calculation results and numerical simulation results of the heat transfer between fluid and roll were compared. The error was 1.8%–12.3%, showing that the theoretical model can both forecast and regulate the temperature of the roll(for magnesium alloy sheets) in the rolling process.

Development of experimental study on coupled heat and moisture transfer in porous building envelope

A new facility was presented which can expediently and cheaply measure the transient moisture content profile in multi-layer porous building envelope.Then,a common multi-layer porous building envelope was provided,which was constructed by cement mortar-red brick-cement plaster.With this kind of building envelope installed in the south wall,a well-controlled air-conditioning room was set up in Changsha,which is one of typical zones of hot and humid climate in China.And experiments were carried out to investigate the temperature and moisture distribution in multi-layer building envelope in summer,both in sunny day and rainy day.The results show that,the temperature and humidity at the interface between the brick and cement mortar are seriously affected by the changes of outdoor temperature and humidity,and the relative humidity at this interface keeps more than 80% for a long-term,which can easily trigger the growth of mould.The temperature and humidity at the interface between the brick and cement plaster change a little,and they are affected by the changes of indoor temperature and humidity.The temperature and humidity at the interface of the wall whose interior surface is affixed with a foam plastic wallpaper are generally higher than those of the wall without wallpaper.The heat transfer and moisture transfer in the envelope are coupled strongly.

Advances in Inductively Coupled Power Transfer Technology for Rail Transit

Traditional power supply method for moving electric railway vehicles is based on contact type power collection technology.This sometimes cannot meet the requirements of modern rail transportation.A new wireless power transfer(WPT)technology can offer significant benefits in modern rail transportation particularly in some stringent environments.This paper reviews the status and the development of rail transit power supply technology,and introduces a new challenging technology--inductive power transfer(IPT)technology for rail transit.Tesla established the underpinning of IPT technology and creatively and significantly demonstrated power transfer by using highly resonant tuned coils long time ago.However,only in recent years the IPT technology has been significantly improved including the transfer air-gap length,transfer efficiency,coupling factor,power transfer capability and so on.This is mainly due to innovative semiconductor switches,higher control frequency,better coil designs and high performance material,new track and vehicle construction techniques.Recent advances in IPT for rail transit and major milestones of the developments are summarized in this paper.Some important technical issues such as coupling coil structures,power supply schemes,segmentation switching techniques for long-distance power supply,and bidirectional IPT systems for braking energy feedback are discussed.

THE NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF UNSTEADY HEAT TRANSFER OF A PISTON-LINER COUPLED SYSTEM IN AN INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE

This paper provides a numerical analysis model of unsteady heat trans-fer in piston-liner set of an internal combustion engine.The model simulates the un-steady heat transfer process among the combustion mixture,piston set,lubricantfilm,liner and coolant in a whole engine cycle,and can predict the temperature fluc-tuation and distribution on piston crown,inner surface of liner,piston ring and thelubricant film.A computer program is developed to calculate the unsteady heat trans-fer process of piston-liner system in a water-cooled diesel engine.

ANALYSIS OF THE THERMOPHYSICAL PARAMETERS OF MOIST WOOD PARTICLE MATERIAL IN A COUPLED HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER PROCESS OF FREEZING BY USING FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

The coupled heat and moisture transfer in a freezing process of wood particle material was mathematically modeled in the paper. The models were interactively solved by using the numerical method(the finite element method and the finite difference method). By matching the theoretical calculation to an experiment, the nonlinear problem was analyzed and the variable thermophysical parameters concerned was evaluated. The analysis procedure and the evaluation of the parameters were presented in detail. The result of the study showed that by using the method as described in the paper, it was possible to determine the variable (with respect to temperature, moisture content and freezing state) thermophysical parameters which were unknown or difficult to measure as long as the governing equations for a considered process were available. The method can significantly reduces the experiment efforts for determining thermophysical parameters which arc very complicated to measure. The determined variable of the effective heat conductivity of wood particle material was given in the paper. The error of the numerical calculation was also estimated by the comparison with a matched experiment.

Non-equilibrium thermodynamic analysis of coupled heat and moisture transfer across a membrane

Non-equilibrium thermodynamics theory is used to analyze the transmembrane heat and moisture transfer process,which can be observed in a membrane-type total heat exchanger(THX).A theoretical model is developed to simulate the coupled heat and mass transfer across a membrane,total coupling equations and the expressions for the four characteristic parameters including the heat transfer coefficient,molardriven heat transfer coefficient,thermal-driven mass transfer coefficient,and mass transfer coefficient are derived and provided,with the Onsager’s reciprocal relation being confirmed to verify the rationality of the model.Calculations are conducted to investigate the effects of the membrane property and air state on the coupling transport process.The results show that the four characteristic parameters directly affect the transmembrane heat and mass fluxes:the heat and mass transfer coefficients are both positive,meaning that the temperature difference has a positive contribution to the heat transfer and the humidity ratio difference has a positive contribution to the mass transfer.The molar-driven heat transfer and thermal-driven mass transfer coefficients are both negative,implying that the humidity ratio difference acts to reduce the heat transfer and the temperature difference works to diminish the mass transfer.The mass transfer affects the heat transfer by 1%–2%while the heat transfer influences the mass transfer by7%–14%.The entropy generation caused by the temperature difference-induced heat transfer is much larger than that by the humidity difference-induced mass transfer.

Analysis of coupled flow-reaction with heat transfer in heap bioleaching processes

A mathematical model for heap bioleaching is developed to analyze heat transfer, oxygen flow, target ion distribution and oxidation leaching rate in the heap. The model equations are solved with Comsol Multiphysics software. Numerical simulation results show the following facts： Concentration of oxygen is relatively high along the boundary of the slope, and low in the center part where leaching rate is slow. Temper- ature is relatively low along the slope and reaches the highest along the bottom region near the slope, with difference being more than 6℃. Concentration of target mental ions is the highest in the bottom region near the slope. Oxidation leaching rate is relatively large in the bottom and slope part with a fast reaction rate, and small in the other part with low oxygen concentration.

Coupled Conductive-Convective-Radiative Heat Transfer in Hollow Blocks with Two Air Cells in the Vertical Direction Subjected to an Incident Solar Flux

This work presents the results of a set of steady-state numerical simulations about heat transfer in hollow blocks in the presence of coupled natural convection,conduction and radiation.Blocks with two air cells deep in the vertical direction and three identical cavities in the horizontal direction are considered(typically used for building ceilings).Moreover,their outside horizontal surface is subjected to an incident solar flux and outdoor environment temperature while the inside surface is exposed to typical indoor environment conditions.The flows are considered laminar and two-dimensional over the whole range of parameters examined.The conservation equations are solved by means of a finite difference method based on the control volumes approach,relying on the SIMPLE algorithm for what concerns the coupling of pressure and velocity.The effects of the number of cells in the horizontal direction and the thermal conductivity on the heat transfer through the alveolar structure have been investigated.The results show that the number of holes has a significant impact on the value of the overall heat flux through the considered structure.

Solving the atmospheric scattering optical transfer function using the multi-coupled single scattering method

The atmospheric scattering optical transfer function （OTF） is solved by applying the multi-coupled single scattering （MCSS） method to the three-dimensional radiative transfer equation （RTE） under the periodic ground condition. This approach is a direct hit to the atmospheric scattering OTF using the same original context of modulation transfer function （MTF） measurement, i.e., images of sinusoidal grating at different spatial frequencies. Both the amplitude and phase shift of the OTF at various zenith and azimuth angles can be obtained at an arbitrary spatial frequency.

Multi-coupled single scattering method of solving vector radiative transfer equations

A new method of multi-coupled single scattering （MCSS） for solving a vector radiative transfer equation is de- veloped and made public on Internet. Recent solutions from Chandrasekhar＇s X-Y method is used to validate the MCSS＇s result, which shows high precision. The MCSS method is theoretically simple and clear, so it can be easily and credibly extended to the simulation of aerosol/cloud atmosphere＇s radiative properties, which provides effective support for research into polarized remote sensing.

Stagnation-point flow of couple stress fluid with melting heat transfer

Melting heat transfer in the boundary layer flow of a couple stress fluid over a stretching surface is investigated. The developed differential equations are solved for homotopic solutions. It is observed that the velocity and the boundary layer thickness are decreasing functions of the couple stress fluid parameter. However, the temperature and surface heat transfer increase when the values of the couple stress fluid parameter increase. The velocity and temperature fields increase with an increase in the melting process of the stretching sheet.

Robust Beamforming for Secured Wireless Power Transfer in MIMO Magnetic Resonant Coupling System:A Probabilistic Approach

Wireless power transfer(WPT) to support mobile and portable devices is an emerging wireless technique.Among all kinds of approaches,magnetic resonance coupling(MRC) is an excellent one for mid-range WPT,which provides better mobility,flexibility,and convenience due to its simplicity in hardware implementation and longer transmission distances.In this paper,we consider an MRCWPT system with multiple power transmitters,one intended power receiver and multiple unintended power receivers.We investigate the probabilistic robust beamforming designs and provide efficient algorithms to achieve the local optimums under two different criteria,i.e.,total source power minimization problem and min-max unintended receiving power restriction problem.As the problems are quite typical in robust design situations,our proposed robust beamformers can be conveniently applied to other probabilistic robust design problems,thus reduce the complexity as well as improve the beamforming performance.Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed algorithms can significantly improve the performance as well as the robustness of the WPT system.

Numerical Simulation of Bubble Formation at a Single Orifice in Gas-fluidized Beds with Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics and Finite Volume Coupled Method

A coupled method describing gas–solid two-phase flow has been proposed to numerically study the bubble formation at a single orifice in gas-fluidized beds.Solid particles are traced with smoothed particle hydrodynamics,whereas gas phase is discretized by finite volume method.Drag force,gas pressure gradient,and volume fraction are used to couple the two methods.The effect of injection velocities,particle sizes,and particle densities on bubble growth is analyzed using the coupled method.The simulation results,obtained for two-dimensional geometries,include the shape and diameter size of a bubble as a function of time;such results are compared with experimental data,previous numerical results,and other approximate model predictions reported in the literature.Moreover,the flow profiles of gas and particle phases and the temperature distribution by the heat transfer model around the forming bubble are also discussed.All results show that the coupled method efficiently describes of the bubble formation in fluidized beds.The proposed method is applicable for solving gas–solid two-phase flow in fluidization.