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Heat exchangers working in cryogenic temperature ranges are strongly affected by heat ingression from the ambient. This paper aims to investigate the effect of ambient heat-in-leak on the performance of a three-fluid cross-flow cryogenic heat exchanger.

The governing equations are derived for a three-fluid cross-flow cryogenic heat exchanger based on the conservation of energy principle. For given fluid inlet temperatures, the governing equations are solved using the finite element method to obtain exit temperatures of the three-fluid exchanger. The performance of the heat exchanger is determined using effectiveness-number of transfer units (e-NTU) method. In the present analysis, the amount of ambient heat-in-leak to the heat exchanger is accounted by two parameters H_t and H_b. The variation of the heat exchanger effectiveness due to ambient heat-in-leak is analyzed for various non-dimensional parameters defined to study the heat exchanger performance.

The effect of ambient heat in leak to the heat exchanger from the surrounding is to increase the dimensionless exit mean temperature of all three fluids. An increase in heat in leak parameter (H_t = H_b) value from 0 to 0.1 reduces hot fluid effectiveness by 32 per cent for an NTU value of 10.

The effect of heat-in-leak on a three-fluid cross-flow cryogenic heat exchanger is significant, but so far, no investigations are carried out. The results establish the efficacy of the method and throw light on important considerations involved in the design of such heat exchangers.

A mathematical model is developed for the description of the thermohydraulics of the two‐phase flow phenomenon in a vertical pipe. Using an additional momentum equation for the slip velocity, it is shown that the computation of slip and pressure drop from the model equations is possible without the use of any external correlations. The finite element method is used to solve the governing equations. The predictions for a steam‐water two‐phase flow in vertical upflow with constant wall heat flux agree well with experimental results and with widely used correlations.

The purpose of this paper is to attain higher effectiveness with an introduction of Joule–Thomson effect on a three-fluid heat exchanger with two communications. It also gives a range of parameter values that have to be maintained for achieving effectiveness above 0.85. Attaining effectiveness above 0.85 is very important for the heat exchanger to perform the liquefaction of hot fluid.

The analysis is conducted using Galerkin’s method, a finite element approach.

This investigation determines crucial values for the cryogenic heat exchanger to achieve effectiveness above 0.85. The important findings are as follows: effectiveness above 0.85 is attained if the heat exchanger size is within the range of 8–10; ratio of heat flow resistance between intermediate and hot stream to heat flow resistance between cold and hot stream should be maintained between 1 and 10; the intermediate fluid temperature should be maintained between 0 and 0.2; the ratio of thermal capacity of the hot fluid relative to a cold fluid should be maintained between 1.25 and 1.42; and the ratio of thermal capacity of the hot fluid relative to an intermediate fluid should be maintained between 2 and 2.5.

The investigation has presented a finding for improving the effectiveness of the cryogenic heat exchanger. Higher the Joule–Thomson pressure drop effect, more is the drop in temperature of the fluid resulting in additional cooling or lowering of the fluid temperature. The practical implementation is also explained, i.e. to achieve practically the Joule–Thomson pressure drop in a cryogenic heat exchanger.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no investigations were carried out previously on Joule–Thomson investigation on a three-fluid heat exchanger with two communications, for different values of Joule–Thomson pressure drop.

A finite element method is used to study the effect of flow past a circular cylinder with an integral wake splitter. A fractional step algorithm is employed to solve the Navier‐Stokes and Energy equations with a Galerkin weighted residual formulation. The vortex shedding process is simulated and the effect of splitter addition on the time period of shedding is studied at a Reynolds number of 200 and a blockage ratio of 0.25. The effect of splitter and the Strouhal number and heat transfer augmentation per unit pressure drop has been investigated.

The purpose of this study is to find the thermo-hydraulic performances of compact heat exchangers (CHE’s), which are strongly depending upon the prediction of performance of various types of heat transfer surfaces such as offset strip fins, wavy fins, rectangular fins, triangular fins, triangular and rectangular perforated fins in terms of Colburn “j” and Fanning friction “f” factors.

Numerical methods play a major role for analysis of compact plate-fin heat exchangers, which are cost-effective and fast. This paper presents the on-going research and work carried out earlier for single-phase steady-state heat transfer and pressure drop analysis on CHE passages and fins. An analysis of a cross-flow plate-fin compact heat exchanger, accounting for the individual effects of two-dimensional longitudinal heat conduction through the exchanger wall, inlet fluid flow maldistribution and inlet temperature non-uniformity are carried out using a Finite Element Method (FEM).

The performance deterioration of high-efficiency cross-flow plate-fin compact heat exchangers have been reviewed with the combined effects of wall longitudinal heat conduction and inlet fluid flow/temperature non-uniformity using a dedicated FEM analysis. It is found that the performance deterioration is quite significant in some typical applications due to the effects of wall longitudinal heat conduction and inlet fluid flow non-uniformity on cross-flow plate-fin heat exchangers. A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) program FLUENT has been used to predict the design data in terms of “j” and “f” factors for plate-fin heat exchanger fins. The suitable design data are generated using CFD analysis covering the laminar, transition and turbulent flow regimes for various types of fins.

The correlations for the friction factor “f” and Colburn factor “j” have been found to be good. The correlations can be used by the heat exchanger designers and can reduce the number of tests and modification of the prototype to a minimum for similar applications and types of fins.

A simplified general purpose analytical finite element model has been developed to analyze the thermal performance of a continuous flow polymerase chain reaction (CPCR) microdevice. The corresponding governing differential equations along with the appropriate boundary conditions have been solved using a self‐developed code in Matlab®. Results obtained from the finite element simulations have been validated with available published results and also showed good agreement with those obtained from commercial FEA package, ANSYS®. The present methodology has an added advantage due to its flexibility where the unit cell of the finite element model can be arranged into different orientation for analyses of different CPCR microdevice configuration. In microchannel heat sinks, the results obtained agree well with the published result which demonstrates the flexibility and robustness of present methodology to be used for various applications.

The purpose of this paper is to apply asymptotic waveform evaluation (AWE) to the transient analysis of a two‐layered counter‐flow microchannel heat sink.

A two‐layered counter‐flow microchannel heat sink in both steady state and transient conditions is analysed. Finite element analysis is used in the steady state analysis whereas AWE is used in the transient analysis.

A two‐layered microchannel produces different temperature distribution compared to that obtained for a single‐layered microchannel. The maximum temperature occurs at the middle of the bottom wall whereas the maximum temperature of a single‐layered microchannel is at the outlet of the bottom wall. The time taken to reach steady state is also investigated for different coolant flow rate and heat flux boundary conditions. It is observed that when fluid velocity increases, the time taken to reach steady state decreases, however, when the heat flux increases, the time taken to reach steady state does not change.

The fluid is incompressible and does not undergo phase change. The use of AWE provides an alternative method in solving heat transfer problem.

New and additional data will be useful in the design of a microchannel heat sink for the purpose of cooling of electronic components.

AWE is widely used in analyses of signal delays in electronic circuits, and rarely applied to mechanical systems. The present study applies AWE to heat transfer problems, and reveals that it reduces the computational time considerably. The results obtained are compared with conventional methods available in the literature, and they show good agreement. Hence the computational time is reduced, and the accuracy of results is verified.

The purpose of this paper is to present a numerical investigation on pulsating heat pipe (PHP) to study the slug velocities as a function of various parameters.

The governing equation of PHP is solved using explicit embedded Runge‐Kutta method, the Dormand–Prince pair in conjunction with MATLAB with the nomenclature 45 for the determination of displacement and the velocity of the slug.

The results show that lower fill ratio, higher diameter, higher operating temperature and higher temperature difference between evaporator and condenser for a given working fluid results in higher slug velocities, indicating higher momentum transfer and hence better heat transport.

Under steady state conditions, the design of a PHP is facilitated through the introduction of non‐dimensional numbers.

The displacement and slug velocities for additional working fluids, namely ethanol and methanol, are determined for the first time. The behaviour of non‐dimensional numbers, i.e. Poiseuille number, capillary number and Eckert number in a PHP as a function of various parameters have been studied for the first time.