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Article history: Oscillating ow heat transfer characteristics are quite different from those of steady ows, which make it
Received 5 March 2015 difcult to predict the effective input heating power of a Stirling engine with existing empirical formulas.
Accepted 13 June 2015 This paper reports the experimental study of oscillating ow heat transfer features of helium, nitrogen
Available online 30 June 2015
and carbon dioxide in U-shaped tubes when the pressure, revolving speed and heating temperature are
in the ranges of 0.2 MPae0.9 MPa, 150 r/mine380 r/min and 332 Ce516 C, respectively. The heat
Keywords:
transfer coefcient increases with the increase of the pressure or revolving speed, and it declines when
Stirling engine
the heating temperature increases. The inuences of different working media are discussed. Helium has
Oscillating ow
Heat transfer
the highest heat transfer coefcient of 115.2e192.1 W/(m2$K) and the lowest temperature difference of
Working gas 30.1 Ce54.0 C between tube walls and the working medium. The heat transfer coefcients of carbon
dioxide and nitrogen are slightly worse than those of helium, and the temperature differences are 45.2
e80.7 C and 41.0e70.1 C, respectively. Heat transfer formulas were proposed, considering the working
medium, pressure, revolving speed and heating temperature; the error of the formulas are within 5.2
e11.1% when the Reynolds number ranges from 61.7 to 3184.6.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2015.06.063
1359-4311/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
570 M. Ni et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 89 (2015) 569e577
it via velocity experiments using a phase Doppler anemometer. helium, nitrogen and carbon dioxide; based on the results, empir-
Kanzaka and Iwabuchi [11] studied the effects of the phase differ- ical heat transfer formulas are proposed for different conditions.
ence of pistons on heat transfer and presented a prediction method
for the heat transfer coefcients, in which the gas velocity was 2. Experimental system
evaluated by the Schmidt cycle model. Mackley and Stonestreet
[12] compared steady and oscillating ows in a bafed tube and Fig. 1 displays a schematic of the experimental apparatus. The
indicated that the oscillating ow had a better heat transfer per- apparatus consists of four main parts: (I) a molten-salt bath bucket
formance under a low Reynolds number. Kuosa et al. [13] studied and four U-shaped tubes, (II) an oscillating ow generator, (III) a
heat transfer performance of oscillating ow in different cross- motivation transmission mechanism and (IV) a data acquisition
section conduits and indicated that slotted heat exchanger tubes system.
effectively enhanced the heat transfer. Akdag and Ozguc [14] pro- A molten salt bath bucket surrounded by insulation materials is
posed an experimental heat transfer formula for vertically oscil- heated by a tubular electric heater, and the heating power is
lating ows of water. Tang [15] deduced a similarity criterion detected using a power meter. Four U-shaped tubes are dipped into
system to describe the ow and heat transfer characteristics of molten salt for heating. The oscillating ow generator is driven by a
oscillating ows based on general governing equations of unsteady motor, and the rotation speed of the electromotor is tested by a
compressible viscous ows. tachometer. A displacer causes reciprocating motion inside a cyl-
Table 1 lists the oscillating ow heat transfer correlations of inder, thereby generating an oscillating ow inside the U-shaped
previous studies, in which experiments were performed using a tubes. The oscillating ows are heated in the U-shaped tubes and
single straight pipe. Note that the heating tubes of most Stirling cooled in a water-cooling cooler after passing through a screen-
engines are U-shaped, where the ow eld should be different mesh regenerator of 200 meshes with 0.05-mm stainless-steel
compared to the ow eld in the single straight tubes. wire. A pressure sensor is set in the cylinder to test the pressure
This paper studies the heat transfer performance of oscillating of the working medium. Four thermocouples are set in the molten
ow in U-shaped heating pipes using different working media, i.e., salt, eight are on the outside walls of U-shaped tubes, and another
Table 1
Oscillating ow heat transfer correlations of previous studies.
A Nu 0:02A0:85
0 Re0:58
u 0 < Reu < 500; Zhao and Cheng [8]
!0:5 A0 8.5,15.3,20.4,34.9
0:8 0:4 Tw
B Nu 0:021Re Pr C TW Kanzaka and Iwabuchi [11]
Tf C 0:923 0:75 1000
eight are inside the U-shaped tubes, as shown in Fig. 2. All tem- steady temperature Ts by adjusting the tubular electric heater. A
perature and pressure signals are recorded using an Agilent data static heat balance is shown in Fig. 3(a), and the heat balance
logger. The parameters of the experimental apparatus and equation is given by
measuring instruments are listed in Tables 2 and 3.
U$I Q s Q i Q b (1)
3. Experimental methods where, in the static condition, U is the voltage (V), I is the electric
current (A), Qs is the radiation and convection heat loss of the
For a static condition, no oscillating ow occurs inside the molten salt surface (W), Qi is the convective heat loss of the heat
U-shaped tubes, indicating no heat is transferred from the heater to insulation barrel (W) and Qb is the conductive heat loss of the en-
the cooler through oscillating ow. Molten salt is kept at a given gine body (W).
Table 2
Parameters of the experimental apparatus.
Table 3
Parameters of the measuring instruments.
Signal Measuring apparatus Types and manufacturer Measuring range and accuracy Agilent data logger error Comprehensive system error
Fig. 3. (a) Heat balance of the static condition; (b) Heat balance of the dynamic condition.
For a dynamic condition, the experimental apparatus is lled effective heat transferred into the working medium (W) in dynamic
with a pressured working medium. The displacer piston is driven condition.
by the motor, and an oscillating ow shuttles between the heater It is supposed that Q s Q 0s , when the molten salt bath is at the
and the cooler, facilitating heat transfer. The voltage regulator is same temperature under static and dynamic conditions. Experi-
adjusted to keep molten salt at a given temperature. The heat ments are conducted to evaluate the heat loss through the thermal
balance is shown in Fig. 3(b), as expressed by, insulation barrel and the engine body under the two conditions.
Five thermocouples are set on the wall of the heat insulation barrel,
and two are set on the outside wall of the engine body, as shown in
U0 $I0 Q 0s Q 0i Q 0b Q e (2) Fig. 3. Helium, nitrogen or carbon dioxide is tested at a pressure of
0.4 MPa and a speed of 320 rpm in dynamic conditions. Fig. 4
where U' is the voltage (V), I' is the electric current (A), Q 0s is the displays the temperature distributions of the heat insulation bar-
radiation and convective heat loss of the molten salt surface (W), Q 0i rel under different molten salt temperatures for static and dynamic
is the convective heat loss of the heat insulation barrel (W),Q 0b is conditions, indicating the values of heat loss of the heat insulation
the heat conductive loss of the engine body (W) and Qe is the barrel are almost equal to each other for static and dynamic
M. Ni et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 89 (2015) 569e577 573
Fig. 4. Temperature distributions of the heat insulation barrel at static and dynamic conditions.
conditions. Fig. 5 shows the temperatures of engine body in static 4. Results and discussion
and dynamic conditions, and the temperature differences can be
ignored under similar operating conditions. Therefore, it is During the experiments, the molten salt bath temperature was
assumed that Q i Q 0i and Q b Q 0b under similar operating con- from 332 C to 516 C, with an error of 1 C, the pressure was
ditions for static and dynamic conditions. 0.2e0.9 MPa with an error of 0.02 MPa, and the revolving speed
According to the above discussion, the effective heat transferred ranged from 120 to 400 r/min, 5 r/min. Three types of working
to the working medium in the heater can be given by media were tested: helium, nitrogen and carbon dioxide. Figs. 6e8
show the effective input heating powers at different pressures,
speeds and heating temperatures, respectively.
Q e U0 $I0 Q 0i Q 0b Q 0s U$I Q i Q b Q s
The effective input heating power increases with the improve-
U0 $I0 U$I (3) ment of the pressure and speed, because of the increase of gas mass
ow rate, as shown in Figs. 6 and 7. In the meantime, raising heating
The time-averaged heat transfer coefcient is calculated by
temperature enhance effective input heating powers, as displayed
Ref. [17].
in Fig. 8. With the maximum relative molecular weight among the
three media, carbon dioxide can carry the largest quantity of heat in
the same working conditions, which means Stirling engines with
Q e ln ddou carbon dioxide may have the greatest heat-to-power capacity. The
in
Tw;in Tw;ou (4) theoretical studies of Costante's group [18,19] revealed that carbon
2nlpL
dioxide or other macromolecular organic gas could make Stirling
engines have a greater endothermic power than small molecule
Q gases at low heating temperatures and high pressures considering
h e (5)
pndin L Tw;in Tg the real gas effect (i.e. supercritical phenomenon). It is noted that
these study do not mean Stirling engines with carbon dioxide have
the greatest heat-to-power efciency.
Fig. 5. Temperatures of the engine body at static and dynamic conditions of 0.4 MPa
and 320 rpm. Fig. 6. Effective input heating powers into oscillating ows at different pressures.
574 M. Ni et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 89 (2015) 569e577
Fig. 7. Effective input heating powers into oscillating ows at different revolving
Fig. 10. Temperature differences between the wall and the working medium at
speeds.
different revolving speeds.
Fig. 8. Effective input heating powers into oscillating ows at different heating
temperatures. Fig. 11. Temperature differences between the wall and the working medium at
different heating temperatures.
udin
Re (6)
n
d2p 2SNr
u $ (7)
n$d2in 60
hdin
Nu (8)
l
Nusselt number is dened in Equation (8) [21,22] and the
transmission of experimental error is shown in Table 4 [23,24]. The
uncertainty of Nu can be calculated by Equation (9) and the
regression curve between Nu and Re is shown in Fig. 15.
sNu
ENu 100% (9)
Fig. 12. Time-average heat transfer coefcients at different pressures. Nu
viscosity increases with the increasing of the heating temperature, The Reynolds number is in a range of 61.7e3184.5 for the ex-
resulting in a worse heat transfer performance. periments, and the estimated uncertainty of Nu is 5.2e11.1%.The
heat transfer correlation of the heater is expressed by
Nu 0:71Re0:38 Pr0:4 ; 61:7 < Re < 265:9 Helium (10)
Nu 0:76Re0:47 Pr0:4 ; 448:5 < Re < 3184:6 Nitrogen and Carbon dioxide
In general, helium exhibits the lowest temperature differences For oscillating ows, the onset of turbulence could be described
and the largest heat transfer coefcients, indicating the best heat using qa recommended critical dimensionless parameter
b A0 udn [25], with a typical value ranging from 400 to 800. In
2
transfer capacity among the three working media. Nitrogen carries
a similar heat ux to helium, and has the lowest heat transfer co- this experiment, b is in the ranges of 127.3e264.1 for helium and
efcient among the three working media. Carbon dioxide, with the 343.1e914.2 for nitrogen and carbon dioxide, which manifests that
highest volumetric heat capacity among the three media, exhibits most data of nitrogen and carbon dioxide are in transition zones
the highest temperature difference and has the second heat while those of helium are in a laminar ow zone under the
transfer coefcient. experimental conditions as shown in Fig. 16. Noted that the state of
The heat exchange criterion relationship is proposed to try to oscillating ow is hardly determined by the equations of normal
make a comprehensive understanding of heat transfer perfor- ows, the state of oscillating ow of actual gas, e.g., in laminar or
mances of oscillating ows. In this paper, Reynolds number (Re) is transition state, affects the heat transfer characteristics signi-
cantly. Therefore, the Equation (10) contains two correlations for
helium and nitrogen/carbon dioxide respectively.
Fig. 13. Time-average heat transfer coefcients at different revolving speeds. Fig. 14. Time-average heat transfer coefcients at different heating temperatures.
576 M. Ni et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 89 (2015) 569e577
Table 4
The transmission of uncertainty (here n means the amount of measurement data).
Pn 0 q
Pn 0
I' I 0 2
I0 n1 iPn sI0 nn1 1
1 Ii I
Tw;oui q
Pn
Tw,ou Tw;ou 1 n sT nn1 1 Tw;oui Tw;ou 2
1
Pn
q
w;ou
Tg
Tg
Tg n1 i 1
Pn 2
sT nn1 1 Tgi Tg
q
g
Qe Q e U0 $I0 U$I
Q e ln dou sQ I0 2 s2 0 U0 2 s20 I2 s2 U2 s20
U I U I
din e
v
Tw,in Tw;in Tw;ou u 0 dou 12
2nlpL u
u ln d
u
@ 2nlpL A s2
in
sT ts2
w;in Tw;ou Qe
v
0 12 0 12
h h Qe u0 12
pndin LTw;in Tg u
u B C B C 2
uB C 2
sh u A s B C 2 B C
1 Qe Qe
2A s 2A s
t@ pndin LTw;in Tg Qe @ pndin LTw;in Tg Tw;in @ pndin LTw;in Tg Tg
s
Nu Nu hdlin 2
din
sNu l s2
h
q
Fig. 16. The distribution of critical dimensionless parameter b A0 ud2 of different
n
gases.
Fig. 15. Experimental regression curve between Nu and Re
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