Sharif Digital Repository

Injection of Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) water into the primary loops of the Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs) leads to rapid cooling of Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) inside wall after Loss Of Coolant Accident (LOCA). This condition, known as Pressurized Thermal Shock (PTS) intensifies the propagation of the RPV structural defects and would be considered as an ageing mechanism. For structural and fracture analysis of RPV wall, thermal-hydraulic analysis of PTS should be accomplished to obtain the steam/water flow characteristics in the downcomer. For this purpose, simulation of steam/water stratified flow (due to density difference) after the injection point should be done by... 

The current study aims to simultaneously and comprehensively investigate the performance of four types of recuperative heat exchangers applied in 200 kW microturbines by using numerical method. Different fin configurations including rectangular, triangular, louver and offset strip fins are employed in the recuperators to enhance the heat transfer rate. Additionally, the calculations are separately undertaken for both counter and cross-flow arrangements. To achieve the best performance, a three-objective optimization problem is solved using Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II). Recuperator effectiveness and exergy efficiency and total cost are considered as the objective... 

In this work, temperature field and weld pool geometry during gas tungsten arc welding of 304 stainless steel are predicted by solving the governing equations of heat transfer and fluid flow under quasi-steady state conditions. The model is based on numerical solution of the equations of conservation of mass, momentum, and energy in the weld pool. Weld pool geometry, weld thermal cycles, and various solidification parameters are then calculated by means of the model predictions. The model considers the effects of various process parameters including welding speed and heat input. It is found that the weld pool geometry, predicted by the proposed model, is in reasonable agreement with the... 

In this study, the influence of vascular bed comprising terminal arterial branches on heat transfer in a liver tumor exposed to high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is studied numerically. Also, the effect of vascular density on temperature distribution is investigated. A coupled set of acoustics, thermal, and fluid models is used to calculate the temperature distribution in the liver. The numerical model is established based on the Westervelt and bioheat equations along with the Navier-Stokes equations. Moreover, the acoustic streaming effect is included with Newtonian and non-Newtonian flow assumptions. It is found that in a vascular bed comprising terminal arterial branches, the... 

Water shortage issues are growing through the globe at higher rate than population growth. On the bright side, various methods are devised to capture energy from renewable energy or waste heat from different sectors. Among all inspected approaches, waste heat capturing through cooling process of the wind turbines' generators for desalination at small scale is paid less attention. However, in large wind farms, the scale of this dissipated thermal heat becomes appreciable which can drive several desalination units. Due to the above-pointed facts, the waste heat of a wind turbine with nominal capacity of 7358 kW and height of 24 m for desalinating seawater is inspected here, using a... 

In this study, the application of data-driven methods for performance prediction of a heat pump assisted humidification-dehumidification (HDH-HP) desalination system was investigated for the first time. Although HDH-HP desalination systems have been widely studied both theoretically and experimentally, the application of data-driven models as a powerful predictive tool has not yet been investigated in these systems. To fill this gap, three data-driven models (MLPANN, RBFANN, and ANFIS) were applied using 180 experimental samples. The gain output ratio (GOR), heat transfer rates of the evaporator Q̇e, and evaporative condenser Q̇c, were considered as outputs. The results indicate that the... 

Covalently functionalized carbon nanoplatelets and non-covalent functionalized metal oxides nanoparticles (surfactant-treated) have been used to synthesize water-based nanofluids in this paper. To prove nanofluid stability, ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) spectroscopy is used, and the results show that nanofluid is stable for sixty days for carbon and thirty days for metal oxides. The thermophysical properties are evaluated experimentally and validated with theoretical models. Thermal conductivities of f-GNPs, SiO2, and ZnO nanofluids are enhanced by 25.68%, 11.49%, and 15.42%, respectively. Lu-Li and Bruggeman's thermal conductivity models are correctly matched with the experimental data.... 

Covalently functionalized carbon nanoplatelets and non-covalent functionalized metal oxides nanoparticles (surfactant-treated) have been used to synthesize water-based nanofluids in this paper. To prove nanofluid stability, ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) spectroscopy is used, and the results show that nanofluid is stable for sixty days for carbon and thirty days for metal oxides. The thermophysical properties are evaluated experimentally and validated with theoretical models. Thermal conductivities of f-GNPs, SiO2, and ZnO nanofluids are enhanced by 25.68%, 11.49%, and 15.42%, respectively. Lu-Li and Bruggeman's thermal conductivity models are correctly matched with the experimental data.... 

Natural gas hydrate, a crystalline solid existing under high-pressure and low-temperature conditions, has been regarded as a potential alternative energy resource. It is globally widespread and occurs mainly inside the pores of deepwater sediments and sediments under permafrost area. Hydrate production via well depressurization is deemed well-suited to existing technology, in which the pore pressure is lowered, the natural gas hydrate is dissociated into water and gas, and the water and gas are produced from well. This method triggers multiphysics processes such as fluid flow, heat transfer, energy adsorption, chemical reaction and sediment deformation, all of which are dependent on the... 

Horizontal Ground Heat Exchangers (HGHE) as a means of exploiting geothermal energy has come to the fore for a few decades. Various analytical and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods have been proposed to predict the performance of the HGHEs. The available analytical approaches are fast; however, they are based on various simplifications and assumptions, affecting their accuracy. On the other hand, CFD methods are more accurate, but their computational cost is a burden. Therefore there is an acute need for an accurate and fast method for predicting the long-term performance of HGHEs. To this aim, this study puts forward a novel hybrid analytical-numerical model for predicting the... 

In this paper, a computational technique is presented for the isothermal and non-isothermal water injection into naturally fractured oil reservoirs. A remarkable number of naturally fractured reservoirs contain relatively heavy oils that could not be extracted economically; hence, the thermal recovery methods are extensively used for such reservoirs. In this study, the effectiveness of hot water injection over cold (isothermal) water injection in oil production is quantified. The influence of long and short fractures and their alignments on oil recovery are discussed. To this end, a 2D model for two-phase fluid flow and heat transfer is presented. The medium is assumed to be partially... 

Prediction of the thermo-mechanical behavior of machine-tool spindles is essential in the reliable operation of high speed machine tools. In particular, the performance of these high speed spindles is dependent on their thermal behavior. The main source of heat generation in the spindle is the friction torque in angular contact ball bearings. This paper presents an effort to develop a comprehensive model of high speed spindles that includes viable models for the mechanical and thermal behavior of its major components, i.e., bearings, shaft and housing. Spindle housing and shaft are treated as six-degree-of-freedom Timoshenko beam elements. Bearings are modeled as two-node elements with five... 

In this paper, a novel temperature-dependent multi-scale method is developed to investigate the role of temperature on surface effects in the analysis of nano-scale materials. In order to evaluate the temperature effect in the micro-scale (atomic) level, the temperature related Cauchy-Born hypothesis is implemented by employing the Helmholtz free energy, as the energy density of equivalent continua relating to the inter-atomic potential. The multi-scale technique is applied in atomistic level (nano-scale) to exhibit the temperature related characteristics. The first Piola-Kirchhoff stress and tangential stiffness tensor are computed, as the first and second derivatives of the free energy... 

In the present work, a thermal modeling is conducted for optimal design of compact heat exchangers in order to minimize cost and entropy generation. In this regard, an εNTU method is applied for estimation of the heat exchanger pressure drop, as well as effectiveness. Fin pitch, fin height, fin offset length, cold stream flow length, no-flow length, and hot stream flow length are considered as six decision variables. Fast and elitist nondominated sorting genetic algorithm (i.e., nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II) is applied to minimize the entropy generation units and the total annual cost (sum of initial investment and operating and maintenance costs) simultaneously. The results for... 

4340 steel bars were austenitized at 850°C for 1 hour followed by heating at 700°C (ferrite and austenite region) for 90 min and quenching into a salt bath with different temperatures of 300, 350, 400 and 450°C. The steel bars were held for 1 hour at these temperatures before air cooling to room temperature. Various ferrite-bainite microstructures with 34% volume fraction of ferrite and different bainite morphologies were obtained. The results of SEM studies showed that by increasing the austempering temperature, the morphology of bainite varies from lower to upper bainite. According to the T-T-T diagram of the studied steel, the bainite transformation will not complete for the holding time... 

Mathematical simulation of non-isothermal multiphase flow in deformable unsaturated porous media is a complicated issue because of the need to employ multiple partial differential equations, the need to take into account mass and energy transfer between phases and because of the non-linear nature of the governing partial differential equations. In this paper, an analytical solution for analyzing a fully coupled problem is presented for the one-dimensional case where the coefficients of the system of equations are assumed to be constant for the entire domain. A major issue is the non-linearity of the governing equations, which is not considered in the analytical solution. In order to... 

A mathematical model is developed to assess the solidification behaviour of the weld pools. To do so, during gas tungsten arc welding of commercial pure aluminium, equations of conversation of mass, energy and momentum are numerically solved considering three-dimensional steady state heat transfer and fluid flow conditions. The weld pool geometry, weld thermal cycles and various solidification parameters are calculated using temperature and velocity fields acquiring from the utilised model. The solidification behaviour of the weld pool at the weld centreline and the fusion line is then studied using the solidification parameters including temperature gradient G, solidification rate R and the... 

In this study, we perform numerical simulations to investigate the thermal and flow characteristics of a parabolic trough solar collector equipped with a porous receiver tube and internal longitudinal fins. The heat transfer medium is a synthetic oil-Cu-Al2O3 hybrid nanofluid. We examine the thermal characteristics of the nanofluid in response to variations in several system parameters. We find that at Reynolds numbers between 5 × 103 and 5 × 105, increasing the volume fraction of Cu nanoparticles can increase the temperature gain at the exit of the receiver tube by 6.4%. Furthermore, the temperature gradient in the cross-section of the collector increases as the direct normal solar...