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Direct numerical simulations (DNSs) of spatially developing thermal turbulent boundary layers over angle-ribbed walls were performed. Four rib angles ( γ = 90 ° , 60 ° , 45 ° and 30 ° ) were examined. It was found that the 45 ° ribs produced the highest drag coefficient, whereas the 30 ° ribs most improved the Stanton number. In comparison to the transverse rib case, streamwise velocity and dimensionless temperature in the V-shaped cases significantly increased in the near wall region and were attenuated by secondary flows further away from the ribs, which suggested a break of the outer-layer similarity in the scenario presented. The surprising improvement of heat transfer performance in the 30 ° rib case was mainly due to its large dispersive heat flux, while dispersive stress reached its peak value in the 45 ° case, emphasizing the dissimilarity in transporting momentum and heat by turbulence over a ribbed surface. Additionally, by calculating the global and local Reynolds analogy factors, we concluded that the enhancement in heat transfer efficiency was attributed to an increasing Reynolds analogy factor in the intermediate region as the rib angle decreased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the large-scale development of wind turbines, large flexible blades bear heavier loads. In the actual rotating work of blades, the coupling of structural deformation and motion produces a dynamic stiffening effect and spin softening effect, which affects the dynamic characteristics of blades. In this study, the finite element method is used to model the NREL 5MW blade, and the dynamic stiffening and spin softening effects are investigated using the modal analysis. The influence of rotating effects on the blade's natural frequency is revealed. It is concluded that the effect of dynamic stiffening is more significant than that of spin softening, and the comprehensive result of the two effects is not simply the superposition of them but presents obvious nonlinearity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chloride molten salts have become a potential heat storage material for the design of a new generation of concentrating solar power (CSP) (>700 °C) due to its abundant reserves and low cost. The difficulty of measuring the high-temperature thermal properties of chlorides can be effectively solved by using molecular dynamics simulation. However, it is challenging to get the thermophysical properties of multi-component molten salts containing CaCl2 due to the lack of Born–Mayer–Huggins (BMH) potential parameters of CaCl2. Through comparative analysis of the structure and thermal properties of CaCl2, including density and thermal conductivity, a set of Born–Mayer–Huggins (BMH) potential parameters of CaCl2 named SP2 is determined in this study. The density, specific heat capacity, and thermal conductivity of nine eutectic molten salts are simulated, including NaCl-CaCl2, KCl-CaCl2, NaCl-CaCl2-MgCl2, and NaCl-CaCl2-KCl, and the simulation results are found to be in good agreement with the experimental results. It is also found that the SP2 parameters are able to predict the thermal properties and structure of molten multicomponent chlorides including calcium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A computational study on thermal stability was conducted the first time, combining the modified quasi-chemical model, the Antoine equation, and the adiabatic flash evaporation calculation principle to design a method to calculate the system pressure-temperature (P-T) phase diagram of binary chloride molten salts. The evaporation temperature of the molten salt obtained by analyzing the P-T phase diagram of the eutectic molten salt clearly defined the upper limit of the optimal operating temperature of the mixed molten salt. The results indicated that the upper-temperature limits of NaCl-KCl, NaCl-CaCl2, KCl-CaCl2, NaCl-MgCl2, and KCl-MgCl2 are determined to be 1141 K, 1151 K, 1176 K, 1086 K, and 1068 K. The maximum working temperature was measured experimentally using a thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and the relative error between the calculation and experiment was calculated. The maximum error between the calculated and experimental values of the maximum operating temperature was 6.02%, while the minimum was 1.29%, demonstrating the method's high accuracy. Combined with the lowest eutectic temperature and the upper-temperature limits of binary chloride molten salts, the stable operating temperature ranges of NaCl-KCl, NaCl-CaCl2, KCl-CaCl2, NaCl-MgCl2, and KCl-MgCl2 are 891~1141 K, 750~1151 K, 874~1176 K, 732~1086 K, and 696~1086 K. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molten chloride salt is recognized as a promising heat transfer and storage medium in concentrating solar power in recent years, but there is a serious lack for thermal property data of molten chloride salts. In this work, local structures and thermal properties for molten chloride salt—including NaCl, MgCl2, and ZnCl2—were precisely simulated by Born–Mayer–Huggins (BMH) potential in a rigid ion model (RIM) and a polarizable ion model (PIM). Compared with experimental data, distances between cations, densities, and heat capacities of molten chloride slats calculated from PIM agree remarkably better than those from RIM. The polarization effect brings an extra contribution to screen large repulsive Coulombic interaction of cation–cation, and then it makes shorter distance between cations, larger density and lower heat capacity. For NaCl, MgCl2, and ZnCl2, PIM simulation deviations of distances between cations are respectively 3.8%, 3.7%, and 0.3%. The deviations of density and heat capacity for NaCl between PIM simulation and experiments are only 0.6% and 2.2%, and those for MgCl2 and ZnCl2 are 0.7–10.7%. As the temperature rises, the distance between cations increases and the structure turns into loose state, so the density and thermal conductivity decrease, while the ionic self-diffusion coefficient increases, which also agree well with the experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molten salt LiNO3-NaNO3-KNO3 has been investigated as heat transfer and thermal storage media for its low melting point and good thermal performance. In this paper, nanofluids were synthesized by dispersing MgO nanoparticles into LiNO3-NaNO3-KNO3, and the effects of nanoparticles on thermal properties were studied with different sizes (20–100 nm) and mass percent concentrations (0.5–2.0 wt.%). The addition of nanoparticles had little effect on melting temperature, and led to a slight increase in enthalpy of fusion by 2.0–5.5%. Compared with base salt, the density of nanofluid increased a little by 0.22–1.15%. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) test implied that nubby and punctate microstructures were responsible for larger surface area and interfacial energy, which could lead to the improvement of specific heat capacity reaching 2.6–10.6%. The heat transfer characteristics remarkably increased with the addition of nanoparticles, and the enhancement of average thermal diffusivity and conductivity of salt with 1 wt.% nano-MgO could be 5.3–11.7% and 11.3–21.2%, respectively. Besides, the viscosities of nanofluids slightly increased for 3.3–8.1%. As a conclusion, nano-MgO was positively influential on the thermal properties of LiNO3-NaNO3-KNO3 base salt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]