Search

The objective of this study is to investigate thermal–hydraulic characteristics of an air cooled condenser and optimized the design in terms of heat transfer per unit pumping power, area goodness factor, volume goodness factor and material requirement using the 3D numerical simulations. The annular-finned tubes have been considered in this study, which is one of the most common type of fin used for the design of air cooled heat exchangers and known to provide a high heat transfer coefficient per unit pressure drop. The effect of tube shape (elliptical and round), tube diameter [7–24 mm (circular), 30 × 10–30 × 20 mm (elliptical)], fin spacing (2–10 mm), number of rows (2–10), fin height (5–10 mm), air frontal velocity (4.76–6.32 m/s), transverse tube pitch (36.8–44 mm) on the thermal–hydraulic performance has been studied. It is observed that, with an increase in the fin spacing, the heat transfer coefficient increases (by 35–40%) at a constant inlet velocity and the pressure drop decreases (by 60–80%). The frontal area requirement increases by 100–150% with an increase in the fin spacing for the same heat removal capacity. As the row number is increased, the heat transfer coefficient increases initially for N r < 4 by 7–8%, and for N r > 4, the heat transfer coefficient decreases by 23%. An increase in the tube pitch increases the heat transfer coefficient per unit pressure drop by 40%. The fin efficiency is found to decrease with an increase in the Reynolds number, fin spacing and number of tube rows. In the last section optimization of the design has been performed based on Taguchi method and numerical results obtained. It has been observed that the number of tube rows must be kept between 2–4, fin spacing 3–5 mm, tube pitch around 40 mm, and fin height 5 mm for better performance of the condenser. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many advanced designs of nuclear reactors adopt a methodology of passive safety systems in order to avoid the occurence of a severe accident. In one of such systems, the decay heat generated from a reactor is transferred by natural circulation into large pool of water called the Gravity Driven Water Pool (GDWP). Three-dimensional (3D) convection flows develop, which in turn affect the heat transfer process and hence the temperature pattern. The heat transfer process can get compromised by the possible stratification of the temperature. Further, the material of construction of GDWP may have certain temperature limitations and puts bounds on the extent of stratification. The objective of this study is to investigate the 3D natural circulation phenomenon in GDWP. The present work is in continuation of our earlier work Gandhi et al. [1,2] where the natural convection has been analyzed in 0.025 and 0.21 m 3 vessels. Now, we have reported the simulation for 9247 m 3 GDWP tank. Single phase CFD simulations using open source CFD code [OpenFOAM-1.6] have been performed for a geometry (ID = 12 m, OD = 50 m and height (H T ) = 5 m). In order to reduce the thermal stratification, various geometrical modifications have been incorporated on the heat exchanger design, such as (1) distributing the heat transfer area of heat exchanger among single, double and multiple heat sources (2) to optimize the location of heat exchanger inside the GDWP (3) provision of passive elements such as draft tubes (single or concentric multiple) around the heat source at the center, which can act as a chimney. A detailed CFD analysis of three dimensional temperature and velocity distribution in the secondary side of GDWP has confirmed the mitigation of thermal stratification phenomenon by optimizing the distribution and position of heat exchangers. Passive draft tubes also result in significant enhancement in natural circulation and hence reduction in thermal stratification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]