Cryogenic wicking of liquid nitrogen in the metallic screens with different weave densities

Abstract

Liquid wicking in porous media has been applied to the management and transportation of propellant in microgravity. The flow and heat transfer characteristics during wicking of cryogenic fluid in the metallic screens play significant roles in determining the wicking performance. However, the experimental investigations of cryogenic wicking are relatively rare due to experimental difficulties. In the present study, the experimental visualization of wicking of liquid nitrogen is carried out, where five typical Dutch Twill Weaves (DTW) with different weave densities are employed as the test samples. The evolutions of the wicking front during cryogenic wicking are experimentally traced. Moreover, the cryogenic wicking in the DTW has been numerically investigated by considering the thermal non-equilibrium equation in the porous media, which yields a good agreement between the experimental and numerical results due to better accounting the evaporation of liquid nitrogen resulted from the heat conduction of the DTW. As an example, the wicking height of liquid nitrogen in the DTW 200 × 1400 reaches a maximum wicking height of about 0.0851 m, which is improved by about 36.4% ∼ 75.0% compared to the results in the literature. Furthermore, the effect of the weave densities of the DTWs on the flow and heat transfer characteristics are investigated, which provides useful information for the screen channel liquid acquisition device of cryogenic propellant.