Thermal effect and optimal design of cooling pipes on mass concrete with constant quantity of water flow

Abstract

To study the heat transfer of pipe cooling process in concrete, an effective model combined with a radial basis function collocation method (RBFCM) is proposed. In this model, a replicable fictitious structure is imported that allows a set of fixed points to supersede the complicated adaptive remeshing or redistributing points, which significantly saves a lot of time and effort in the pre-processing of the numerical algorithm. Moreover, a relation between the mean temperature of water flow and the heat flux is derived from a heat balance equation. The validity of the proposed model is demonstrated in simulation of a typical three-dimensional problem. Numerical solutions are compared with those obtained by the finite element method and some experimental data. To find the optimum design, 32 cases involving 1 to 7 pipes under certain constraints are considered as follows: the quantity of water flow remains unchanged, the volume occupied by pipes keeps the same, and the same initial temperature of water is used for cooling. Since number, size, and positions of pipes are always changing during the design process, the ability of this approach is further illuminated. Finally, the effect of water flow with several conversing frequencies is investigated. As expected, the maximum temperature difference in concrete can be further controlled by enlarging conversing frequency. Numerical results reveal that the optimal design of pipe cooling system can not only minimize temperature, but also control temperature difference of the concrete structure. The process of design is useful for guidance of engineering practice to improve the structural safety and the economy of the whole building process.