Thermodynamics second-law analysis in an unsteady conduction and radiation heat transfer system with internal heat source

Abstract

This paper presents an improved thermodynamic analysis method used to evaluate the irreversibility and efficiency of a coupled conductive-radiative heat transfer process. The exergy analysis of the conductive-radiative process is developed based on the exergy balance equation. In the method, the local entropy generation rates due to the radiative heat transfer and heat conduction processes are calculated. Based on the entropy generation analysis, an exergy analysis is performed, the stored exergy of the system and the exergetic efficiency are determined, and the thermodynamic efficiency of the system is further evaluated. The results are verified by the principle of exergy balance and the exergy generation rate calculated by the method does not deviate from the theoretical value by more than 0.1%. Four heat source distributions are specified in the numerical analysis, which include completely uniform, partially uniform, and non-uniform heat source distributions in the numerical analysis. The effects of heat source distribution, conductive-radiative coefficient and total heat generation rate of medium on entropy generation and stored exergy of system are investigated. The numerical results show that the average temperatures and exergy storage rate of the systems with partially uniform heat source distribution are 5.1–79.7 K and 6.8–49.8% higher than the other distributions, and uniform and centralized heat generation in the internal region of the system is proposed. The total stored exergy of the systems has a tendency to first increase and then decrease, reaching its maximum at N = 1 as the conduction and radiation coefficients increase, and increasing as the total heat generation rate increases.