Fluid Distribution System Research Articles

Design and analysis of a wheel valve piezoelectric micropump with high performance

The delivery and distribution of fluid have wide applications in biomedicine, the fine chemical industry, pharmaceutical research, and other fields. However, existing fluid delivery and distribution systems often suffer from issues such as large size, excessive noise generation, and high-power consumption, rendering them unsuitable for convenient applications. Here, a wheel-shaped valve piezoelectric micropump with a size of only 10 mm*10 mm*1 mm is proposed and a prototype is prepared. The vibration mode, operating principle, and the liquid flow of the micropump are analyzed by finite element method. The output liquid (distilled water) flowrate of the pump is approximately 15 mL/min, and the maximum pump distilled water pressure can reach 100 KPa. The results indicate that the performance of the micropump is consistent with the analysis results, which shows its potential application in the field of portable devices and medical.

Application of a hydrophobic coating to a pressurized pipe and its effect on energy losses and fluid flow profile

The use of additives, generally called DRAs (Drag Reducing Additives), has been proposed to re-duce the energy consumption in pressurized pipes. Although many research works have been conducted to analyze the effect of these additives, less attention have been devoted to the application of coatings to the pipe wall. This paper demonstrates that the application of a hydrophobic coating to the pipe can lead to a head loss reduction for a transition flow regime with moderate Reynolds number values (Re). For this purpose, an experiment was conducted to compare the performance of both coated and uncoated pipes by measuring the head losses and assessing the Drag Reduction Percentage (%DR) and the pipe friction factor (f). This was done for two Polyvinylchloride (PVC) pipes with different nominal diameters (PVC90 and PVC63). In addition, the flow velocity distribution was also measured in all these tests. The %DR decreased as the Re values increased, with the reduction being notably less pronounced for higher Re values. This could be explained by the fact that a partial slip condition is induced by the hydrophobic product. Its effect is significant for a transition regime where the effect of viscosity is important, but it becomes negligible for increasing levels of turbulence. No significant differences were observed in the flow distribution between coated and uncoated pipes, which seems to indicate that the velocity change could be limited to the near-wall viscous sublayer. The results of this work open an important research line aimed at reducing energy costs and the carbon footprint in pipe fluid distribution systems.

Numerical and experimental investigation of a multi-channel heat sink distribution header designed by topology optimization

The fluid distribution had a significant effect on the performance of the I-shaped multichannel heat sink. Previous researchers have improved fluid distribution by arranging baffles; however, this resulted in an increased pressure drop. In this study, a multichannel radiator distribution header was designed using a topological optimization method, and experimental and numerical studies were conducted. Both a numerical model and physical prototype were created and subsequently evaluated to assess the performance of the resultant distribution header. The effects of the distribution and conventional headers on the performance of a multichannel heat sink were compared. The results demonstrated that the distribution header designed using the topology optimization method can significantly improve multichannel performance. The optimized header design exhibited improved flow distribution rationality, enhanced heat dissipation, and reduced pressure drop compared to the two conventional designs. The volume flow rate was reduced by 58.66% and 59.29%, the heat transfer coefficient was increased by 29.39% and 21.42%, and the pressure drop was reduced by 9.38% and 16.98%. A peach-shaped baffle plays an important role in fluid distribution. These findings highlight the effectiveness and potential of topology optimization in the design of complex fluid distribution systems for heat exchanger.

Percolation transitions of spontaneous imbibition in fractional-wet porous media

Percolation transition is an important scientific question for characterizing complex two-phase flow phenomena in fractional-wet porous media composed of different wetting grains. Recent studies have shown significant transitions of fluid distribution and pressure system in fractional-wet porous media by changing wettability proportion. However, very few studies have systematically investigated controlling factors of percolation transition in spontaneous imbibition. Additionally, there is a lack of comprehensive knowledge and experimental observations about imbibition recovery and dynamic imbibition phenomena (including imbibition time, imbibition rate, and induction time) in fractional-wet porous media. In this study, these knowledge gaps are filled through a series of water imbibition experiments for fractional-wet artificial porous media with different water-wet proportions, three pore diameters, and two wettability heterogeneities. The results show that pore diameter and wettability heterogeneity are influential factors for percolation transition. Decreasing water-wet proportion results in the emergence of induction time, as well as the absences of transition and late imbibition stage, small pore radius enhances these negative impacts. Under strong wettability heterogeneity, relationship of water-wet proportion and imbibition recovery follows the classical percolation theory containing two percolation transitions. Small pore diameter retards percolation transitions, and weakens fluid displacements of the transition stage and late stage in the partial imbibition. Moreover, effects of water-wet proportion on dynamic imbibition phenomena exhibit exponential relationship resulted from transition of pathway type. Additionally, through decreasing wettability heterogeneity, three percolation transitions and an optimal imbibition ability are achieved, thus hydrophilization of hydrophobic pore is advantageous for water imbibition. These intriguing findings can broaden current knowledge about spontaneous imbibition in fractional-wet porous media.

New Developments in the High-Energy-Density Solid-Liquid Storage Technology for Redox Flow Batteries

The environmental impact of the use of fossil fuels for energy can be reduced if electricity, which represents one-third of all energy uses, can be generated totally from renewable/sustainable sources such as wind and solar. However, this is only possible if cost-effective long-duration storage technologies are available to allow the highly variable and unpredictable wind and solar energy sources to become reliable baseline energy sources like coal, nuclear or natural gases. Redox flow battery (RFB) energy storage systems are highly suitable for this large-scale, long-duration storage application because while their power output scales with the size of the battery, their energy content resides in the amount of active materials that are stored in external tanks and can be easily scaled up for longer duration.1 The conventional redox flow batteries store electrical energy in the form of some aqueous or non-aqueous soluble ions or compounds in the electrolyte solution. Because of the low solubility (< 2M) of most ions and compounds in aqueous and non-aqueous solvents, these redox flow battery systems have low energy density.2–4 For example, the commercialized all-vanadium RFB system has an average energy density of 20 Wh/kg while that of the lithium-ion battery system is 100-265 Wh/kg.5 To store enough energy for 3-5 days in these RFBs requires a very large volume of solution in a large number of tanks, making these RFB systems expensive due to the cost of tanks and the fluid distribution system and floor space. Our group recently developed a new storage approach that can greatly increase the energy storage density while still enabling the flow battery concept.6 In this approach, the reactants are stored as both soluble ions and their undissolved solid forms and only the liquid containing the soluble ions is circulated through the batteries. This approach potentially enables >4X increase in the storage energy density. This technology was recently demonstrated in a hydrogen-vanadium (VI/V) system, and new test results and findings in this area will be presented in this talk.References H. Zhang, W. Lu, and X. Li, Electrochemical Energy Reviews, 1–15 (2019).D. G. Kwabi et al., Joule, 2, 1894–1906 (2018).M. Wu, T. Zhao, H. Jiang, Y. Zeng, and Y. Ren, Journal of Power Sources, 355, 62–68 (2017).C. Ding, H. Zhang, X. Li, T. Liu, and F. Xing, The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 4, 1281–1294 (2013).A. Manthiram, ACS Central Science, 3, 1063–1069 (2017).Y. Li and T.V. Nguyen, “A Solid-Liquid High-Energy-Density Storage Concept for Redox Flow Batteries and Its Demonstration in an H2-V System,” Paper ID APEN-MIT-2021_023, Applied Energy Symposium: MIT A+B, Aug. 11-13, 2021, Cambridge, MA, USA.

A Novel High-Energy-Density Storage and Operation Concept for Redox Flow Batteries

The environmental impact of the use of fossil fuels for energy can be greatly reduced if electricity, which represents one-third of all energy uses, can be generated totally from renewable/sustainable sources such as wind and solar. However, this is only possible if cost-effective long-duration (>5 days) storage technologies are available to allow the highly variable and unpredictable wind and solar energy sources to become reliable baseline energy sources like coal or natural gases. Redox flow battery (RFB) energy storage systems are highly suitable for this large-scale, long-duration storage application because while their power output scales with the size of the battery, an expensive component of the storage system, their energy content resides in the amount of active materials that are stored in external tanks and can be easily scaled up for longer duration.1 A stationary battery system like the lithium-ion battery does not have this separation of power and energy characteristic. Therefore, an approach that can significantly increase the operational duration of the RFB systems at a minimal cost is of great interest. The conventional redox flow batteries store electrical energy in the form of some aqueous or non-aqueous soluble ions or compounds in the electrolyte solution. Because of the low solubility (~1M-2M) of most ions and compounds in aqueous and non-aqueous solvents, these redox flow battery systems have low energy density (as compared to solid reactants like lithium in lithium batteries).2–4 For example, the commercialized all-vanadium RFB system has an average energy density of 20 Wh/kg while that of the lithium-ion battery system is 100-265 Wh/kg.5 To store enough energy for 3-5 days in these RFBs requires a very large volume of solution in a large number of tanks, making these RFB systems expensive due to the cost of tanks and the fluid distribution system and floor space. This presentation will discuss a concept that increases the amount of active materials stored in a given storage volume while still enabling the flow battery concept. The novel storage design is to i) store these reactants in a solution of soluble ions and an additional amount of these ions in their undissolved solid form and ii) to circulate only the liquids through the batteries. In their solid form, their energy densities will be much higher than that of the aqueous solution. For example, the concentration of vanadyl sulfate (VOSO4), an active compound used in the all-vanadium RFB system, is around 1.5M. At 1.5M, one has 1.5 moles of vanadium ions per liter or 40.2 Ah/L. In its 6-ligand-water solid form (VOSO4·6H2O) which has a density of 1920 g/L,6 a liter of this solid contains 7.1 moles of vanadium ions or 189 Ah energy. This is a tremendous increase and will put the energy storage density of the RFB systems within those of solid systems like lithium-ion batteries. An existing 6-hr RFB system can become a >24-hr system with minimal modifications. This concept and the processes used to demonstrate it will be discussed in this presentation. A demonstration of this aqueous/solid storage concept in a hydrogen-vanadium flow battery will be presented in another presentation from our group.Acknowledgments This work was also supported by the National Science Foundation under grant number CBET-2024378.

Justification of the Kinematic Diagrams for the Distribution System of a Planetary Hydraulic Motor

The output characteristics of a planetary (orbital) hydraulic motor could be significantly improved if the kinematic diagrams for its working fluid distribution system are chosen correctly and substantiated. Fluctuations in the flow of the power fluid cause pulsation in the cavity of the input pressure of the hydraulic motor. This results to vibration of the hydraulic system elements. Thus, the hydraulic motor can be considered as a source of pulsation which leads to functional failures of the hydraulic system. As they run at low rotational speeds with high torque, planetary hydraulic motors are commonly applied for a hydraulic drive in active working tools of self-propelled machinery. It has been established that one of the main components of a planetary hydraulic motor, which causes pressure pulsations, is its distribution system. The frequency and amplitude of these pulsations depends on the kinematic diagram for the distribution system of the power fluid. Therefore, we studied how the kinematic diagram for the distribution system effects on the output characteristics of a planetary motor. Since the change in the capacity of a distribution system with various kinematic diagrams influences on the output characteristics of a planetary motor, the impact was investigated. The kinematic diagrams, which improve the output characteristics of planetary hydraulic motors, were justified.

An investigation on wireless sensor networks pipeline monitoring system

The Pipeline Monitoring Systems (PMS) have been appeared as an interesting research area that should be deeply studied. Accordingly, the pipelines in industrial and critical domains must be permanently supervised to guarantee their continuous functionality and to offer a comprehensive fluid distribution system. Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technology is the most suitable technique to detect and to localise anomalies in pipelines. This is enabled by the intelligent sensors that establish an efficient pipeline data collection and streaming and the real-time system reaction in case of failure detection. In this survey, we give a holistic view of WSN-PMS based on recent state of the art. We present the taxonomy for WSN-PMS in which we detail their specifications and address their challenges to enhance their real deployment. We review the different WSN-based pipeline leak detection methods and discuss their accuracy and effectiveness level to give depth knowledge on WSN-PMS.

Sensing and healing of disbond in composite stiffened panel using hierarchical system

Our previous study proposed a hierarchical sensing–healing system combining a microvascular self-healing material and a fluid distribution system with local pressure monitoring. This study demonstrated the hierarchical system in a structural composite element. First, the overview of the system was given for the sake of the completeness and the technical merits were discussed. Next, double cantilever beam (DCB) tests were conducted to confirm the system’s feasibility. Finally, the sensing/healing performance was evaluated using a compression after impact (CAI) test of a composite stiffened panel. Even though further optimization of the healing resin and the microvascular channel network is necessary, the hierarchical system restored the structural stability of the damaged panel and recovered the degraded strength, confirming the high potential of the hierarchical system under practical conditions.

Up-graded Control System of Liquid Nitrogen Management System of SST-1

Liquid Nitrogen (LN2) is used for 80 K thermal shield of Steady-state Super-conducting Tokamak (SST-1), Integrated Fluid Distribution and Control System, Current Feeder System and 80 K refrigerant in Helium Liquefier/Refrigerator. A dedicated storage and distribution system for LN2was installed at IPR. The present system includes 3-nos of storage tanks, sub-cooler dewar, vacuum jacketed cryo-lines and instrumentation. This system employs PLC based supervisory control system with smart process instrumentation. Considering nonupgradability and lack of reliability due to obsolesce of components of automation system and future plan of 80 K single phase distribution system for thermal shield of SST-1, new control system is required. Various control schemes are employed for sub-cooler dewar, evaporators and storage tanks. The up-graded control system will offer ease of operation with improved automation, better maintainability and reliability. This paper describes design and development of up-graded control system of LN2 system.

Influence of Fluid Flow Distribution in Micro-Channel Arrays to Phase Transition Processes

Microstructured heat exchangers are well suited for such phase transition processes as evaporation of liquids due to their heat transfer capabilities, being two to three orders of magnitude higher than those of conventional heat transfer devices. Controlling liquid evaporation inside micro-channels to provide full evaporation in a stable way is not trivial. In most cases, such instabilities as slug flow, bubbly flow, or vapor clogging occur, based on cross-talk possibilities between the individual micro-channels of a channel array, normally caused by open void inlet structures. Therefore, fluid inlet distribution is inhomogeneous, which results, in the best case, in a parabolic shape of a stable evaporation frontline. The parabolic shape occurs due to the residence time distribution of the fluid, generated by shorter path length in the array center and longer ones in the outer areas of the micro-channel array. Computational fluid dynamics simulation approves this result. Such a frontline can be kept stable when the process parameters are well controlled. Small deviations of the inlet parameters may lead to strong disturbances of the evaporation process, destabilizing it. When changing the inlet fluid distribution system to provide the most equal flow distribution possible, the span of the parabolic shape of the evaporation frontline can be reduced drastically. Finally, a stable evaporation frontline perpendicular to flow direction can be obtained. This status is no longer very sensitive to process deviations. This article presents an optimized micro-channel device for the optical investigation of phase transition phenomena. The device allows the exchange of integrated micro-channel arrays to investigate different designs for their suitability. It is separated into three independent sections, which can be heated or cooled individually. Therefore, very strict and rapid temperature jumps can be obtained within relatively short distances. The micro-channel array foils used for the experiments have been manufactured by mechanical micro-machining. Thus, the cross-sections of the micro-channels are always rectangular. Hydraulic diameter and length of the micro-channels, as well as the shape of the inlet and outlet voids, can be varied. Using a simple triangular or rectangular open inlet void, a stable evaporation line was generated, showing a parabolic shape. Depending on the mass flow and the size and shape of the inlet void, the span of the parabolic arc was influenceable.

ENGINEERING FACTORS AFFECTING THE OUTLET WATER TEMPERATURE OF SOLAR WATER HEATER

The application of solar energy as a clean renewable source of energy in agricultural purposes has the major interest worldwide especially in countries with a high solar insolation. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of some factors ; solar radiation incident, water flow rate, water inlet temperature, ambient air temperature and absorber plate temperature on outlet temperatur of the operating fluid. A solar heating system icludes a solar collector has an area of 2 m2, an insulated storage tank, a heat exchanger, a fluid distribution system and a control system was constructed and installed in Densosher village, El-Mehalla ElKobra, Gharbia Governorate at a latitude angle of 30.9 No. The collected data for this research restricted between 15 August and 25 September 2010. The statistical analysis, forward stepwise regression, revealed that the water inlet and the absorber plate temperatures had the major effect on the water outlet temperature as compared with the other parameters.

Optimum design of fluid distribution systems in heat exchangers

AbstractUniform flow distribution is often required by process equipment for its correct and reliable operation. Due to the fact that the resulting distribution is influenced by shapes of splitting and combining manifolds, flow distribution uniformity can be considerably increased by careful design. In case of high‐temperature applications, uniform flow distribution is usually crucial. The aim of this paper is to provide a formula for coefficient of static regain for parallel flow systems containing linearly tapered manifolds with rectangular cross sections connected by double U‐tubes. This formula was derived by means of approximating data obtained by evaluation of several baseline configurations of such distribution systems using fluid flow modelling software ANSYS® FLUENT®. Sample fluid distributions found using the proposed formula are shown alongside corresponding data computed by ANSYS FLUENT. Also, a practical computational tool for shape optimization of the investigated class of manifolds is presented. Copyright © 2010 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Switched control of fluid networks

A switched-control technique for fluid distribution systems is presented. It is based on a compartment model of the distribution network consisting of a number of interconnected reservoirs. The unforced flows among reservoirs and environment only depend (non-linearly) on the stored water levels (state variables), which are also influenced by the water demands (disturbances) and by the forced flows of the water pumped into or out of the reservoirs (controlled variables). The control objective is to drive the system to the equilibrium state and keep it there. This goal can be achieved by means of a state-feedback control, which entails switching the controlled inputs among given values according to the current system state. Necessary and sufficient stabilizability conditions are provided. The global asymptotic stability of the overall control system is proved by resorting to a suitable control-Lyapunov function. An experiment is worked out to show the performance of the adopted control policy.

Critical evaluation and comparison of fluid distribution systems for industrial scale expanded bed adsorption chromatography columns

The hydrodynamic properties of an expanded bed contactor with 30 cm or 150 cm internal diameter, which employs a rotating or oscillating fluid distributor, were compared to prototype columns of 60 cm or 150 cm diameter employing local stirring (fixed wall nozzles plus central bottom mounted stirrer) for fluid distribution. Fluid introduction through a rotating fluid distributor was found to give superior hydrodynamic characteristics in the 30 cm and 150 cm diameter column compared to using the local stirrer in both the 60 cm and 150 cm diameter columns. The shortcomings of the local stirring distributor at large scale were apparent: dead zones were present which could not be removed by increasing rotation rates or flow rates, and such changes led to a deterioration in hydrodynamic properties. In contrast, during fluid introduction through a rotating distributor no dead zones were observed, and residence time distribution tests showed that plate numbers remained constant or increased slightly as flow rate was raised from 200 cm h −1 to 470 cm h −1. Under the conditions studied, oscillation of the rotating fluid distributor led to increased mixing and poorer performance than rotary movement. The results imply that further improvement in distributor design is needed and careful attention should be given to the trade off between turbulence and adequate fluid distribution.

Exergy analysis of a rock bed thermal storage system

In this paper, a thermodynamic procedure is presented to analyse energy and exergy balances of a rock bed thermal storage system. The thermal behaviour is described by means of a control volume that includes three subsystems: the solar collectors, the fluid distribution system and the storage chamber. Solar-to-thermal energy conversion was obtained by means of a solar collector at a fixed airflow rate. The final purpose of the method is to determine how well the thermodynamic modelling fits the real data obtained experimentally from the prototype under normal operating conditions.

Minimum mass vascular networks in multifunctional materials

A biomimetic analysis is presented in which an expression for the optimum vessel diameter for the design of minimum mass branching or vascular networks in engineering applications is derived. Agreement with constructal theory is shown. A simple design case is illustrated and application to more complex cases with branching networks of several generations discussed. The analysis is also extended into the turbulent flow regime, giving an optimization tool with considerable utility in the design of fluid distribution systems. The distribution of vessel lengths in different generations was also found to be a useful design variable. Integrating a network into a structure is also discussed. Where it is necessary to adopt a non-optimum vessel diameter for structural integration, it has been shown that small deviations from the minimum mass optimum can be tolerated, but large variations could be expected to produce a punitive and rapidly increasing mass penalty.

Screen-less expanded bed column: new approach for the recovery and purification of a malaria transmission blocking vaccine candidate from Pichia pastoris

An experimental malaria transmission blocking vaccine antigen, Pfs25H, expressed and secreted from Pichia pastoris was recovered and purified using a screenless expanded bed column equipped with a rotating fluid distribution system. This column was able to accommodate feed stock, containing 30% biomass, at a flow rate of 300-400 cm/h without affecting column stability. This capability is three times higher than the capability of the expanded bed column currently in use, which is equipped with a perforated plate fluid distribution system; this design could accommodate biomass concentrations of only up to 10%. The screen-less design did not affect the binding capacity, purification level or process yield and, therefore, shorten the process. Purified Pfs25H of 6.4 g were recovered from 37 l of Pichia pastoris culture in one step.

Pyramidal direct methanol fuel cells

The main concept of this article is to allow for the optimized tree-like design of the flow distributors to actually define the shape of the fuel cell, thereby eliminating problems associated with the mismatch between a predecided rectangular shape and a functionally preferred channel distribution system. The work focuses on direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC). A one-dimensional across-the-cell model is extended to a two-dimensional along-the-channel model and numerically solved to predict the polarization curves of a direct methanol fuel cell with tree network channels and of a cell with traditional serpentine channels. For both flow configurations, pressure drop and pumping power are estimated. Net power densities are computed in terms of constructal parameters and operating conditions. In contrast to the traditional rectangular shape of fuel cells, the resulting “pyramidal” or “double-staircase” shape is based on the functionality of the fluid distribution system. It is found that tree network channels can provide substantially improved electric and net power densities compared to the traditional non-bifurcating single serpentine channels, as a result of their intrinsic advantage with respect to both mass transfer and pressure drop. For six (12) branching levels and inlet channel diameters of 0.05, 0.04, and 0.03 cm, the tree network channels allow for 14% (21%), 17% (26%), and 30% (46%) higher net power densities, respectively.

An inverse approach for piping networks monitoring

Abstract Spills and leakages of hazardous fluids from piping networks may pose a significant safety risk to population, industrial plants and the environment. Therefore in fluid distribution the problem of monitoring the network status in order to identify abnormal conditions and locate leakages arises. In the paper an inverse approach resorting to a multi-layer perceptron back-propagation Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is proposed, in order to locate leakages based on pressure and flow rate information. Strategies for generating input data and for correlating by ANN such data to the fluid distribution system status are presented. A two-level architecture is selected, composed by a main ANN at the first level and several branch-specific second-level ANNs in cascade to the main one. The branch in which the leakage occurs is identified, resorting to the ANN operating at the first level, while the specific second-level ANN is activated to estimate accurately the magnitude and location of the leakage in the selected branch.