Direction Of Liquid Flow Research Articles

Numerical analysis of oil liquid sloshing in fuel tanks of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles under different structure baffles

Abstract To solve a large amount of oil liquid sloshing in the fuel tank and a series of problems caused by oil liquid sloshing in the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) under the condition of electric drive only, this paper analyzes the oil liquid sloshing in fuel tank under different liquid filling rates under complex situations. After determining the representative liquid filling rates, the optimal scheme is finally determined. We conduct the specific analysis of different types, structures, and installation modes of fuel tank baffles under the same working conditions and liquid filling amount. The results show that the less liquid is filled in the fuel tank, the larger the sloshing amplitude is, and the more complicated the sloshing situation is. When the oil liquid sloshes, the non-porous baffle has an obvious zoning effect on the oil liquid and suppresses the oil liquid fluctuations effect, but the oil liquid fluidity is poor. The angle between the linear baffle and the oil liquid flow direction is larger, which has a better attenuation effect on the impact force of oil liquid. In conditions of significant oil liquid sloshing, a high baffle enhances the contact area of the oil liquid, resulting in improved inhibition effects. After considering various advantages and disadvantages, the analysis of the cruciform baffle found that the cruciform baffle limited the multi-directional movement of oil liquid, caused substantial vortex inside the oil liquid, and attenuated the kinetic energy generated by oil liquid sloshing. This greatly reduced the impact of the oil liquid on the fuel tank wall and improved the effect of suppressing oil liquid fluctuations.

Machine learning accelerated the performance analysis on PCM-liquid coupled battery thermal management system

With the increasing prominence of thermal management issues in lithium-ion batteries, the performance of active-passive hybrid battery thermal management systems attracts extensive attention. In this study, a novel phase change material-liquid cooling coupled battery thermal management system was designed. The effects of battery arrangement structure, liquid flow direction, mass flow rate, startup temperature, phase change material melting point, and liquid cooling power consumption on the thermal management performance of the battery module during high-rate discharge were numerically investigated. The results show that the phase change material-liquid cooling system can effectively regulates battery temperature within safe limits under optimal operational conditions. Compared to the module without liquid cooling with an initial temperature of 40 °C, the maximum temperature is reduced by 15.18 °C and 27.5 °C during 3C and 5C discharge, respectively. Lower liquid cooling startup temperature and higher liquid flow rate contribute further to reducing the maximum module temperature, albeit with increased energy consumption. Compared to continuously operating liquid cooling at 0.01 kg/s, adjusting liquid cooling operating point with minimized power usage can drastically reduce energy consumption by up to 94.71 % during 5C discharge and ambient temperature conditions. Additionally, machine learning with three multi-objective regression prediction models were utilized to predict the temperature and energy consumption of the proposed coupled system. The error between the Random Forest model's predicted values and the simulation results was determined to be <5 %.

Electrical properties determine the liquid flow direction in plasma–liquid interactions

During atmospheric pressure plasma impingement, plasma induced liquid flow will influence the transport and distribution of plasma generated charged and reactive species in liquids. We use particle image velocimetry and supplementary pH, conductivity and temperature measurements to investigate electrical properties of an AC kHz plasma jet interacting with water and electrolytes. We observe that the dominant driving mechanism in low conductive solutions are surface forces such as shear stresses and stagnation-pressure induced dimpling. These give upwards flows beneath the plasma–liquid interaction point. In highly conductive solutions, such as water with dissolved salts, the dominant driving mechanism is electro-hydrodynamic forces, with flows directed downwards underneath the plasma jet in our system. We therefore demonstrate that the direction of initial plasma induced liquid flows can be controlled through the addition of salt ions. In electrically grounded salt solutions, we also observe time resolved flow direction switching, possibly due to modification of salt solutions via electrolytic and plasma induced reactions changing the dominant flow mechanism over time.

Reliability-based maintenance optimization of long-distance oil and gas transmission pipeline networks

This paper presents a maintenance model for optimal planning of pipeline network inspections subjected to corrosion and residual stress. The proposed model includes predictive degradation modeling, spatio-temporal reliability, and expected cost minimization. The pipeline networks are formed by linear segments and irregular zones such as elbows, weld joints, and flanges for putting pipes together and changing the direction of gas or liquid flow. The mean of Karhunen-Loève expansion is used to model space-variant corrosion, residual stress, and stochastic dependency in different exposure zones. Monte Carlo simulations are employed to compute the failure probability of individual components. Subsequently, a Bayesian network evaluates the failure probability of the complex pipeline network and identifies the most critical components. Depending on the objective or market demand uncertainties, a cost model is also proposed to optimize the inspection policy. The methodology is applied to a case study, and the results show that it can provide valuable insights to decision-makers to enhance complex systems' safety and reliability.

Theory of expansion and compression of polymeric materials: Implications for membrane solvent flow under compaction

We extend the classical Flory-Rehner theory for the expansion and compression of porous materials such as cross-linked polymer networks and membranes. The theory includes volume exclusion, affinity with the solvent, and finite stretching of the polymer chains. We also modify this equilibrium theory, which applies to equal expansion of a material in all directions, to the situation where a material can only expand in a single direction, as is the case when a thin polymer layer is tightly bound to a support structure. We further extend this equilibrium model to the case where a pressure is applied across a thin polymer layer, such as a membrane, and liquid flows across the membrane. The theory describes how in the direction of liquid flow the membrane is increasingly compacted and becomes less porous, and this effect increases when the applied pressure goes up. We present results of example calculations for a thick membrane showing significant changes in compaction across its thickness, and a thin membrane where compaction due to flow is minor. Lastly, we model the dynamics of the change in size of a porous material in time after a step change in the solvent-polymer attraction parameter, which may be relevant, for instance, when the attraction parameter is highly temperature-dependent, and we change the temperature. The developed theory has direct implications for pressure-driven membrane separation processes ranging from reverse osmosis to organic solvent nanofiltration.

A multiphase modeling for investigating temperature history, flow field and solidification microstructure evolution of FeCoNiCrTi coating by laser cladding

In this work, a multiphase numerical model was established to investigate the non-isothermal flow and microstructure evolution during laser cladding. The model considered the beam-powder interaction, temperature dependent material properties, the effect of buoyancy and surface tension on convection. The accuracy of the model was verified comparing the simulated coating geometric morphology with the experimental results. Simulation indicated that the temperature and flow of the molten pool were interactive and mutually causal. On the one hand, the temperature field affected the tension gradient and the liquid flow direction. On the other hand, the velocity field significantly affected the heat transfer in the molten pool. Specifically, the maximum fluid velocity was 9.58 mm/s and the Peclet number (PeT) value was less than 5 at the initial stage, indicating that conduction dominated in heat transfer. Furthermore, the PeT value was greater than 200 when the maximum velocity reached 344 mm/s. The heat transfer in the molten pool was mainly thermal convection. In addition, the distribution diagram of solidification parameters (G and R) was calculated to quantitatively establish the internal correlation between solidification parameters and microstructure combing with experimental observation, and revealed the columnar-to-equiaxed transition (CET). Eventually, the microhardness results showed that HEA coating could improve the Ti6Al4V surface microhardness. Simultaneously, the CET behavior significantly affected the microhardness of the coating.

Experimental Study on Enhanced Oil Recovery of the Heterogeneous System after Polymer Flooding

Daqing Oilfield faces increasing reservoir heterogeneity after years of polymer flooding, limiting further enhanced oil recovery. A novel preformed particle gel (PPG) was developed by Daqing Oilfield due to the limited profile control ability of polymer flooding. The preformed particle gel possesses strong deformation ability and the ability to pass through pore throats. The PPG was developed considering the in situ reservoir conditions and combined effects of plugging and flooding. Thus, a heterogeneous system was prepared by mixing polymers and the PPG. In this study, we measured the related properties of the system and assessed its profile control ability and oil displacement performance after polymer flooding. The experimental results demonstrate that typical polymer flooding cannot improve oil recovery under current reservoir conditions. Thus, deep profile control technology should be applied to remediate the highly heterogeneous reservoir issue. PPG can considerably increase the viscosity and stability of the system. The heterogeneous system has a strong plugging ability during the subsequent water flooding stage and is suitable to inject into the medium and high permeability layers. The water absorption profile of the core samples is significantly improved due to the impact of the PPG on the plugging of the layer with high permeability and the liquid flow direction. The system displays an excellent profile control effect in the core with a permeability ratio (high permeability/low permeability) of two under the conditions of a PPG concentration of 500 mg/L and an injection volume of 0.5 PV. In the oil displacement experiment, the recovery efficiency was raised by 16.56% using the polymer system, leading to significant swept volume increment and oil recovery improvement.

Room-Temperature Growth of Morphoplastic Scandium Nanowires through Coordination-Induced Self-Assembly for White-Light-Driven Photocatalytic Degradation of Rhodamine

Photoactive nanowires play an important role on the photoelectric-related applications; however, the in situ large-scale growth of photoactive nanowires on the arbitrary substrate still faces a great challenge. Herein, for the first time, we develop a facile coordination-induced self-assembly strategy for preparing the nanowires with high photoactivity through keeping a high concentration of Sc(NO3)3 and tartaric acid (TA) aqueous solution at room temperature. Surprisingly, the nanowires can grow directionally along the direction of water flow on any substrate due to the growth mechanism driven by water molecules, showing that the proposed nanowires are morphoplastic depending on the direction of liquid flow. The formation of nanowires has been proved to be attributed to the synergistic effect of water molecule-involved hydrogen bonding between hydroxyl groups of TA ligands as well as the multi-coordination of Sc3+ ions. Meanwhile, the prepared nanowires are highly photoactive, showing a strong photooxidation ability toward rhodamine 6G dyes, with a degradation efficiency of about 95.8% within 40 min. This finding introduces a coordination growth mechanism of nanowires, which not only provides a great possibility for large-scale and low-cost synthesis of photoactive nanowires with morphoplastic features but also shows a good application prospect in water cleaning by the photocatalysis technique.

Mechanisms of interfacial catalysis and mass transfer in a flow-through electro-peroxone process

To investigate the catalytic mechanism and mass transfer efficiency in the removal of amitriptyline using an electro-peroxide process, a CuFe2O4-modified carbon cloth cathode was prepared and utilized in a reaction unit. The results demonstrated a remarkable efficacy of the system, achieving 91.0% amitriptyline removal, 68.3% mineralization, 41.2% mineralization current efficiency, and 0.24 kWh/m3 energy consumption within just five minutes of treatment. The study revealed that the exposed Fe atoms of the ferrite nanoparticles, with a size of 22.7 nm and 89.7% crystallinity, functioned as mediators to bind the adsorbed O atoms. The 3dxy, 3dxz, and 3d2z orbitals of Fe atoms interacted with the 2pz orbital of O atoms of H2O2 and O3 to form σ and π bonds, facilitating the adsorption-activation of H2O2 and O3 into hydroxyl radicals. These hydroxyl radicals (∼ 1.15 × 1013 mol/L) were distributed at the cathode-solution interface and rapidly consumed along the direction of liquid flow. The flow-through cathode design improved the mass transfer of aqueous O3 and in-situ generated H2O2, leading to an increased yield of hydroxyl radicals, as well as the contact time and space between hydroxyl radicals and amitriptyline. Ultimately, this resulted in a higher degradation efficiency of the system.

An enhanced tilted-angle acoustic tweezer for mechanical phenotyping of cancer cells

Acoustofluidic devices becomes one of the emerging and versatile tools for many biomedical applications. Most of the previous acoustofluidic devices are used for cells manipulation, and the few devices for cell phenotyping with a limitation in throughput. In this study, an enhanced tilted-angle (ETA) acoustofluidic device is developed and applied for mechanophenotyping of live cells. The ETA Device consists of an interdigital transducer which is positioned along a microfluidic channel. An inclination angle of 5° is introduced between the interdigital transducer and the liquid flow direction. The pressure nodes formed inside the acoustofluidic field in the channel deflect the biological cells from their original course in accordance with their mechanical properties, including volume, compressibility, and density. The threshold power for fully converging the cells to the pressure node is used to calculate the acoustic contrast factor. To demonstrate the ETA device in cell mechanophenotyping, and distinguishing between different cell types, further experimentation is carried out by using A549 (lung cancer cells), MDB-MA-231 (breast cancer cells), and leukocytes. The resulting acoustic contrast factors for the lung and breast cancer cells are different from that of the leukocytes by 27.9% and 21.5%, respectively. These results suggest this methodology can successfully distinguish and phenotype different cell types based on the acoustic contrast factor.

Numerical investigation on thermal performance of battery module with LCP‐AFC cooling system applied in electric vehicle

AbstractTo improve the thermal performance of electric vehicle batteries, a novel cooling system of liquid cold plates coupled with air flow channels (LCP‐AFC) for battery thermal management was proposed. Three‐dimensional models were established for simulation. The effects of five factors on the heat dissipation of the electric vehicle battery module were studied, which included the battery discharge rate, inlet temperature of cooling liquid, nanofluids, airflow velocity, liquid, and air flow directions. The results showed that the maximum temperature Tmax and temperature difference ΔT of the battery module under 1 C discharge rate could be reduced by 1.1°C and 0.92°C compared to the single liquid cooling. Comparing the LCP‐AFC with single air cooling, the Tmax and ΔT of the battery module under 4 C discharge rate could be reduced by 18.74°C and 2.71°C. The temperature uniformity of the battery module was not satisfied with the inlet temperature of the cooling liquid, which was lower than 15°C. The heat transfer performance was improved by adding Al, Cu, or Ag nanoparticles into the deionized water. Among them, Ag–water nanofluid had the most significant cooling effect. Parallel flow indicated better thermal performance than cross flow and counter flow. The developed cooling system of LCP‐AFC offers a new method to design lithium‐ion battery thermal management system for controlling temperature distribution of a battery module.

Light transmission mechanisms in a SMF-capillary fiber-SMF structure and its application to bi-directional liquid level measurement.

Capillary fiber (CF) has been extensively investigated in a singlemode fiber (SMF)-CF-SMF (SCS) sensing structure since multiple light guiding mechanisms can be easily excited by simply tuning the air core diameter (cladding diameter) and length of the CF. Understanding the light guiding principles in an SCS structure is essential for improved implementation of a CF based fiber sensor. In this work, light guiding principles in a relatively large air core diameter (≥ 20 µm) and long length of CF (> 1 mm) are investigated theoretically and experimentally. It is found that both multimode interference (MMI) and Anti-Resonant Reflecting Optical Waveguide (ARROW) light guiding mechanisms are excited in the SCS structure in the transmission configuration. However, MMI dips are not observed in the spectrum for the air core diameters of CF smaller than 50 µm in the experiment due to large transmission loss in small air core CFs. Further experimental results demonstrate that a CF with a bigger air core diameter shows a higher sensitivity to curvature, and the highest sensitivity of -16.15 nm/m-1 is achieved when an CF-100 was used. In addition, a SMF-CF-20-CF-30-SMF (SCCS) structure is proposed for high sensitivity bi-direction liquid level measurement for the first time, to the best of our knowledge. Two types of ARROW dips (Dip-20 and Dip-30) are simultaneously excited in transmission, hence both liquid level and liquid flow direction can be detected by tracing the dip strength changes of Dip-20 and Dip-30, respectively.

Bipolar Electrode Array for Multiplexed Detection of Prostate Cancer Biomarkers

Owing to the characteristics of high throughput, high flexibility, and convenient separation of the sensing and reporting reactions, the bipolar electrode (BPE) shows great potential in clinical analysis. However, there are some difficulties in the combination of BPEs and multiplex electrochemiluminescence (ECL) biosensing, such as the need for small sample consumption, multistep operations, and separated sample loading. In this paper, a microfluidic BPE array chip was fabricated toward multiplex detection of cancer biomarkers. With a special channel structure and the difference in flow resistance of channels of different sizes, the direction of liquid flow was successfully controlled. In this way, rapid and automatic multiplex sampling was achieved on the array, which would help improve the sensing efficiency and reduce the reagent consumption. The ECL BPE array chip served as an immunosensor for multiple prostate cancer biomarkers including prostate-specific antigen (PSA), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA). The microfluidic BPE chip shows good reproducibility and high sensitivity. The limits of detection for PSA, IL-6, and PSMA are 0.093 ng/mL, 0.061 pg/mL, and 0.059 ng/mL, respectively. It also exhibits excellent performance in real sample analysis. The integrated ECL BPE array shows a good application prospect in clinical sensing of cancer biomarkers, as well as point-of-care testing.

A hybrid thermal management system with liquid cooling and composite phase change materials containing various expanded graphite contents for cylindrical lithium-ion batteries

To improve the temperature uniformity and cooling performance of the battery module, a hybrid battery thermal management system (BTMS) with liquid cooling and phase change materials (PCM) containing different expanded graphite contents is proposed. To adjust the heat transfer efficiency of composite phase change material (CPCM) along the direction of liquid flow, the segments of CPCM matrix contain different expanded graphite (EG) contents. Subsequently, the effects of the layout of CPCM matrix, length distribution of each segment, the structure parameters and cooling strategy on cooling performance of the battery module are investigated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model at 4C discharge rate and ambient temperature of 308.15 K. The results demonstrate that the maximum temperature (Tmax) and temperature difference (ΔT) of BTMS adopting segmented layout III are significantly reduced by 1.3 K and 1.4 K respectively compared with layout Ⅰ. Additionally, the layout III exhibits optimal cooling performance when length of each segment is 110 mm, 120 mm and 120 mm, respectively. Moreover, the Tmax and ΔT decrease with increase of cell-to-cell spacing (L) and diameter of liquid channel (d), and ΔT is only 2.2 K under the condition of L24d5 (L = 24 mm, d = 5 mm). During the 1C-charging and 4C-discharging cycles, the Tmax of BTMS with normal strategy remains at 319.5 K and ΔT lower than 3 K; furthermore the strategy of delayed liquid cooling can significantly reduce power consumption by 33.3 % without sacrificing the cooling performance.

Influence of different high pressure die casting processes on 3D porosity distribution of Mg-3.0Nd-0.3Zn-0.6Zr alloy

3D reconstruction was adopted to characterize the microstructural morphologies of Mg-3.0Nd-0.3Zn-0.6Zr alloy castings produced by high pressure die casting (HPDC) processes with different parameters, including low slow-shot speed, solidification pressurization and fast slow-shot speed. At low slow-shot speeds of 0.1 m·s−1, 0.2 m·s−1 and 0.3 m·s−1, the porosity is concentrated in the center of the castings with one spiral staggered shape along the liquid flow direction. The porosity volume simultaneously decreases with the reduction of quantity and size of externally solidified crystals (ESCs), while the shrinkage pores become more and more dispersed with the increasing low slow-shot speed. Pressurization not only reduces the porosity volume due to the improvement of feeding ability, but also transformes the center gathered porosity into one layer-by-layer distribution form. Accompanied with the increasing fast slow-shot speed, the central porosity dramatically decreases and transforms into a large-scale spiral staggered shape along the liquid flow direction. However, the porosity is much more dispersed when the speed is increased from 2 m·s−1 to 3 m·s−1.

Effect of Geometrical Parameters on Extraction Efficiency of the Annular Centrifugal Contactor

The geometrical parameters of annular centrifugal contactors (ACCs) have an important influence on the extraction efficiency. The present work used a home-made 25 mm ACC constructed by 3D printing to investigate the effect of five geometrical parameters on the extraction efficiency. These parameters are annular width (d), clearance height (Hc), rotor inlet diameter (Din), bottom vane number (N), and the bottom vane’s bending direction (S). Central composite design was employed to design the experiment, and the response surface methodology was used to analyze the data. The results show that Hc and Din were positive for efficiency, while d and N were negative. When the bottom vane’s bending direction was the same as the liquid helical flow direction, the efficiency improved compared to the straight vane. It is found that 3 mm d, 5 mm Hc, 6 mm Din, and four clockwise covered vanes are the parameters where the efficiency reached the highest point of 94.5%. We analyzed the interactions between the parameters based on the coefficients of the quadratic equation, and the interactions were not considered in previous studies. This work surprisingly reveals that the effects of the parameters on the extraction efficiency were not independent, and there were interactions between the parameters. The interaction between the rotor inlet diameter and annular width was significant and could not be ignored. These results could serve as a reference for optimizing extraction processes and the design of ACCs.

A reversible valve-assisted chip coupling with integrated sample treatment and CRISPR/Cas12a for visual detection of Vibrio parahaemolyticus

Vibrio parahaemolyticus (V. parahaemolyticus) is regarded as a major cause of seafood-associated illnesses, which has aroused widespread public concern. Here, a rapid and convenient detection method for V. parahaemolyticus detection was established by a reversible valve-assisted chip coupling with CRISPR/Cas12a. With optimized lysis buffer, loop mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) reagents and CRISPR reagents, the whole detection process from sampling to results could be finished within 50 min. The structure of chip was simple and the cost was low. By relying on three reversible rotary valves and the rotation direction-dependent Coriolis pseudo force, the flow order of liquid and the direction of liquid flow could be precisely controlled. The LAMP amplicons were specifically and sensitively identified by CRISPR/Cas12a. Positive amplification would produce green fluorescent signal while negative amplification generated no fluorescent signal, which could be clearly distinguished by the naked eye. With 600 μL of samples processed, the limit of detection (LOD) for both pure cultured V. parahaemolyticus or spiked shrimp samples could achieve 30 copies/reaction. These illustrated the established method displayed great feasibility for real samples detection. In the future, the chip could also combine with other amplification reactions, like PCR or recombinase polymerase amplification reaction (RPA), to conduct detection by changing the corresponding lyophilized amplification reagents. Overall, the proposed detection platform displays great potential for food safety analysis and clinical diagnostics, especially in resource-limited areas.

Electrocaloric cooling over high device temperature span

Summary Electrocaloric cooling demonstrates direct electricity utilization and high energy efficiency, and is often proposed as an environmentally benign, solid-state alternative to the conventional vapor compression cooling technology. As a result, the fabrication of effective electrocaloric materials and engineering of electrocaloric cooling devices have attracted increasing attention in the cooling community. However, the limited material adiabatic temperature change under safe operation field poses a major challenge to practical electrocaloric cooling device development, since real-world applications usually require device temperature span over 20 K. This perspective presents recent efforts devoted to design electrocaloric cooling devices based on active heat regeneration and cascading approaches; both strategies have achieved significant device temperature lift ~10 K with adiabatic temperature change of 2~3 K. The strategies discussed in this work are broadly applicable to the design of efficient and compact cooling systems.

The Study of Thermal and Convective Heat Transfer in Flat Solar Collectors

The paper herein considers the study of convective heat transfer in flat plate solar collectors, as it is seen from the analysis on research of the heat transfer by a circular and flat tubes upon conforming the forced and free convections, placed vertically or horizontally with various liquid flow directions. There have been obtained Nusselt criterion dependencies in circular and flat pipes, which shows that corresponding equations allow defining the heat transfer intensity for all fluids with appropriate accuracy. As well there has been studied Prandtl criterion for fluids, which plays an important role in points spacing as regard to the curve. In each case the lines are with a tip 1/3, as in the research herein only the laminar conditions have been considered. The article herein considers the pilot tests based on tubular solar collectors with an absorbing shield. The aim of the experiment thereof is the research of thermal properties of tubular solar collector for producing hot water.

Stimuli-responsive superhydrophobic films driven by solvent vapor for electric switch and liquid manipulation

Fabrication of functional superhydrophobic materials with stimuli-responsive driving ability for the growing fields such as electric switch and liquid manipulation still remains mysterious and challenging. In this work, a stimuli-responsive superhydrophobic film (SSF) is fabricated by integrating a bottom porous poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) layer, a sandwiched cross-linkable poly(vinyl alcohol) (cPVA) layer, and a top carbon nanotubes@polydimethylsiloxane (CNTs@PDMS) layer. Induced by the asymmetric swelling of cPVA/PVDF bilayer upon exposure to acetone vapor, the SSFs directionally roll towards the superhydrophobic CNTs@PDMS surface with a large curvature of 0.65 mm−1, a fast response within 10 s, and an excellent fatigue resistance of more than 1000 actuation cycles. Furthermore, the special superhydrophobicity highly ensures the reliable actuation behavior of the SSFs under wet environments. Taking advantage of the conductivity of the CNTs@PDMS layer, the SSF-based electric switches are fabricated and conveniently actuated to control the electric circuit states of turning on/off. Additionally, thanks to the combination of water repellency and acetone vapor-responsive actuation, the SSFs are designed as smart channels for a water control system to successfully achieve the manipulation of liquid flow direction. The findings conceivably stand out as a new methodology to fabricate functional superhydrophobic materials with stimuli-responsiveness for various potential applications.