Transient Experimental Study Research Articles

Transient experimental study on cooling performance of a radial turbine with impingement cooling in rotating state

Increasing the inflow temperature of a turbine is an effective approach for enhancing the thermal efficiency of devices operating in the Brayton cycle, such as micro-gas-turbines and waste heat recovery systems. However, elevated temperatures also pose a significant risk of thermal fatigue failure. This paper presents an experimental investigation of impingement cooling for radial turbines, aiming to achieve high cooling performance with a simple structure. High-frequency infrared thermal imaging technology was employed to measure temperature distribution in the turbine rotor under various operational conditions. The results indicate that jet-impingement cooling can substantially reduce the solid temperature of the radial turbine, with a maximum temperature reduction of approximately 44 K achieved by consuming the coolant with ṁre= 5%. Increasing the mass flow rate of the coolant consistently lowers the rotor temperature; however, an increase in rotational speed results in higher thermal inertia, thereby diminishing the cooling enhancement effect. The temperature distribution on the turbine surface exhibits significant periodic characteristics over time, leading to temperature fluctuations of 5 K to 30 K at the hub position. Furthermore, the cooling performance is further enhanced near the jet hole on the back-disc side of the inducer region, while the tip side closer to the exducer obtains better cooling effects.

Epoxidation of light olefin mixtures with hydrogen peroxide on TS-1 in a laboratory-scale trickle bed reactor: Transient experimental study and mathematical modelling

Direct epoxidation of light olefin mixtures with hydrogen peroxide and titanium silicalite (TS-1) catalyst is interesting from a pure scientific viewpoint and it might have a considerable economic and environmental advantages. Direct epoxidation of olefin mixtures implies a significant process intensification as the separation steps of alkenes prior to the epoxidation process is avoided. Binary and ternary mixtures of ethene, propene and 1-butene were selectively epoxidized with hydrogen peroxide in the presence of TS-1 as the heterogeneous catalyst. Methanol was used as the solvent. Transient and stationary kinetic experiments were conducted in a laboratory-scale trickle bed reactor, which was operated under atmospheric pressure and isothermal conditions at 15–55 °C. The experiments were designed to investigate the kinetics of the epoxidation of light olefins at different temperatures, alkene-to-hydrogen peroxide molar ratios as well as gas and liquid residence times in the trickle bed reactor. The recorded transient responses of the reaction products confirmed that the components in the alkene mixtures are epoxidized simultaneously. The epoxide selectivity was 90 % or higher in most experiments; ring-opening products formed from the epoxides and methanol were observed as by-products. The concentration maxima of epoxides during the transient experiments were explained by accumulation of the epoxide products inside the catalyst, which resulted in partial blocking of active sites. After-treatment of the catalyst with methanol and nitrogen completely restored the initial activity. Kinetic modeling was applied, based on presumed elementary steps on the TS-1 surface to describe the behavior of the system at steady state conditions. The trickle bed reactor was described with a dynamic multiphase model, taking into account the kinetic and mass transfer effects. The numerical values of the activation energies, kinetic constants and mass transfer parameters were estimated by nonlinear regression analysis. The model gave a satisfactory description of the experimental data.

Natural circulation with LBE as a working substance to be published in: Progress in nuclear energy

Reactor systems with lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE) as coolant are increasingly getting more research interest in recent years. In this paper, a theoretical analysis of the steady-state natural circulation characteristics of LBE is carried out. The relation between the mass flow rate m˙ and the heating power Q is given by m˙=(KfQ)1/c. And the relation between the inlet-outlet temperature difference ΔT and wall-to-fluid temperature difference within the heating section ΔTh is given by ΔT=(KtΔTh)d. The determination methods and influencing factors of Kf and Kt are studied. Through theoretical analysis, the natural circulation with LBE as a working substance has higher mass flow, temperature difference between the inlet and outlet of the heating section and loop pressure loss than the natural circulation of water or sodium under normal working conditions. And the LBE natural circulation is more sensitive to changes in heating power. Moreover, steady-state and transient experimental studies have been performed in an LBE Natural Circulation test loop (LNC). A one-dimensional thermal-hydraulic system code FRTAC is preliminarily validated against test data and utilized to study the natural circulation characteristics of LBE.

Improvements on performance and emissions of a heavy duty diesel engine by throttling degree optimization: A steady-state and transient experimental study

Heavy duty diesel engines emit over half of mobile source NOx, so SCR is used to reduce NOx. But in applications, SCR is hard to work in desired temperature range. In this work, we try to improve exhaust thermal management and finally reduce NOx through intake throttling effect. Firstly a throttle was designed and its response characteristics were widely explored through steady-state experiment. Results showed that exhaust temperature can be raised largely through intake throttling degree (TD) control, it has obvious effect only after 60 % TD. At 1100 r/min and 65 % TD, exhaust temperature rises by 123.3 °C, 74.2 °C, 49.7 °C and 33.5 °C for 600 N·m, 400 N·m, 200 N·m, and 50 N·m loads, respectively. TD demand for rising transition point becomes larger as engine load decreases, at 600 N·m transition point occurs at 61 % TD, but it increases to 68 % TD at 50 N·m. Finally the intake flow rate was optimized continuously with whole cycle level consideration in transient operation. NOx decreased by 43 % with fuel consumption and HC keeping unchanged, while CO increased by 24.6 %. We hope to provide a good example for diesel engine performance improvement from optimization of existing technologies without too much cost.