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Liquid sloshing inside a partially filled tank has a great impact on the fragile internal tank coating and also on the stability of carrier ships. Several studies highlighted the challenges encountered due to the sloshing and proposed anti-sloshing tank structures. However, sloshing of liquefied natural gas fuel in high pressure vessels during transportation still remain a challenge. In the present numerical study we consider a downscaled 2D geometry to investigate the sloshing. Non-dimensional numbers are used to downscale the geometry. The purpose is to understand the flow structures and validate the downscaling approach based on the similarity scale laws. In the present work, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) based on the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes equations (RANS) with the Volume of Fluid (VOF) method in one hand and the Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method in the other hand, are used to simulate the downscaled model. The results from both methods are compared and validated using experimental data. A full scale model have also been simulated using SPH to verify the applicability of the scaling laws. The SPH model shows the capability to efficiently capture the sloshing phenomena. The VOF and SPH provide similar results in terms of flow dynamics, pressure and forces. The overall numerical results agree with the measurements and show that SPH can be an efficient tool to be used in modelling sloshing phenomena, compared to the RANS-VOF approach which is expensive in terms of CPU time. However, features like turbulence need to be further investigated. 

A general, sufficiently accurate, applicable and reasonably fast approach to thermal analysis of rotating electrical machines is of high interest for motor and generator developers and manufacturers. The thermal performance and the lifetime of a machine is limited by the temperature distribution and the hot spot temperature. The most commonly encountered cooling medium is air and the temperature distribution is driven by the air flow pattern inside the machine. Two different Computational Fluid Dynamics methods, the mesh based Finite Volume Method (FVM) and the mesh free particle based Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method are employed in this paper to model the airflow inside a rotating machine. Mesh based methods are quite robust, however, they are very expensive in terms of meshing effort and CPU time to be used extensively in R&D. Analysing and optimizing products with complex geometrical shapes need mesh generation for every specific design change and this may be the major part of the modelling process. This challenging task is not necessary for the SPH method. SPH method can also provide high quality 3D visualization that can improve the design process.

This work investigates the usability of the SPH method when applied to rotating machinery for rotor speeds normally encountered in motors and generators. A comparison with an FVM based approach is also performed. Both the FVM and the SPH solvers show good agreement for the overall flow pattern inside the machine with some disagreement for the airflow inside the air-gap between the rotor and the stator. The FVM solver successfully captures the Taylor vortex flow inside the annulus air-gap which is in general a great modelling challenge. The SPH solver on the other hand shows great capability to couple rotation of the rotor and well represent the overall flow pattern inside the machine. However, the 3D SPH solver could not capture the complex Taylor vortices inside the air-gap which may be due to the limited number of particles used for the simulation. An increase in the number of particles would certainly improve the accuracy of the results as confirmed by the 2D SPH simulation. The present study shows that the SPH solver can be used to predict the air flow pattern inside rotating machines within an acceptable accuracy.

Engineering advanced methods for example Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) are heavily used to solve, design and model complex industrial applications. They provide high accuracy however, the simulation time is too long and this limit its generalized use dramatically as for control purposes. CFD tools and methods are often used to analyze the energy distribution and management in different industrial processes like hot rolling industries, furnaces and boilers as well as a number of areas where mixing and thermal management are of importance. Huge amounts of energy are often fed into such processes. A small amount of optimization can provide a very large energy saving. It is now an urgent need to have a tool like real-time CFD to analyze, control and optimize on-line various industrial processes. This tool or method can contribute to build efficient and sustainable energy systems. The scope of this work is to find alternative simulation techniques that can also address industrial applications and provide solutions within a decent accuracy and resolution. In this paper we provide a literature review of those methods that can be categorized as mesh based, mesh free and hybrid that are capable of providing appropriate results in some key areas of interest. As a next step one of these methods will be implemented and coupled to CFD simulation of cooling impinging jets used to control the heat transfer and temperature behavior of a hot flat surface in a hot rolling process where thermal energy and cooling water are used with excess. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) is a mesh-free particle method that has been widely used in the last years to model some complex flows. SPH was mainly used to investigate problems related to hydrodynamics and maritime engineering where heat transfer is of no importance. Thermal problems have seldom been addressed due to the limitation of the main commercial and open-source SPH codes.

In this article, the energy equation is implemented in the SPH based open-source code DualSPHysics to solve conduction and forced convection heat transfer problems. Laminar flow cases are simulated as the first validation cases of the implemented model. The studied cases include conduction in an aluminum block, conduction in still water in a cavity, laminar water flow between two infinite parallel plates and tube bank heat exchanger. The thermal solutions obtained from SPH are benchmarked with the solutions from Finite Volume Method (FVM) and also validated using available analytical solutions. The obtained results are in good agreement with FVM and available analytical models, which combined with the advantages of the meshless approach, show the high potential for industrial heat transfer applications.

This development is an important step towards thermal optimization of several industrial applications that can’t benefit from the conventional FVM approach due to geometry or process complexities. The demonstrated SPH simulation and visualization capabilities contribute to build the future reliable energy-saving solutions.

Fluid flow and heat transfer in small channels have a wide range of engineering and medical applications. It has always been a topic of numerous theoretical, numerical and experimental studies. Several numerical methods have been used to simulate such flows. The most common approaches are the finite volume method (FVM) and the direct numerical simulation (DNS), which are numerically expensive to solve cases involving complex engineering problems. The main purpose of this work is to investigate the usability of the mesh-free particle based Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method to simulate convective heat transfer. To validate our approach, as a starting point, we choose to solve a simple well-established problem which is the laminar flow and heat transfer through an infinitely long mini-channel. The solution obtained from SPH method has been compared to the solution from FVM method and analytical solution with good accuracy. The results presented in this paper show that SPH is capable to solve laminar forced convection heat transfer, however, turbulent flow cases need to be considered to be able to utilize the SPH method for engineering thermal applications.

Losses in an electric motor amount to between 4–24% of the total electrical power, and are converted to heat. The maximum hot spot temperature is one of the design constraints of thermal and electrical performance. Several studies have explored flow and thermal characteristics inside the air-gap between two concentric rotating cylinders such as those found in electric motors, however the transient flow and thermal effects still remain a challenge. This study uses Computational Fluid Dynamics to predict the thermal behaviour of a machine rotating at the kind of speed usually encountered in motors. The Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes model together with the realizable k-ε turbulence model are used to perform transient simulations. Velocity profiles and temperature distribution inside the air-gap are obtained and validated. The transient flow features and their impact on thermal performance are discussed. The numerical results show turbulent Taylor vortices inside the air-gap that lead to a periodic temperature distribution. When compared to correlations from published literature, the simulated average heat transfer coefficient at the rotor surface shows overall good agreement. The transient effects introduce local impacts like oscillations to the Taylor-Couette vortices. These flow oscillations result in oscillations of the hotspots. However, this transient oscillatory behaviour does not show any additional impact on the global thermal performance.

Runout Table (ROT) cooling is one of the most important factors for controlling quality of hot rolled steel. ROT cooling uses large quantities of water to cool the steel plate. Optimizing heat transfer in the ROT would reduce the amount of water used, which will lower the amount of energy needed for pumping, filtering, storage and use of water. Optimization will therefore result in a direct energy saving as well as increasing the product quality.

This study investigates heat transfer by turbulent water jets impinging on a hot flat steel plate at temperatures below the boiling point in order to understand convection heat transfer phenomena. This is an important stage that precedes the boiling and addresses the applicability of the heat transfer correlations available in the literature.

A single axisymmetric jet and a pair of interacting jets are simulated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) model under steady and transient conditions and the k–ɛ turbulence model are used in both 2D axisymmetric and 3D simulations. We investigate the influence of the water flow rate on the jet cooling characteristics and develop a correlation for the radial position of the maximum Nusselt number based on numerical results.

Two sets of boundary conditions – constant temperature and constant heat flux – are applied at the surface of the steel plate and evaluated. The single jet numerical results compare favourably with published data based on measurements and analytical models. The thermal performance of a two-jet system was found to be no better than a single jet because the jets were too far from each other to generate any additional thermal interaction.

More than half of all electrical energy is consumed by motors and generators in an industrialized country. About 5-25% of this energy is lost and converted to heat. This heat produced by the losses has adverse effect on the lifetime and performance of a machine. A machine has to be operated at a given temperature to achieve maximum efficiency, therefore heat transfer study of machines is of special interest to rotating machines manufacturers. In this paper we investigate the heat transfer in the air-gap between the rotor and the stator of a simplified induction motor using Computational Fluid Dynamics. We consider three different air-gap widths and rotation speeds to explore the change in air-gap heat transfer when changing the air-gap width and the rotation speed. The simulated average heat transfer coefficients for all the models are in good agreement with the correlations from published literature. The Taylor-Couette vortical flow pattern is observed in the air-gap in our simulation results for the models with large air-gaps. The numerical results show that the presence of Taylor-Couette vortices in the air-gap enhance the heat transfer. The heat transfer coefficient increases with the increase in the rotation speed and decreases with the decrease in the air-gap width.