Faculty Publications
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Item A Synergistic Combination of Thermal Models for Optimal Temperature Distribution of Discrete Sources Through Metal Foams in a Vertical Channel(American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) infocentral@asme.org, 2019) Kotresha, B.; Gnanasekaran, N.This paper discusses about the numerical prediction of forced convection heat transfer through high-porosity metal foams with discrete heat sources in a vertical channel. The physical geometry consists of a discrete heat source assembly placed at the center of the channel along with high thermal conductivity porous metal foams in order to enhance the heat transfer. The novelty of the present work is the use of combination of local thermal equilibrium (LTE) model and local thermal nonequilibrium (LTNE) model for the metal foam region to investigate the temperature distribution of the heat sources and to obtain an optimal heat distribution so as to achieve isothermal condition. Aluminum and copper metal foams of 10 PPI having a thickness of 20 mm are considered for the numerical simulations. The metal foam region is considered as homogeneous porous media and numerically modeled using Darcy Extended Forchheimer model. The proposed methodology is validated using the experimental results available in literature. The results of the present numerical solution indicate that the excess temperature of the bottom heat source reduces by 100 °C with the use of aluminum metal foam. The overall temperature of the vertical channel reduces based on the combination of LTE and LTNE models compared to only LTNE model. The results of excess temperature for both the empty and the metal foam filled vertical channels are presented in this work. © 2019 by ASME.Item Numerical Simulations of Flow-Assisted Mixed Convection in a Vertical Channel Filled with High Porosity Metal Foams(Taylor and Francis Ltd., 2020) Kotresha, B.; Gnanasekaran, N.; Balaji, C.In this work, two-dimensional numerical simulations of flow-assisted mixed convection in a vertical channel filled with high porosity metal foams have been carried out by using the commercial ANSYS FLUENT. In order to enhance heat transfer, the vertical channel is filled with aluminum metal foams of different pores per inch (PPI). Four different metal foams PPI 10, 20, 30, and 45, with porosity values varying from 0.90 to 0.95 are considered in this study. The geometry under consideration consists of metal foam attached to the aluminum plate in the vertical channel and the resulting problem becomes conjugate heat transfer. The metal foam region is considered as a homogeneous porous medium with the Darcy Extended Forchheirmer model to evaluate the flow characteristics while the local thermal non-equilibrium heat transfer model is considered for the heat transfer analysis. Initially, numerical results are compared with the experimental results available in literature and the agreement was found to be good. Parametric studies show that as the metal foam PPI increases, the pressure drop increases, while the heat transfer is seen to increase with an increase in the pore density of the metal foam. © 2019, © 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.Item Numerical Simulations of Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer through Aluminum and Copper Metal Foam Heat Exchanger–A Comparative Study(Taylor and Francis Ltd. michael.wagreich@univie.ac.at, 2020) Kotresha, B.; Gnanasekaran, N.This article discusses about a numerical simulation of a metal foam heat exchanger system carried out by a commercial software. A metal foam layer is attached to the bottom of the heat exchanger to absorb heat from the exhaust hot gas leaving the system. Two types of metal foams with two different pores per inch (PPI) values are considered for heat transfer enhancement. Similarly, two different materials Aluminum and copper, that poses high thermal conductivity, metal foams are considered for the present numerical simulations. The heat exchanger system is simulated over a range of 6–30 m/s fluid velocity. The proposed simulations are compared with theoretical and experimental data available in the literature. The goal is to improve the thermal performance of the heat exchanger by decreasing the pressure drop and maximizing the heat transfer rate. Finally, it has been noticed that the velocity of the fluid decreases as PPI increases at the expense of its pressure drop. The copper metal foam gives a maximum increase of 4–10% heat transfer rate compared to aluminum metal foams for a fluid velocity of 30 m/s. © 2019, © 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.Item Nuances of fluid flow through a vertical channel in the presence of metal foam/solid block – A hydrodynamic analysis using CFD(Elsevier Ltd, 2020) Kotresha, B.; Gnanasekaran, N.A numerical study is presented in this paper to examine the fluid flow in a vertical channel partly filled with porous metallic foams. The physical model comprises of aluminum plate-heater assembly placed in the vertical channel. Heat is carried away by the working fluid air from the plates inside the vertical channel through forced convection. High thermal conductivity metal foams are attached to the heater-plate assembly in order to reduce the temperature of the aluminum plates. Thus, the study pays attention only to the characteristics of fluid flow at different positions of the vertical channel in the presence of metal foams. The present analysis considers the Forchheimer – Extended Darcy equation for the metal foam to predict the fluid flow in conjunction with the local non-thermal equilibrium model for the analysis of heat transfer through the porous metal foams. At first, the methodology applied to the present numerical analysis is validated with the existing results. Upon reaffirming the solution methodology, the results of the metal foam study are then compared with a solid block that replaces the metal foam structure inside the vertical channel. Consequently, as a novel approach, the analysis enables one to arbitrate the tradeoff between the porous metal foam and the solid block for heat transfer augmentation from the plate assembly to the air. © 2020 Elsevier LtdItem A Parametric Study on Mixed Convection in a Vertical Channel in the Presence of Wire Mesh(Taylor and Francis Ltd., 2021) Kotresha, B.; Gnanasekaran, N.A numerical study on mixed convection is carried out through a partially filled brass wire mesh in a vertical channel. A heater embedded with aluminum plates is placed at the center of the vertical channel. The aluminum heater assembly is wrapped with brass wire mesh to facilitate more heat transfer. The vertical channel that consists of aluminum heater assembly with the brass wire mesh is considered as the numerical model. Local thermal non-equilibrium and Darcy extended Forchheimer models are used to accomplish the numerical simulations for thermal and flow characteristics of the considered domain. The aim of the study is to find out the optimum filling of the brass wire mesh in the channel which gives a higher heat transfer rate with low pumping power of the fluid. In the present analysis, three different filling conditions of wire mesh are considered: (i) fully filled channel, (ii) 70% filled channel, and (iii) 40% filled channel. From the results, it is inferred that the vertical channel partially filled with 70% of wire mesh porous medium predicts 89% of heat transfer of the completely filled channel with 41% reduced pressure loss. As a result, the proposed parametric study is good enough to prove that the partly filled wire mesh can be used in the thermal applications where augmentation of heat transfer is required with less pressure drop. © 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.