Thermal mixing in a T-junction: Novel CFD-grade measurements of the fluctuating temperature in the solid wall

Abstract

A B S T R A C TThis article reports new experiments performed with the purpose of generating novel data of the fluctuating temperature inside the solid in the mixing region between hot and cold water in a T-junction. This data has been measured using a novel sensor (coefh) developed at the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives (CEA) in Cadarache, France. These experiments are performed within the framework of the MOTHER project. The main objective of the MOTHER project is to validate various CFD approaches (such as LES, Hybrid i.e. RANS/LES and RANS) for transient heat transfer in a T-junction configuration including the pipe wall. Hence, the performed experiments have focused on accurately measuring and documenting the boundary conditions to be able to have a well-defined database for CFD validation. The tests are performed for two different Reynolds numbers 40000 and 60000 and for two different T-junction geometries; a sharp corner and a round corner.

A Contraction Based Solution for the Improvement of Fish Ladder Attraction Flow

“…The maximum turbulence level T rms /∆T is 20% in the shear layer in line with other mixing situations between hot and cold water e.g. Angele [4], Smith [35] and Braillard [9]. This essentially implies that the temperature was varying in almost the whole range between hot and cold.…”

The effect of inlet flow conditions upon thermal mixing and conjugate heat transfer within the wall of a T-Junction

“…More recently, the MOTHER project (Modelling T-junction Heat Transfer) provided new experimental data on the heat transfer and thermal loads within the solid wall of a T-junction. The experiment was designed to assess the capability of CFD codes to accurately predict thermal fluctuations in the solid wall and thus gain insights into thermal fatigue phenomena [14,15].…”