Thermo-Fluidic Characteristics of Two-Phase Ice Slurry Flows Based on Comparative Numerical Methods

Abstract

Ice slurry is a potential secondary refrigerant for commercial refrigeration systems because of its remarkable thermal properties. It is necessary to optimize the heat transfer process of ice slurry to reduce the energy consumption of the refrigeration system. Thus, this study investigates the heat transfer performance of single-phase (aqueous solution) and two-phase (ice slurry) refrigerants in a straight horizontal tube. The numerical simulations for ice slurry were performed with ice mass fraction ranging from 5% to 20%. The effects of flow velocity and ice concentration on the heat transfer coefficient were examined. The results showed that heat transfer coefficient of ice slurry is considerably higher than those of single-phase flow, particularly at high flow velocity and ice content, where increase in heat transfer with a factor of two was observed. The present results confirmed that ice slurry heat transfer ability is considerably affected by flow velocity and ice concentration in laminar range. Moreover, the second part of this paper reports on the credibility three distinct two-phase Eulerian–Eulerian models (volume of fluid (VOF), mixture, and Eulerian) for the experimental conditions reported in the literature. All two-phase models accurately predict the thermal field at low ice mass fraction but underestimate that at high ice mass fractions. Regardless of the thermal discrepancies, the Eulerian–Eulerian models provide quite reasonable estimation of pressure drop with reference to experimental data. The numerical predictions from the VOF model are more accordant with the experimental results and the maximum percentage error is limited to ~20% and ~13% for thermal and pressure drop predictions, respectively.

Slurry Pipeline for Fluid Transients in Pressurized Conduits

“…To analyze two-phase flow under the influence of various floating particles, it is necessary to develop a new model which investigates the mechanism of their interaction. A few recent works have proposed this study [28], [29], [30]- [31]. On others words, establishing the multiphase model with considering solid-liquid two-phase coupling, as mentioned in [32].…”

“…The equality (29) shows that quantity f T f L converges to zero when Q goes to zero. If f T f L tends towards zero, then, using an order 1 limited development of the natural logarithm function ln, we obtain the following expansion of function:…”

Numerical Investigation of the Pressure Drop Characteristics of Isothermal Ice Slurry Flow under Variable Ice Particle Diameter

“…Given the advancement in the numerical techniques and the complexity involved in experimental setups, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) emerge as an excellent tool for obtaining extensive knowledge on two-phase flows, particularly ice slurry flow and accurate pressure drop estimation in pipes. Some researchers developed numerical modelling approaches to simulate ice slurry flow in pipes [26][27][28][29].…”