Heat Modeling

Mathematical Problems in Engineering
Mathematical Modeling of Heat and

Mass Transfer in Energy Science and
Engineering 2014
Guest Editors: Zhijun Zhang, Hua-Shu Dou, Ireneusz Zbicinski, Zhonghua Wu,
and Jun Liu
Mathematical Modeling of Heat
and Mass Transfer in Energy Science
and Engineering 2014
Mathematical Modeling of Heat

and Mass Transfer in Energy Science
and Engineering 2014
Guest Editors: Zhijun Zhang, Hua-Shu Dou,

Ireneusz Zbicinski, Zhonghua Wu, and Jun Liu
Copyright © 2015 Hindawi Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.
This is a special issue published in “Mathematical Problems in Engineering.” All articles are open access articles distributed under the
Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited.
Editorial Board
Mohamed Abd El Aziz, Egypt Abdel-Ouahab Boudraa, France Horst Ecker, Austria
Farid Abed-Meraim, France Taha Boukhobza, France Karen Egiazarian, Finland
Silvia Abrahão, Spain Francesco Braghin, Italy Ahmed El Hajjaji, France
Paolo Addesso, Italy Michael J. Brennan, UK Mohsen Elhafsi, USA
Claudia Adduce, Italy Gunther Brenner, Germany Fouad Erchiqui, Canada
Ramesh Agarwal, USA Maurizio Brocchini, Italy Anders Eriksson, Sweden
Juan C. Agüero, Australia Julien Bruchon, France Giovanni Falsone, Italy
Ricardo Aguilar-Lpez, Mexico Javier Buldufh, Spain Hua Fan, China
Tarek Ahmed-Ali, France Tito Busani, USA Yann Favennec, France
Hamid Akbarzadeh, Canada Pierfrancesco Cacciola, UK Roberto Fedele, Italy
Muhammad N. Akram, Norway Salvatore Caddemi, Italy Giuseppe Fedele, Italy
Salvatore Alfonzetti, Italy Jose E. Capilla, Spain Jacques Ferland, Canada
Francisco Alhama, Spain Ana Carpio, Spain Jose R. Fernandez, Spain
Tofigh Allahviranloo, Iran Miguel E. Cerrolaza, Spain Simme Douwe Flapper, Netherlands
Juan A. Almendral, Spain Mohammed Chadli, France Thierry Floquet, France
Saiied Aminossadati, Australia Gregory Chagnon, France Eric Florentin, France
Lionel Amodeo, France Ching-Ter Chang, Taiwan Francesco Franco, Italy
Igor Andrianov, Germany Michael J. Chappell, UK Tomonari Furukawa, USA
Sebastian Anita, Romania Kacem Chehdi, France Mohamed Gadala, Canada
Renata Archetti, Italy Xinkai Chen, Japan Matteo Gaeta, Italy
Felice Arena, Italy Chunlin Chen, China Zoran Gajic, USA
Sabri Arik, Turkey Francisco Chicano, Spain Ciprian G. Gal, USA
Fumihiro Ashida, Japan Hung-Yuan Chung, Taiwan Rafael Gallego, Spain
Hassan Askari, Canada Joaquim Ciurana, Spain Ugo Galvanetto, Italy
Mohsen Asle Zaeem, USA John D. Clayton, USA Akemi Glvez, Spain
Francesco Aymerich, Italy Carlo Cosentino, Italy Rita Gamberini, Italy
Seungik Baek, USA Paolo Crippa, Italy Maria Gandarias, Spain
Khaled Bahlali, France Erik Cuevas, Mexico Arman Ganji, Canada
Laurent Bako, France Peter Dabnichki, Australia Zhong-Ke Gao, China
Stefan Balint, Romania Luca D’Acierno, Italy Xin-Lin Gao, USA
Alfonso Banos, Spain Weizhong Dai, USA Giovanni Garcea, Italy
Roberto Baratti, Italy Purushothaman Damodaran, USA Fernando Garca, Spain
Martino Bardi, Italy Farhang Daneshmand, Canada Laura Gardini, Italy
Azeddine Beghdadi, France Fabio De Angelis, Italy Alessandro Gasparetto, Italy
Tarak Ben Zineb, France Stefano de Miranda, Italy Vincenzo Gattulli, Italy
Abdel-Hakim Bendada, Canada Filippo de Monte, Italy Jürgen Geiser, Germany
Ivano Benedetti, Italy Xavier Delorme, France Oleg V. Gendelman, Israel
Elena Benvenuti, Italy Luca Deseri, USA Mergen H. Ghayesh, Australia
Jamal Berakdar, Germany Yannis Dimakopoulos, Greece Anna M. Gil-Lafuente, Spain
Enrique Berjano, Spain Zhengtao Ding, UK Hector Gómez, Spain
Jean-Charles Beugnot, France Ralph B. Dinwiddie, USA Rama S. R. Gorla, USA
Simone Bianco, Italy Mohamed Djemai, France Oded Gottlieb, Israel
David Bigaud, France Alexandre B. Dolgui, France Antoine Grall, France
Jonathan N. Blakely, USA George S. Dulikravich, USA Jason Gu, Canada
Daniela Boso, Italy Bogdan Dumitrescu, Finland Quang Phuc Ha, Australia
Ofer Hadar, Israel Yaguo Lei, China Ben T. Nohara, Japan
Masoud Hajarian, Iran Thibault Lemaire, France Mohammed Nouari, France
Frédéric Hamelin, France Stefano Lenci, Italy Mustapha Nourelfath, Canada
Zhen-Lai Han, China Roman Lewandowski, Poland Sotiris K. Ntouyas, Greece
Thomas Hanne, Switzerland Qing Q. Liang, Australia Roger Ohayon, France
Xiao-Qiao He, China Panos Liatsis, UK Mitsuhiro Okayasu, Japan
Marı́a I. Herreros, Spain Wanquan Liu, Australia Javier Ortega-Garcia, Spain
Vincent Hilaire, France Yan-Jun Liu, China Alejandro Ortega-Moux, Spain
Eckhard Hitzer, Japan Peide Liu, China Naohisa Otsuka, Japan
Jaromir Horacek, Czech Republic Peter Liu, Taiwan Erika Ottaviano, Italy
Muneo Hori, Japan Jean J. Loiseau, France Alkiviadis Paipetis, Greece
Andrs Horvth, Italy Paolo Lonetti, Italy Alessandro Palmeri, UK
Gordon Huang, Canada Luis M. López-Ochoa, Spain Anna Pandolfi, Italy
Sajid Hussain, Canada Vassilios C. Loukopoulos, Greece Elena Panteley, France
Asier Ibeas, Spain Valentin Lychagin, Norway Manuel Pastor, Spain
Giacomo Innocenti, Italy Fazal M. Mahomed, South Africa Pubudu N. Pathirana, Australia
Emilio Insfran, Spain Yassir T. Makkawi, UK Francesco Pellicano, Italy
Nazrul Islam, USA Noureddine Manamanni, France Haipeng Peng, China
Payman Jalali, Finland Didier Maquin, France Mingshu Peng, China
Reza Jazar, Australia Paolo Maria Mariano, Italy Zhike Peng, China
Khalide Jbilou, France Benoit Marx, France Marzio Pennisi, Italy
Linni Jian, China Gefhrard A. Maugin, France Matjaz Perc, Slovenia
Bin Jiang, China Driss Mehdi, France Claudio Pernechele, Italy
Zhongping Jiang, USA Roderick Melnik, Canada Francesco Pesavento, Italy
Ningde Jin, China Pasquale Memmolo, Italy Maria do Rosrio Pinho, Portugal
Grand R. Joldes, Australia Xiangyu Meng, Canada Antonina Pirrotta, Italy
Joaquim Joao Judice, Portugal Jose Merodio, Spain Vicent Pla, Spain
Tadeusz Kaczorek, Poland Luciano Mescia, Italy Javier Plaza, Spain
Tamas Kalmar-Nagy, Hungary Laurent Mevel, France Jean-Christophe Ponsart, France
Tomasz Kapitaniak, Poland Philippe Micheau, Canada Mauro Pontani, Italy
Haranath Kar, India Y. Vladimirovich Mikhlin, Ukraine Stanislav Potapenko, Canada
Konstantinos Karamanos, Belgium Aki Mikkola, Finland Sergio Preidikman, USA
C. Masood Khalique, South Africa Hiroyuki Mino, Japan Christopher Pretty, New Zealand
Nam-Il Kim, Korea Pablo Mira, Spain Carsten Proppe, Germany
Do Wan Kim, Korea Vito Mocella, Italy Luca Pugi, Italy
Oleg Kirillov, Germany Roberto Montanini, Italy Yuming Qin, China
Alexander Klimenko, Australia Gisele Mophou, France Dane Quinn, USA
Manfred Krafczyk, Germany Rafael Morales, Spain Jose Ragot, France
Frederic Kratz, France Aziz Moukrim, France K. Ramamani Rajagopal, USA
Jurgen Kurths, Germany Emiliano Mucchi, Italy Gianluca Ranzi, Australia
Kyandoghere Kyamakya, Austria Domenico Mundo, Italy Sivaguru Ravindran, USA
Davide La Torre, Italy Jose J. Muoz, Spain Alessandro Reali, Italy
Risto Lahdelma, Finland Giuseppe Muscolino, Italy Giuseppe Rega, Italy
Hak-Keung Lam, UK Marco Mussetta, Italy Oscar Reinoso, Spain
Antonino Laudani, Italy Hakim Naceur, France Nidhal Rezg, France
Aime’ Lay-Ekuakille, Italy Hassane Naji, France Ricardo Riaza, Spain
Mark Leeson, UK Dong Ngoduy, UK Gerasimos Rigatos, Greece
Marek Lefik, Poland Tatsushi Nishi, Japan José Rodellar, Spain
Rosana Rodriguez-Lopez, Spain Luciano Simoni, Italy Raoul van Loon, UK
Ignacio Rojas, Spain Christos H. Skiadas, Greece Alain Vande Wouwer, Belgium
Carla Roque, Portugal Michael Small, Australia Pandian Vasant, Malaysia
Aline Roumy, France Francesco Soldovieri, Italy M. E. Vázquez-Méndez, Spain
Debasish Roy, India Raffaele Solimene, Italy Josep Vehi, Spain
R. Ruiz Garcı́a, Spain Ruben Specogna, Italy Kalyana C. Veluvolu, Korea
Antonio Ruiz-Cortes, Spain Victor Sreeram, Australia Fons J. Verbeek, Netherlands
Ivan D. Rukhlenko, Australia Sri Sridharan, USA Franck J. Vernerey, USA
Mazen Saad, France Ivanka Stamova, USA Georgios Veronis, USA
Kishin Sadarangani, Spain Rolf Stenberg, Finland Anna Vila, Spain
Mehrdad Saif, Canada Yakov Strelniker, Israel Rafael J. Villanueva, Spain
Miguel A. Salido, Spain Sergey A. Suslov, Australia U. E. Vincent, UK
Roque J. Saltarén, Spain Thomas Svensson, Sweden Mirko Viroli, Italy
Alessandro Salvini, Italy Andrzej Swierniak, Poland Michael Vynnycky, Sweden
Angel Snchez, Spain Yang Tang, Germany Junwu Wang, China
Maura Sandri, Italy Sergio Teggi, Italy Shuming Wang, Singapore
Miguel A. F. Sanjuan, Spain Roger Temam, USA Yan-Wu Wang, China
Juan F. San-Juan, Spain Alexander Timokha, Norway Yongqi Wang, Germany
Roberta Santoro, Italy Rafael Toledo-Moreo, Spain Jeroen A. S. Witteveen, Netherlands
Ilmar Ferreira Santos, Denmark Gisella Tomasini, Italy Yuqiang Wu, China
José A. Sanz-Herrera, Spain Francesco Tornabene, Italy Dash Desheng Wu, Canada
Nickolas S. Sapidis, Greece Antonio Tornambe, Italy Xuejun Xie, China
E. J. Sapountzakis, Greece Fernando Torres, Spain Guangming Xie, China
Themistoklis P. Sapsis, USA Fabio Tramontana, Italy Gen Qi Xu, China
Andrey V. Savkin, Australia Sébastien Tremblay, Canada Hang Xu, China
Valery Sbitnev, Russia Irina N. Trendafilova, UK Xinggang Yan, UK
Thomas Schuster, Germany George Tsiatas, Greece Luis J. Yebra, Spain
Mohammed Seaid, UK Antonios Tsourdos, UK Peng-Yeng Yin, Taiwan
Lotfi Senhadji, France Vladimir Turetsky, Israel Ibrahim Zeid, USA
Joan Serra-Sagrista, Spain Mustafa Tutar, Spain Qingling Zhang, China
Leonid Shaikhet, Ukraine Efstratios Tzirtzilakis, Greece Huaguang Zhang, China
Hassan M. Shanechi, USA Filippo Ubertini, Italy Jian Guo Zhou, UK
Sanjay K. Sharma, India Francesco Ubertini, Italy Quanxin Zhu, China
Bo Shen, Germany Hassan Ugail, UK Mustapha Zidi, France
Babak Shotorban, USA Giuseppe Vairo, Italy Alessandro Zona, Italy
Zhan Shu, UK Kuppalapalle Vajravelu, USA
Dan Simon, USA Robertt A. Valente, Portugal
Contents
Mathematical Modeling of Heat and Mass Transfer in Energy Science and Engineering 2014,
Zhijun Zhang, Hua-Shu Dou, Ireneusz Zbicinski, Zhonghua Wu, and Jun Liu
Volume 2015, Article ID 609382, 3 pages
Numerical Investigations of the Effect of Nonlinear Quadratic Pressure Gradient Term on a Moving
Boundary Problem of Radial Flow in Low-Permeable Reservoirs with Threshold Pressure Gradient,
Wenchao Liu and Jun Yao
A Differential-Algebraic Model for the Once-Through Steam Generator of MHTGR-Based

Multimodular Nuclear Plants, Zhe Dong
A Numerical Study of Natural Convection Heat Transfer in Fin Ribbed Radiator, Hua-Shu Dou,
Gang Jiang, and Lite Zhang
Numerical Study of Buoyancy Convection of Air under Permanent Magnetic Field and Comparison
with That under Gravity Field, Kewei Song, Wenkai Li, Yang Zhou, and Yuanru Lu
System Model of Heat and Mass Transfer Process for Mobile Solvent Vapor Phase Drying Equipment,
Shiwei Zhang, Yufang Zhu, Baozhen Qiao, and Zhijun Zhang
Research on the Impact of Wind Angles on the Residential Building Energy Consumption, Zou Huifen,
Yang Fuhua, and Zhang Qian
Local Fractional Laplace Variational Iteration Method for Nonhomogeneous Heat Equations Arising in
Fractal Heat Flow, Shu Xu, Xiang Ling, Carlo Cattani, Gong-Nan Xie, Xiao-Jun Yang, and Yang Zhao
Numerical Simulation and Experimental Research on Coal Ash Collecting and Grading System,
Yuanhua Xie, Xianjin Li, Liwei Wang, Hong Yu, Bing Bai, Zhizhou Xu, and Tong Zhu
Simulation of Microstructure during Laser Rapid Forming Solidification Based on Cellular Automaton,
Zhi-jian Wang, Shuai Luo, Hong-wu Song, Wei-dong Deng, and Wen-yi Li
Application of CFD, Taguchi Method, and ANOVA Technique to Optimize Combustion and Emissions
in a Light Duty Diesel Engine, Senlin Xiao, Wanchen Sun, Jiakun Du, and Guoliang Li
Mathematical Simulation of Heat and Mass Transfer Processes at the Ignition of Liquid Fuel by
Concentrated Flux of Radiation, Olga V. Vysokomornaya, Genii V. Kuznetsov, and Pavel A. Strizhak
Heat and Mass Transfer of Droplet Vacuum Freezing Process Based on Dynamic Mesh, Lili Zhao,
Yuekai Zhang, Zhijun Zhang, Xun Li, and Wenhui Zhang
Entropy Generation Analysis of Power-Law Non-Newtonian Fluid Flow Caused by Micropatterned

Moving Surface, M. H. Yazdi, I. Hashim, A. Fudholi, P. Ooshaksaraei, and K. Sopian
Numerical Investigation on a Prototype Centrifugal Pump Subjected to Fluctuating Rotational Speed,

Yu-Liang Zhang, Jun-Jian Xiao, Yan-Jun Zhao, and Ying-Yu Ji
Numerical and Experimental Research of Heat and Mass Transfer at the Heterogeneous System Ignition
by Local Energy Source with Limited Heat Content, Dmitrii O. Glushkov, Genii V. Kuznetsov,
and Pavel A. Strizhak
An Improved Dispatch Strategy of a Grid-Connected Hybrid Energy System with High Penetration
Level of Renewable Energy, Yan Zhang, Jie Meng, Bo Guo, and Tao Zhang
Fermentation Process Modeling with Levenberg-Marquardt Algorithm and Runge-Kutta Method on

Ethanol Production by Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Dengfeng Liu, Ling Xu, Weili Xiong, Hong-Tao Zhang,
Chi-Chung Lin, Lihua Jiang, and Baoguo Xu
Analysis of Combined Power and Refrigeration Generation Using the Carbon Dioxide Thermodynamic
Cycle to Recover the Waste Heat of an Internal Combustion Engine, Shunsen Wang, Kunlun Bai,
Yonghui Xie, Juan Di, and Shangfang Cheng
Mathematical Modeling of Eddy-Current Loss for a New Induction Heating Device, Hai Du, Junyuan Li,
and Yanbin Qu
Energy Loss in Pulse Detonation Engine due to Fuel Viscosity, Weipeng Hu, Zichen Deng,
and Gongnan Xie
Pore Network Analysis of Zone Model for Porous Media Drying, Yuan Yuejin, Zhao Zhe, Nie Junnan,
and Xu Yingying
Model-Based Water Wall Fault Detection and Diagnosis of FBC Boiler Using Strong Tracking Filter,
Li Sun, Junyi Dong, Donghai Li, and Yuqiong Zhang
Application of D-S Evidence Fusion Method in the Fault Detection of Temperature Sensor, Zheng Dou,
Xiaochun Xu, Yun Lin, and Ruolin Zhou
Mixed Convection Unsteady Stagnation-Point Flow towards a Stretching Sheet with Slip Effects,
Hui Chen
Effects of Wall Shear Stress on MHD Conjugate Flow over an Inclined Plate in a Porous Medium with
Ramped Wall Temperature, Arshad Khan, Ilyas Khan, Farhad Ali, and Sharidan Shafie
An Optimization Model Based on Electric Power Generation in Steel Industry, Jing-yu Liu and Jiu-ju Cai
Identification of Shaft Centerline Orbit for Wind Power Units Based on Hopfield Neural Network
Improved by Simulated Annealing, Kun Ren and Jihong Qu
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/609382
Editorial
Mathematical Modeling of Heat and Mass Transfer in Energy
Science and Engineering 2014
Zhijun Zhang,1 Hua-Shu Dou,2 Ireneusz Zbicinski,3 Zhonghua Wu,4 and Jun Liu5
1
School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110004, China
2
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310018, China
3
Faculty of Process and Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Lodz, 90-924 Lodz, Poland
4
Institute of Drying and Dewatering, College of Mechanical Engineering, Tianjin University of Science and Technology,
1038 Daguan Road, Hexi District, Tianjin 300222, China
5
Institute of Biology and Chemistry, Shenyang University, Shenyang 110044, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Zhijun Zhang; zhjzhang@mail.neu.edu.cn
Received 29 September 2014; Accepted 29 September 2014
Copyright © 2015 Zhijun Zhang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Heat and mass transfer process is the basis of energy research pressure gradient” by W. Liu and J. Yao, based on these
from the boiler, gas turbine to fuel cell, solar power. It is concerns, in consideration of the QPGT, a moving boundary
the need of energy conversion and transfer process. The model of radial flow in low-permeable reservoirs with the
heat and mass transfer process mainly include the following TPG for the case of a constant flow rate at the inner boundary
aspects: thermodynamics, power and fluid machinery, heat is constructed.
and mass transfer, combustion, and multiphase flow. The idea In “Numerical study of buoyancy convection of air under
of this special issue is to consider the study and applications permanent magnetic field and xomparison with that under
of mathematical modeling method on energy science and gravity field” by K. Song et al., magneto thermal free con-
technology. vection of air in a square enclosure under a nonuniform
This special issue contains 27 papers, the contents of magnetic field provided by a permanent neodymium-iron-
which are summarized as follows. boron magnet is numerically studied.
The paper entitled “A numerical study of natural con- In “System model of heat and mass transfer process for
vection heat transfer in fin ribbed radiator” by H.-S. Dou mobile solvent vapor phase drying equipment” by S. Zhang
et al. numerically investigates the physical mechanism of flow et al., on the basis of necessary simplification and assumption
instability and heat transfer of natural convection in a cavity for MVPD equipment and process, a heat and mass transfer
fixed with fin arrays. mathematical model including 40 mathematical equations
In “A differential-algebraic model for the once-through is established, which represents completely thermodynamics
steam generator of MHTGR-based multi-modular nuclear laws of phase change and transport process of solvent, water,
plants” by Z. Dong, based upon the conservation laws of mass, and air in MVPD technological processes and describes in
energy, and momentum, a new differential-algebraic model detail the quantitative relationship among important physical
for the OTSGs of the MHTGR based multimodular nuclear quantities such as temperature, pressure, and flux in key
plants is given. equipment units and process.
In “Numerical investigations of the effect of nonlinear The paper entitled “Research on the impact of wind angles
quadratic pressure gradient term on a moving boundary prob- on the residential building energy consumption” by Z. Huifen
lem of radial flow in low-permeable reservoirs with threshold et al., combined with natural ventilation under various wind
2 Mathematical Problems in Engineering
angles, gives the best recommended solution of building numerical and experimental investigations were executed
direction in Shenyang. for determination of macroscopic regularities of heat and
In “Local fractional Laplace variational iteration method mass transfer processes under the conditions of the phase
for nonhomogeneous heat equations arising in fractal heat transformations and chemical reaction at the ignition of
flow” by S. Xu et al., the approximate solutions are nondiffer- vapors coming from fabrics impregnated by combustible
entiable functions and their plots are also given to show the liquid into oxidant area at the local power supply.
accuracy and efficiency to implement the previous method. The paper entitled “An improved dispatch strategy of a
In “Numerical simulation and experimental research on grid-connected hybrid energy system with high penetration
coal ash collecting and grading system” by Y. Xie at al., focused level of renewable energy” by Y. Zhang et al. focuses on the
on single coal ash particle, Matlab software was used to fluctuation alleviation and power quality improvement of
simulate the force conditions and separation parameters of grid-connected HES with high penetration level of RES.
various diameter coal ash particles in airflow. Fluent software In “Analysis of combined power and refrigeration gen-
was used to simulate the nozzle fluidization domain shape eration using the carbon dioxide thermodynamic cycle to
and to determine optimal jet flux. recover the waste heat of an internal combustion engine” by
In “Simulation of microstructure during laser rapid form- S. Wang et al., a novel thermodynamic system is proposed
ing solidification based on cellular automaton” by Z. Wang to recover the waste heat of an internal combustion engine
et al., the grain microstructure of molten pool during the (ICE) by integrating the transcritical carbon dioxide (CO2 )
solidification of TC4 titanium alloy in the single point laser refrigeration cycle with the supercritical CO2 power cycle,
cladding was investigated based on the CAFE model which is and eight kinds of integration schemes are developed.
the cellular automaton (CA) coupled with the finite element In “Mathematical modeling of eddy-current loss for a new
(FE) method. induction heating device” by H. Du et al., this device can
In “Application of CFD, Taguchi method, and ANOVA convert mechanical energy into heat energy by utilizing eddy
technique to optimize combustion and emissions in a light currents, which are induced by rotating permanent magnets.
duty diesel engine” by S. Xiao et al., in order to understand A mathematical model is established for estimating eddy-
the combined effect of EGR rate, pilot fuel quantity, and current loss of the device.
main injection timing on the NO𝑥 (oxides of nitrogen), In “Energy loss in pulse detonation engine due to fuel
soot, and ISFC (indicated specific fuel consumption), CFD viscosity” by W. Hu et al., to analyze the energy loss in
(computational fluid dynamics) simulation together with the pulse detonation engine (PDE) due to the viscosity of
the Taguchi method and the ANOVA (analysis of variance) the fuel, the energy loss in the Burgers model excited by
technique was applied as an effective research tool. periodic impulses is investigated based on the generalized
In “Mathematical simulation of heat and mass transfer multisymplectic method in this paper.
processes at the ignition of liquid fuel by concentrated flux of The paper entitled “Pore network analysis of zone model
radiation” by O. V. Vysokomornaya et al., the physical and for porous media drying” by Y. Yuejin et al. fused the physical
forecasting mathematical models of heat and mass transfer parameters of porous media, such as porosity, pore mean
with phase transformations and chemical reactions under diameter, and pore size distribution into the model param-
heating and following ignition of typical liquid fuel by using eters, and a sand bed drying experiment was conducted to
concentrated flow of radiation were developed. verify the validity of this model.
In “Heat and mass transfer of droplet vacuum freezing In “Model-based water wall fault detection and diagnosis
process based on dynamic mesh” by L. Zhao et al., the initial of FBC boiler using strong tracking filter” by L. Sun et al., a
droplet diameter, initial droplet temperature, and vacuum model-based approach is presented to estimate internal states
chamber pressure effect are studied. and heat transfer coefficient dually from the noisy measurable
In “Entropy generation analysis of power-law non- outputs.
Newtonian fluid flow caused by micropatterned moving In “Application of D-S evidence fusion method in the fault
surface” by M. H. Yazdi et al., the first and second law analyses detection of temperature sensor” by Z. Dou et al., based on
of power-law non-Newtonian flow over embedded open the idea of information fusion and the requirements of D-S
parallel microchannels within micropatterned permeable evidence method, a D-S evidence fusion structure with two
continuous moving surface are examined at prescribed layers was introduced to detect the temperature sensor fault
surface temperature. in drying process.
In “Numerical investigation on a prototype centrifugal The paper entitled “Mixed convection unsteady stagna-
pump subjected to fluctuating rotational speed” by Y.-L. Zhang tion-point flow towards a stretching sheet with slip effects” by
et al., in order to study the transient response characteristic H. Chen studies the unsteady mixed convection flow of an
of a prototype centrifugal pump subjected to fluctuating incompressible viscous fluid about a stagnation point on a
rotational speed, a closed-loop pipe system including the stretching sheet in presence of velocity and thermal slips.
pump is built to accomplish unsteady flow calculations in The paper entitled “Effects of wall shear stress on MHD
which the boundary conditions at the inlet and the outlet of conjugate flow over an inclined plate in a porous medium
the pump are not required to be set. with ramped wall Temperature” by A. Khan et al. investigates
In “Numerical and experimental research of heat and mass the effects of an arbitrary wall shear stress on unsteady
transfer at the heterogeneous system ignition by local energy magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flow of a Newtonian fluid
source with limited heat content” by D. O. Glushkov et al., with conjugate effects of heat and mass transfer.
Mathematical Problems in Engineering 3
In “An optimization model based on electric power

generation in steel industry” by J. Liu and J. Cai, under
the premise of ensuring the stability of energy supply and the
normal production safety, the mathematical programming
method and the dynamic mathematical optimization model
were used to set up the surplus gas in the optimal allocation
among the buffer users and steam production dispatching for
the production equipment.
The paper entitled “Identification of shaft centerline orbit
for wind power units based on Hopfield neural network
improved by simulated annealing” by K. Ren and J. Qu
presents the diagnosis of the orbit as follows: acquire char-
acters of orbit by the affine invariant moments, take this as
the characteristic parameters of neural networks to construct
the identification model, and utilize simulated annealing
(SA) algorithm to optimize the weights matrix of Hopfield
neural network, and then some typical faults were selected as
examples to identify.
Zhijun Zhang
Hua-Shu Dou
Ireneusz Zbicinski
Zhonghua Wu
Jun Liu
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/275057
Research Article
Numerical Investigations of the Effect of Nonlinear Quadratic
Pressure Gradient Term on a Moving Boundary Problem of
Radial Flow in Low-Permeable Reservoirs with Threshold
Pressure Gradient
Wenchao Liu1,2 and Jun Yao1

1
School of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum (Huadong), Qingdao 266580, China
2
Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Jun Yao; rcogfr upc@126.com
Received 11 May 2014; Revised 18 July 2014; Accepted 18 July 2014
Academic Editor: Jun Liu
Copyright © 2015 W. Liu and J. Yao. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
The existence of a TPG can generate a relatively high pressure gradient in the process of fluid flow in porous media in low-permeable
reservoirs, and neglecting the QPGTs in the governing equations, by assuming a small pressure gradient for such a problem, can
cause a significant error in predicting the formation pressure. Based on these concerns, in consideration of the QPGT, a moving
boundary model of radial flow in low-permeable reservoirs with the TPG for the case of a constant flow rate at the inner boundary
is constructed. Due to strong nonlinearity of the mathematical model, a numerical method is presented: the system of partial
differential equations for the moving boundary problem is first transformed equivalently into a closed system of partial differential
equations with fixed boundary conditions by a spatial coordinate transformation method; and then a stable, fully implicit finite
difference method is used to obtain its numerical solution. Numerical result analysis shows that the mathematical models of radial
flow in low-permeable reservoirs with TPG must take the QPGT into account in their governing equations, which is more important
than those of Darcy’s flow; the sensitive effects of the QPGT for the radial flow model do not change with an increase of the
dimensionless TPG.
1. Introduction Much research on these relevant moving boundary mod-

els has been conducted [14–22]. The computed formation
Due to a continuously decreasing crude oil output from con- pressure distributions corresponding to these moving bound-
ventional reservoirs and a high international gasoline price ary problems of the fluid flow in the porous media with
in recent years, unconventional reservoirs such as low- TPG show big difference from the ones based on Darcy’s
permeable reservoirs and shale oil and gas reservoirs have law (see Figure 1): the formation pressure gradient is much
become urgent development resources in the petroleum steeper, it decreases until up to zero at a certain value of a
industry. Consequently, considerable attention has been paid dimensionless distance from a well, that is, the position of a
to the relevant research on the kinematic principles for the moving boundary, and the pressure distribution curve shows
fluid flow behavior in these unconventional reservoirs [1–5] at a property of compact support [21]; whereas, for Darcy’s
present. Abundant experimental and theoretical analyses [6– flow problem, the formation pressure drop can propagate
13] have demonstrated that the fluid flow, in low-permeable to any infinite distance transiently according to the exact
porous media, does not obey the classical Darcy’s law: the analytical solution [20], and the formation pressure gradient
seepage velocity is not proportional to the formation pressure is much more smooth. Actually, the pressure distribution
gradient, and there exists a threshold pressure gradient (TPG) difference between Darcy’s flow and fluid flow in the porous
𝜆; the fluid flow happens only if the formation pressure media with TPG can be explained through the angle 𝛼
gradient is larger than TPG. between the dimensionless formation pressure curve and the
fluid flow through porous media with consideration of QPGT

by a Laplace transform and pointed out that the nonlinear
solutions showed the difference in the pressure change for
Dimensionless formation pressure
injection and pumping conditions. Wang and Dusseault [28]

presented an analytical solution for pore pressure coupled
with deformation in a porous medium by taking the quadratic
gradient term into account, and the deviations from the
existing solutions were identified in cases of high pressure
gradients. Chakrabarty et al. [29, 30] gave the analytical
dimensionless pressure solutions for radial flow systems by a
Laplace transform and concluded that the linearized analysis
by neglecting QPGT could lead to serious errors in some
cases such as high injection rates. Braeuning et al. [31]
Angle = 𝛼
O
studied the effect of QPGT on the variable-rate well-tests,
Dimensionless distance from well and concluded that the linearization error depended on the
magnitude of wellbore damage, pseudoskin, and a nonlinear
Darcy’s law: tan(𝛼) = 0 flow parameter. Tong et al. [25, 26] presented the exact
Modified Darcy’s law: tan(𝛼) = TPG
analytical solutions of nonlinear transient flow models and
Figure 1: Comparison of computed dimensionless formation pres- dual-porosity models including QPGTs by the generalized
sure distribution curves. Weber transform and Hankel transform; it was concluded
that the effect of the QPGT should be considered in large
time well testing in reservoir engineering. Li et al. [32] took
the effects of both QPGT and wellbore storage into account
dimensionless distance at the place of moving boundary, as to build a mathematical flow model in a fractal multilayer
shown in Figure 1: for the case of the existence of TPG, the reservoir and presented its analytical solution by a Laplace
tangent of 𝛼 is equal to the derivative of pressure with respect transform. Dewei et al. [33] obtained the analytical solution
to distance at the place of moving boundary, that is, the TPG; of a mathematical model of transient seepage flow including
and, as 𝛼 decreases gradually and is equal to zero, it becomes QPGT by a Laplace transform, and they demonstrated that
a limit case, which corresponds to Darcy’s flow; that is, TPG QPGT could not be ignored for the unsteady flow model
is equal to zero. And if a constant value of TPG is given, the with consideration of a wellbore skin effect. Bai et al. [24]
tangent of 𝛼 will not change transiently. Therefore, it can be constructed a nonlinear dual-porosity model incorporating
concluded that the formation pressure gradient is relatively QPGT in fracture space and obtained its analytical solution
much higher for the fluid flow in porous media with large using a Hankel transform, and their analysis showed that
TPG. The main physical reason is that the presence of TPG the presented nonlinear model appeared to be suitable for
can make the formation pressure drop propagate more slowly, simulating naturally fractured reservoirs, subjected to a high
which causes a larger pressure gradient in a relatively shorter injection or production rate or significant fracture compress-
pressure disturbed distance from a production well. ibility. Nie et al. [34, 35] studied nonlinear flow models with
It is well known that the rock porosity and fluid density a QPGT for both a double-porosity reservoir and a triple-
are dependent on the formation pressure, and their for- porosity reservoir and obtained a solution through a variable
mula are commonly expressed in the nonlinear forms of substitution for linearization; it was found that the influence
exponential functions [23]. Therefore, in the mathematical of QPGT was very distinct, and the parameter values of non-
modeling, the deduced governing equation, by substituting linear model explanation law were much accurate than those
these equations of state and a kinematic equation into a of linear model explanation. Yao et al. [36] established the
mass balance equation, always contains a nonlinear quadratic mathematical model of transient flow in a double-porosity
pressure gradient term (QPGT), where the coefficient of this fractal reservoir by considering QPGT and solved the model
term is proportional to the fluid compressibility. In general, by a Laplace transform; it was demonstrated that the relative
the nonlinear QPGT is usually neglected by assuming small errors, caused by ignoring QPGT in the constructed model,
fluid compressibility or a small formation pressure gradient may amount to 10%. Guo and Nie [37] discussed the origins
[24]. The error by neglecting the nonlinear term may be of nonlinear flow issues in underground formations by using
acceptable for most routine engineering applications in the quadratic pressure gradients to deduce diffusion equations
development of conventional reservoirs. However, it has been and concluded that the nonlinear models could describe fluid
realized that the linearization is not applicable for large values flow in underground formations realistically and accurately.
of time [25, 26], and certain operations such as hydraulic As far as we know, for the moving boundary problems
fracturing, high injection or production rates of wellbore, and of fluid flow in porous media with TPG, which are based
large pressure pulse testing can generate a high formation on modified Darcy’s law [8] and have been widely involved
pressure gradient. in engineering applications for low-permeable reservoirs,
For conventional models of fluid flow in porous media the effect of QPGT has not yet been taken into account in
based on Darcy’s law, Odeh and Babu [27] studied the analyt- their governing equations [14–22]. However, this nonlinear
ical solutions of the nonlinear model of slightly compressible QPGT may play an important role in the temporal and spatial
pressure profiles due to a relatively high formation pressure where 𝑘 is the permeability of the porous medium, 10−3 ⋅ 𝜇m2 ;
gradient, generated in fluid flow in porous media with TPG. 𝜇 is the fluid viscosity, mPa⋅s; r is the radial distance, m; 𝜐 is
What is more, in modern times, with the development of the seepage velocity, m⋅s−1 ; and 𝜆 is the TPG, MPa⋅m−1 .
advanced analysis methods and improved resolutions of The continuous equation for the radial flow in the porous
pressure measurement machines [29], it is necessary to study medium is as follows [15]:
quantitatively the effect of QPGT on these moving boundary
problems. 1 𝜕 𝜕 (𝜌𝜙)
Hence, based on these concerns, in this paper, QPGT is − (𝑟𝜌𝜐) = , 0 ≤ 𝑟 ≤ 𝑠 (𝑡) , (4)
𝑟 𝜕𝑟 𝜕𝑡
incorporated in the governing equation for a basic moving
boundary problem of radial flow in an infinite reservoir where 𝑡 is time, h and 𝑠 is the moving boundary, m.
with TPG for the case of a constant flow rate at the inner Substituting (1)–(3) into (4), the governing (mass bal-
boundary. Owing to the existence of the moving boundary ance) equation for the radial flow in the low-permeable
and the nonlinearity of partial differential equations, it is reservoir, considering the nonlinear QPGT, can be deduced
really difficult to obtain its exact analytical solution. Here, we as follows (see Appendix):
adopted a spatial coordinate transform based finite difference
method to solve the nonlinear moving boundary model for 𝜕2 𝑝 1 𝜕𝑝 𝜆 𝜕𝑝 2 𝜇𝜙𝑖 𝐶𝑡 𝜕𝑝
the radial flow case. The numerical method has been strictly + ⋅ − + 𝐶𝑓 ⋅ ( ) = ⋅ , (5)
verified for solving such moving boundary problems with 𝜕𝑟2 𝑟 𝜕𝑟 𝑟 𝜕𝑟 𝑘 𝜕𝑡
good accuracy by a one-dimensional flow case in the recently
published literature [21]. Furthermore, the effect of this where 𝐶𝑡 is the total compression coefficient, MPa−1 .
QPGT on the numerical solutions of the moving boundary The initial condition is as follows:
problem can be discussed and analyzed quantitatively, by
𝑠 (0) = 0,
using the numerical results with respect to different values of
󵄨 (6)
a dimensionless TPG. 𝑝󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑡=0 = 𝑝𝑖 .
2. Mathematical Modeling by The inner boundary conditions with constant flow rate
Considering QPGT are
2𝜋𝑘ℎ𝑟 𝜕𝑝 󵄨󵄨
The problem considered involves radial flow in an infinite 󵄨
( − 𝜆)󵄨󵄨󵄨 = 𝑞 ⋅ 𝐵, (7)
reservoir with TPG for the case of a constant flow rate at 𝜇 𝜕𝑟 󵄨󵄨𝑟=𝑟
𝑤
the inner boundary; the porous medium is homogeneous,
isotropic, and isothermal; the single-phase horizontal flow
where 𝑞 is the constant flow rate, m3 ⋅d−1 ; h is the reservoir
does not have any gravity effect; for a basic problem, skin
thickness, m; 𝑟𝑤 is the wellbore radius, m; and B is the volume
effect and wellbore storage are not considered here; finally,
factor, dimensionless.
the fluid and porous medium are slightly compressible.
The moving boundary conditions are:
The fluid density is as follows [20]:
󵄨
𝜌 = 𝜌𝑖 exp (−𝐶𝑓 (𝑝𝑖 − 𝑝)) , (1) 𝑝󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑟=𝑠(𝑡) = 𝑝𝑖 ,
𝜕𝑝 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 (8)
where 𝜌 is the fluid density, kg⋅m−3 ; 𝜌𝑖 is the initial fluid 󵄨 = 𝜆.
𝜕𝑟 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑟=𝑠(𝑡)
density, kg⋅m−3 ; 𝑝𝑖 is the initial pressure, MPa; 𝑝 is the
pressure, MPa; and 𝐶𝑓 is the compression coefficient of the
The moving boundary conditions (8) physically mean
fluid, MPa−1 . that the seepage flow only happens at the area near the
The porosity of the porous medium is as follows [20]: wellbore inside the moving boundary, where the formation
pressure gradient is larger than TPG; however, outside the
𝜙 = 𝜙𝑖 exp (−𝐶𝜙 (𝑝𝑖 − 𝑝)) , (2) moving boundary, the formation pressure gradient is smaller
than TPG (equal to zero), so there is no seepage flow behavior,
where 𝜙 is the porosity of the porous medium, fraction; 𝜙𝑖
and the formation pressure also keeps the initial pressure;
is the initial porosity, fraction; and 𝐶𝜙 is the compression
in addition, on the moving boundary, the pressure gradient
coefficient of the porosity, MPa−1 . is just equal to TPG; with the time increasing, the moving
The modified Darcy’s law for the fluid flow in the porous boundary also moves outside gradually. The existence of
medium with TPG is as follows [8]: moving boundary is the main difference between the models
d𝑝 of fluid flow in porous media with TPG and the classical
{
{ 0, 0≤ ≤ 𝜆, Darcy’s flow models.
{
{ d𝑟
{ Equations (5)–(8) together form the moving boundary
𝜐={ (3)
{
{ problem of radial flow in the infinite reservoir with TPG for
{− 𝑘 ⋅ ( d𝑝 − 𝜆) ,
{ d𝑝
> 𝜆, the case of a constant flow rate at the inner boundary, in
{ 𝜇 d𝑟 d𝑟 consideration of QPGT.
Define the following dimensionless variables: Letting 𝑥𝐷 = 𝛿(𝑡𝐷) on both sides of (10) and then
substituting (14) yield
𝑟
𝑟𝐷 = ,
𝑟𝑤 󵄨
𝜕𝑃𝐷 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝜕2 𝑃𝐷 󵄨󵄨󵄨
󵄨󵄨 = 2 󵄨󵄨
󵄨 − 𝛼𝐷 ⋅ 𝜆2𝐷. (19)
3.6 × 10−3 𝑘𝑡 𝜕𝑡𝐷 󵄨󵄨𝑟𝐷 =𝛿(𝑡𝐷 ) 𝜕𝑟𝐷 󵄨󵄨𝑟𝐷 =𝛿(𝑡𝐷 )
𝑡𝐷 = ,
𝜇𝜙𝑖 𝐶𝑡 𝑟𝑤2
𝑠 By (18) and (19), the velocity of the moving boundary can
𝛿= , be written as follows:
𝑟𝑤
(9)
𝑘ℎ [𝑝𝑖 − 𝑝] 󵄨
𝑃𝐷 = , 𝜕𝛿 1 𝜕2 𝑃𝐷 󵄨󵄨󵄨
1.842𝑞𝜇𝐵 = 2 󵄨󵄨
󵄨 − 𝛼𝐷 ⋅ 𝜆 𝐷. (20)
𝜕𝑡𝐷 𝜆 𝐷 𝜕𝑟𝐷 󵄨󵄨𝑟 𝐷 =𝛿(𝑡𝐷 )
𝑘ℎ𝑟𝑤 𝜆
𝜆𝐷 = ,
1.842𝑞𝜇𝐵 From (20), it can be seen that the existence of the QPGT
(the dimensionless compressibility 𝛼𝐷 is not equal to zero)
1.842𝑞𝜇𝐵𝐶𝑓 can slow down the velocity of the moving boundary of the
𝛼𝐷 = ,
𝑘ℎ radial flow in low-permeable reservoir with TPG.
where 𝑟𝐷 is the dimensionless radial distance, 𝑡𝐷 is the
dimensionless time, 𝑃𝐷 is the dimensionless pressure, 𝛼𝐷 is 3. Numerical Method
the dimensionless compressibility, 𝜆 𝐷 is the dimensionless
TPG, and 𝛿 is the dimensionless moving boundary. Consider Due to the existence of the moving boundary in the dimen-
sionless mathematical model, the flow region is not fixed and
1 𝜕𝑃𝐷 𝜕2 𝑃𝐷 𝜆 𝐷 𝜕𝑃𝐷 2 𝜕𝑃𝐷 (𝑟𝐷, 𝑡𝐷) expands outward continuously with time increasing. In order
+ 2
+ − 𝛼𝐷 ( ) = , to overcome this difficulty in the space discretization for the
𝑟𝐷 𝜕𝑟𝐷 𝜕𝑟𝐷 𝑟𝐷 𝜕𝑟𝐷 𝜕𝑡𝐷 (10) transient flow region with the moving boundary, a spatial
1 ≤ 𝑟𝐷 ≤ 𝛿 (𝑡𝐷) , coordinate transformation method is used as follows [21, 38]:
󵄨
𝑃𝐷󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑡𝐷 =0 = 0, (11) 𝑟𝐷 − 1
𝑦 (𝑟𝐷, 𝑡𝐷) = , 1 ≤ 𝑟𝐷 ≤ 𝛿 (𝑡𝐷) . (21)
𝛿 (𝑡𝐷) − 1
𝛿 (0) = 0, (12)
𝜕𝑃𝐷 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 Through (21), the dynamic flow region for the moving
𝑟𝐷 󵄨 = − (1 + 𝜆 𝐷) ,
𝜕𝑟𝐷 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑟𝐷 =1
(13) boundary problem [0, 𝛿(𝑡𝐷)] can be transformed to a fixed
region [0, 1], and the dimensionless pressure 𝑃𝐷(𝑟𝐷, 𝑡𝐷) can
𝜕𝑃𝐷 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 be transformed as a new unknown function 𝜂 of two variables
󵄨 = −𝜆 𝐷,
𝜕𝑟𝐷 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑟𝐷 =𝛿(𝑡𝐷 )
(14) 𝑦 and 𝑡𝐷, that is, 𝜂(𝑦, 𝑡𝐷) equivalently; correspondingly,
the differential variables can be transformed, respectively, as
󵄨
𝑃𝐷󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑟𝐷 =𝛿(𝑡𝐷 ) = 0. (15) follows:
Equations (10)–(15) form the dimensionless mathemat- 𝜕𝑃𝐷 𝜕𝜂 1

ical model, considering QTPG, for the radial flow in the = ⋅ , (22)
𝜕𝑟𝐷 𝜕𝑦 (𝛿 − 1)
infinite reservoir with TPG for the case of a constant flow rate
at the inner boundary. 𝜕2 𝑃𝐷 𝜕2 𝜂 1
2
= 2⋅ , (23)
From (15), we have 𝜕𝑟𝐷 𝜕𝑦 (𝛿 − 1)2
𝑃𝐷 (𝛿 (𝑡𝐷) , 𝑡𝐷) = 0. (16) 𝜕𝑃𝐷 𝜕𝜂 𝑦 𝜕𝛿 𝜕𝜂
=− ⋅ ⋅ + . (24)
𝜕𝑡𝐷 𝜕𝑦 (𝛿 − 1) 𝜕𝑡𝐷 𝜕𝑡𝐷
Differentiating two sides of (16), with respect to 𝑡𝐷, we
have
Substituting (22)–(24) into (10) yields
𝜕𝑃𝐷 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝑃 󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝛿
󵄨󵄨 + 𝐷 󵄨󵄨󵄨 ⋅ = 0. (17)
𝜕𝑡𝐷 󵄨󵄨𝑟𝐷 =𝛿(𝑡𝐷 ) 𝜕𝑟𝐷 󵄨󵄨𝑟𝐷 =𝛿(𝑡𝐷 ) 𝜕𝑡𝐷 𝜕𝜂 1 1 𝜕2 𝜂 1 𝜆𝐷
⋅ ⋅ + 2⋅ 2
+
𝜕𝑦 (𝛿 − 1) 𝑦 (𝛿 − 1) + 1 𝜕𝑦 (𝛿 − 1) 𝑦 (𝛿 − 1) + 1
Substituting (14) into (17) yields
𝜕𝜂 𝜕𝜂 𝑦 𝜕𝛿
𝜕𝑃𝐷 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝛿 = − ⋅ ⋅
𝜕𝑡𝐷 𝜕𝑦 (𝛿 − 1) 𝜕𝑡𝐷
.
󵄨󵄨 = 𝜆𝐷 ⋅ . (18)
󵄨
𝜕𝑡𝐷 󵄨𝑟𝐷 =𝛿(𝑡𝐷 ) 𝜕𝑡𝐷 (25)
Substituting (22)–(24) into (13)–(15) and (20), respec- From (26) and (27), the following equation can be
tively, yields obtained [21]:
𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 1 + 𝜆 𝐷 𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨

󵄨 = − (1 + 𝜆 𝐷) ⋅ (𝛿 − 1) , 󵄨󵄨 − 󵄨 = 0.
𝜆 𝐷 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑦=1
(33)
𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑦=0 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨𝑦=0
(26)
𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 Equations (31)–(33) and (28) together form a closed sys-

󵄨 = −𝜆 𝐷 (𝛿 − 1) ,
𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑦=1
(27) tem of partial differential equations with the fixed boundary
conditions with respect to 𝑃𝐷(𝑦, 𝑡𝐷), which is equivalent
󵄨
𝜂󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑦=1 = 0, (28) to the dimensionless mathematical model, that is, (10)–
(15). The new partial differential equation (31) shows strong
󵄨
𝜕𝛿 1 𝜕2 𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨 1 nonlinearity, indirectly indicating the strong nonlinearity
= 󵄨󵄨 ⋅ − 𝛼𝐷 ⋅ 𝜆 𝐷. (29)
𝜕𝑡𝐷 𝜆 𝐷 𝜕𝑦2 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑦=1 (𝛿 − 1)2 of the original, untransformed moving boundary problem
incorporating the QPGT. Here, a stable, fully implicit finite
difference method [21, 39] is used to obtain its numerical
From (26), we have solutions. The first derivative is replaced by a first-order
𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨
forward difference; the second derivative is replaced by the
1
𝛿−1=− ⋅ 󵄨 . second-order central difference [21], and then the difference
1 + 𝜆 𝐷 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑦=0
(30)
equation for (31) can be written as follows:
Substituting (29) and (30) into (25) to cancel the variables 𝑗+1 𝑗+1 𝑗+1 𝑗+1 2
𝜂𝑖+1 − 𝜂𝑖 1 𝜂 − 𝜂0
𝜕𝛿/𝜕𝑡𝐷 and 𝛿 yields [− ⋅( 1 )
Δ𝑦 1 + 𝜆𝐷 Δ𝑦
[
2
𝜕𝜂 [ 1 𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝑦 𝑗+1 𝑗+1
⋅ − ⋅ ( 󵄨󵄨 ) − 𝑖Δ𝑦 𝑖Δ𝑦 𝜂 − 𝜂0
𝜕𝑦 1 + 𝜆𝐷 󵄨
𝜕𝑦 󵄨𝑦=0 1 + 𝜆𝐷 − ⋅ (− ⋅ 1 + 1)
[ 1 + 𝜆𝐷 1 + 𝜆𝐷 Δ𝑦
𝑦 𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝑗+1 𝑗+1

⋅ (− ⋅ 󵄨 + 1) 1 𝜂𝑁−2 − 2𝜂𝑁−1 2
1 + 𝜆 𝐷 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑦=0 ⋅( 2
⋅ (1 + 𝜆 𝐷)
𝜆𝐷 (Δ𝑦)
󵄨
1 𝜕2 𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨 2
⋅( 󵄨󵄨 ⋅ (1 + 𝜆 𝐷)2 − 𝛼𝐷 ⋅ 𝜆 𝐷 𝜂1
𝑗+1
− 𝜂0
𝑗+1
𝜆 𝐷 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑦=1
2
−𝛼𝐷 ⋅ 𝜆 𝐷 ⋅ ( ) )]
Δ𝑦
]
2
𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝑗+1 𝑗+1 𝑗+1
⋅( 󵄨 ) )] 𝜂𝑖−1 − 2𝜂𝑖 + 𝜂𝑖+1
𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑦=0 + 2
] (Δ𝑦)
𝜕2 𝜂 𝑦 𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝜂 − 𝜂0
𝑗+1 𝑗+1
𝜂1
𝑗+1
− 𝜂0
𝑗+1
+ ⋅ (− ⋅ 󵄨󵄨 + 1) ( 󵄨󵄨󵄨 ) ⋅ (−
𝑖Δ𝑦
⋅ 1 + 1) ( )
𝜕𝑦 2 1 + 𝜆 𝐷 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨𝑦=0 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨𝑦=0 1 + 𝜆𝐷 Δ𝑦 Δ𝑦
3
1 2
𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨 2 𝑗+1 𝑗+1 3 𝑗+1 𝑗+1 2
+ 𝜆 𝐷( ) ( 󵄨󵄨󵄨 ) 1 𝜂 − 𝜂0 𝜂 − 𝜂𝑖
1 + 𝜆𝐷 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨𝑦=0 + 𝜆 𝐷( )( 1 ) − 𝛼𝐷( 𝑖+1 )
1 + 𝜆𝐷 Δ𝑦 Δ𝑦
𝜕𝜂 2 𝑦 𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝑗+1 𝑗+1 𝑗+1 𝑗+1
− 𝛼𝐷( ) ⋅ (− ⋅ 󵄨󵄨 + 1) ( 󵄨󵄨󵄨 ) 𝑖Δ𝑦 𝜂 − 𝜂0 𝜂1 − 𝜂0
𝜕𝑦 1 + 𝜆 𝐷 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨𝑦=0 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨𝑦=0 ⋅ (− ⋅ 1 + 1) ( )
1 + 𝜆𝐷 Δ𝑦 Δ𝑦
3
𝜕𝜂 1 2
𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝑗+1 𝑗 2 𝑗+1 𝑗+1 3
= ⋅( ) ⋅ ( 󵄨󵄨󵄨 ) 𝜂𝑖 − 𝜂𝑖 1 𝜂 − 𝜂0
𝜕𝑡𝐷 1 + 𝜆𝐷 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨𝑦=0 − ⋅( ) ⋅( 1 )
Δ𝑡𝐷 1 + 𝜆𝐷 Δ𝑦
𝑦 𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝑗+1 𝑗+1
⋅ (− ⋅ 󵄨 + 1) . 𝑖Δ𝑦 𝜂 − 𝜂0
1 + 𝜆 𝐷 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑦=0 ⋅ (− ⋅ 1 + 1) = 0,
1 + 𝜆𝐷 Δ𝑦
(31)
(34)
From (21), (11) can be transformed into where 𝑁 denotes the total number of spatial grid subintervals
󵄨 with the same length; Δ𝑦 is the length of a grid subinterval,
𝜂󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑡𝐷 =0 = 0. (32) which is equal to 1/N; i denotes the index of the spatial grid
𝑗+1
from the well; 𝑗 denotes the index of a time step; and Δ𝑡𝐷 solve these nonlinear difference equations; when 𝑃𝐷𝑖 (𝑖 =
denotes the time step size [21]. 0, 1, 2, . . . , 𝑁 − 1) are numerically solved for, let 𝑗 be equal
From (28), we have to 𝑗 + 1, and, in the same manner, the numerical solutions of
𝑁 difference equations with respect to 𝑁 unknown variables
𝑗+1
𝜂𝑁 = 0. (35) 𝑃𝐷𝑖 𝑗+2 (𝑖 = 0, 1, 2, . . . , 𝑁 − 1) at the (𝑗 + 2)th time step can also
be numerically solved for; the rest can be deduced by analogy
Then, from (34) and (35), the difference equation corre- [21, 39]. Eventually, numerical solutions for the transformed
sponding to the (𝑁 − 1)th spatial grid can be expressed as nonlinear partial differential equation system with respect to
follows: 𝜂(𝑦, 𝑡𝐷) can be obtained.
𝑗+1 2 The difference equation of (21) is
𝑗+1 𝑗+1
−𝜂𝑁−1 1 𝜂 − 𝜂0 (𝑁 − 1) Δ𝑦
⋅ [− ⋅( 1 ) − 𝑗+1
𝑟𝐷𝑖 = 𝑖Δ𝑦 ⋅ (𝛿𝑗+1 − 1) + 1. (39)
Δ𝑦 1 + 𝜆𝐷 Δ𝑦 1 + 𝜆𝐷
[
𝑗+1 𝑗+1 The difference equation of (30) is
(𝑁 − 1) Δ𝑦 𝜂1 − 𝜂0
⋅ (− ⋅ + 1) 𝑗+1 𝑗+1
1 + 𝜆𝐷 Δ𝑦 1 𝜂 − 𝜂0
𝛿𝑗+1 − 1 = − ⋅ 1 . (40)
𝑗+1 𝑗+1
1 + 𝜆𝐷 Δ𝑦
1 𝜂𝑁−2 − 2𝜂𝑁−1 2
⋅( 2
⋅ (1 + 𝜆 𝐷) Substituting (40) into (39) yields
𝜆𝐷 (Δ𝑦)
𝑗+1 𝑗+1
𝑗+1 𝑗+1 2 𝑗+1 𝜂1 − 𝜂0
𝜂1 − 𝜂0 𝑟𝐷𝑖 = −𝑖 ⋅ + 1. (41)
− 𝛼𝐷 ⋅ 𝜆 𝐷 ⋅ ( ) )] 1 + 𝜆𝐷
Δ𝑦
] By (41), numerical solutions of 𝜂(𝑦, 𝑡𝐷) can be trans-
𝑗+1
𝜂𝑁−2 −
𝑗+1
2𝜂𝑁−1 (𝑁 − 1) Δ𝑦
𝑗+1
𝜂1 −
𝑗+1
𝜂0 formed as the ones of 𝑃𝐷(𝑟𝐷, 𝑡𝐷) in the process of numerical
+ 2
⋅ (− ⋅ + 1) solutions at every time step [21]. From (41), it can be further
(Δ𝑦) 1 + 𝜆𝐷 Δ𝑦 concluded that the presented spatial coordinate transforma-
3 tion lets the time-dependent space discretization in the spa-
𝑗+1 𝑗+1 2 𝑗+1 𝑗+1
𝜂1 − 𝜂0 1 𝜂 − 𝜂0 tial coordinate of 𝑟𝐷 be transformed as a time-independent
×( ) + 𝜆 𝐷( )( 1 )
Δ𝑦 1 + 𝜆𝐷 Δ𝑦 space discretization in the new spatial coordinate of y and
then makes the numerical solutions by the finite difference
𝑗+1 2 𝑗+1 𝑗+1 method more applicable and simpler [21].
𝜂𝑁−1 (𝑁 − 1) Δ𝑦 𝜂1 − 𝜂0
− 𝛼𝐷( ) ⋅ (− ⋅ + 1)
Δ𝑦 1 + 𝜆𝐷 Δ𝑦
4. Results and Discussions
𝑗+1 𝑗+1 𝑗+1 𝑗
𝜂1 − 𝜂0 𝜂𝑁−1 − 𝜂𝑁−1 4.1. Effect of QPGT under Different Values of TPG. Figures
×( )−
Δ𝑦 Δ𝑡𝐷 2–4 show the effect of the QPGT on numerical solutions of
the model, with respect to the dimensionless formation pres-
2 𝑗+1 𝑗+1 3
1 𝜂 − 𝜂0 sure distribution, dimensionless transient wellbore pressure,
⋅( ) ⋅( 1 ) and dimensionless transient distance of moving boundary,
1 + 𝜆𝐷 Δ𝑦
respectively, under different values of the dimensionless
𝑗+1 𝑗+1 TPG. From Figures 2–4, it can be clearly seen that with
(𝑁 − 1) Δ𝑦 𝜂1 − 𝜂0
⋅ (− ⋅ + 1) = 0. an increase of the dimensionless TPG, the effect of the
1 + 𝜆𝐷 Δ𝑦 QPGT on the mathematical model solutions become more
(36) and more obvious; the reason can be explained as follows:
the bigger the TPG, the steeper the formation pressure
The difference equation of (33) is as follows: gradient, which generates the solution deviations, resulting
𝑗+1 𝑗+1 𝑗+1
from neglecting the QPGT in the governing equation, more
𝜂1 − 𝜂0 1 + 𝜆 𝐷 𝜂𝑁−1 seriously. Moreover, from Figures 2–4, it can also be indicated
+ ⋅ = 0. (37)
Δ𝑦 𝜆𝐷 Δ𝑦 that the dimensionless transient wellbore pressure for the
case of neglecting the QPGT is larger than that for the case
From (32), the initial conditions are obtained as follows: of considering the QPGT; and the dimensionless transient
distance of moving boundary for the case of neglecting the
𝜂𝑖0 = 0, 𝑖 = 0, 1, 2, . . . , 𝑁 − 1. (38) QPGT is also larger than that for the case of considering the
QPGT. The QPGT can slow down the velocity of the moving
Equations (34), (36), and (37) together form 𝑁 difference boundary in low-permeable reservoir with TPG.
equations at the (𝑗 + 1)th time step and also contain 𝑁 Tables 1 and 2 show the selected data of calculated relative
𝑗+1
unknown variables 𝑃𝐷𝑖 (𝑖 = 0, 1, 2, . . . , 𝑁 − 1). The Newton- errors 𝜀𝑟 from the already computed dimensionless formation
Raphson iterative method [21, 39] is used to numerically pressure distribution and dimensionless transient wellbore
35 350
30 300
25 250
PD (rD , 1 × 105 )
20 200
𝛿(tD )
15 150
10 100
5 tD = 1 × 105 50
0 0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 101 102 103 104 105
rD tD
𝜆D = 0.034, 𝛼D = 0 𝜆D = 0.067, 𝛼D = 0.005 𝜆D = 0.034, 𝛼D = 0 𝜆D = 0.067, 𝛼D = 0.005
𝜆D = 0.034, 𝛼D = 0.005 𝜆D = 0.1, 𝛼D = 0 𝜆D = 0.034, 𝛼D = 0.005 𝜆D = 0.1, 𝛼D = 0
𝜆D = 0.067, 𝛼D = 0 𝜆D = 0.1, 𝛼D = 0.005 𝜆D = 0.067, 𝛼D = 0 𝜆D = 0.1, 𝛼D = 0.005
Figure 2: The effect of QPGT on dimensionless formation pressure Figure 4: The effect of QPGT on dimensionless transient distance
distribution under different values of dimensionless TPG. of moving boundary under different values of dimensionless TPG.
160
30
140
25 120
20 100
PD (0, tD )
𝜀r (%)
80
15
60
10
40
5
20
5% error line
0 0
0.0 2.0 × 104 4.0 × 104 6.0 × 104 8.0 × 104 1.0 × 105 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
tD rD
𝜆D = 0.034, 𝛼D = 0 𝜆D = 0.067, 𝛼D = 0.005 𝛼D = 0.005

𝜆D = 0.034, 𝛼D = 0.005 𝜆D = 0.1, 𝛼D = 0 𝜆D = 0.034
𝜆D = 0.067, 𝛼D = 0 𝜆D = 0.1, 𝛼D = 0.005 𝜆D = 0.067
𝜆D = 0.1
Figure 3: The effect of QPGT on dimensionless transient wellbore
pressure under different values of dimensionless TPG. Figure 5: Relative error curves for computing dimensionless forma-
tion pressure distribution by neglecting quadratic pressure gradient
term.
pressure between the two cases considering and not con-

sidering the QPGTs, under different values of dimensionless dimensionless formation pressure; furthermore, the larger
TPG, which correspond to Figures 2 and 3, respectively. The dimensionless TPG can make the relative errors grow more
relative error 𝜀𝑟 is equal to the absolute error divided by the quickly with an increase of dimensionless distance. For the
magnitude of the exact value, that is, the solutions of the cases with the values of the dimensionless TPG 𝜆 𝐷 = 0.034,
models considering the QPGT. In order to clearly figure out 0.067, and 0.1, the relative errors have largely exceeded 5% in
the change behavior of relative errors, the curves regarding the whole region.
the relative errors by the data from Tables 1 and 2 are also From Figure 6, it can be clearly indicated that, for any
plotted in Figures 5 and 6, respectively. case with the same value of dimensionless time, the larger
From Figure 5, it can be clearly indicated that, for any case the dimensionless TPG, the larger the relative error of the
with the same value of the dimensionless distance, the larger dimensionless transient wellbore pressure; and the larger
the dimensionless TPG, the larger the relative error of the dimensionless TPG can make the relative errors grow more
Table 1: Comparison data for the computed dimensionless formation pressure distribution and relative errors.
Computed dimensionless formation pressure distribution 𝑃𝐷 (𝑟𝐷 , 1 × 105 )

𝜆 𝐷 = 0.034 𝜆 𝐷 = 0.067 𝜆 𝐷 = 0.1
𝑟𝐷
𝑃𝐷 (𝛼𝐷 = 0.005) 𝑃𝐷 (𝛼𝐷 = 0) 𝜀𝑟 /% 𝑃𝐷 (𝛼𝐷 = 0.005) 𝑃𝐷 (𝛼𝐷 = 0) 𝜀𝑟 /% 𝑃𝐷 (𝛼𝐷 = 0.005) 𝑃𝐷 (𝛼𝐷 = 0) 𝜀𝑟 /%
1 23.48 25.17 7.20 25.73 28.88 12.24 27.32 32.65 19.51
50 12.55 13.73 9.40 14.42 16.94 17.48 15.17 19.72 29.99
100 9.09 10.05 10.56 9.68 11.99 23.86 9.06 13.28 46.58
150 6.45 7.34 13.80 5.72 7.91 38.29 3.61 7.63 111.36
200 4.22 5.03 19.19 2.11 4.15 96.68 0 2.4 ∗
250 2.24 2.98 33.04 0 0.65 ∗ 0 0 ∗
300 0.45 1.14 153.33 0 0 ∗ 0 0 ∗
350 0 0 ∗ 0 0 ∗ 0 0 ∗
∗
denotes the null data.
Table 2: Comparison data for the computed dimensionless transient wellbore pressure and relative errors.
Computed dimensionless transient wellbore pressure 𝑃𝐷 (0, 𝑡𝐷 )

𝜆 𝐷 = 0.034 𝜆 𝐷 = 0.067 𝜆 𝐷 = 0.1
𝑡𝐷
𝑃𝐷 (𝛼𝐷 = 0.008) 𝑃𝐷 (𝛼𝐷 = 0) 𝜀𝑟 /% 𝑃𝐷 (𝛼𝐷 = 0.008) 𝑃𝐷 (𝛼𝐷 = 0) 𝜀𝑟 /% 𝑃𝐷 (𝛼𝐷 = 0.008) 𝑃𝐷 (𝛼𝐷 = 0) 𝜀𝑟 /%
1 × 104 11.22 11.5 2.50 12.73 13.23 3.93 14.11 14.84 5.17
2 × 104 13.86 14.38 3.75 15.69 16.49 5.10 17.32 18.61 7.45
3 × 104 15.78 16.41 3.99 17.74 18.89 6.48 19.47 21.30 9.40
4 × 104 17.33 18.09 4.39 19.4 20.82 7.32 21.17 23.54 11.20
5 × 104 18.64 19.57 4.99 20.76 22.53 8.53 22.53 25.44 12.92
6 × 104 19.8 20.86 5.35 21.96 24.03 9.43 23.76 27.14 14.23
7 × 104 20.85 22.05 5.76 23.08 25.44 10.23 24.76 28.70 15.91
8 × 104 21.81 23.17 6.24 24.03 26.63 10.82 25.73 30.10 16.98
9 × 104 22.7 24.18 6.52 24.9 27.79 11.61 26.56 31.41 18.26
1 × 105 23.49 25.12 6.94 25.67 28.88 12.50 27.29 32.66 19.68
20.0 quickly with an increase of dimensionless time. For the cases

with the values of the dimensionless TPG 𝜆 𝐷 = 0.067 and
17.5
0.1, the relative errors have largely exceeded 5% in the whole
15.0 time.
From Figures 5 and 6, it can also be concluded that the
12.5 relative errors corresponding to the case with the value of the
dimensionless TPG 𝜆 𝐷 = 0.034, which is relatively close to
𝜀r (%)
10.0
Darcy’s flow, stay a lower level for the change of relative errors
7.5 of the dimensionless transient wellbore pressure with the
5% error line increase of dimensionless time, whereas the change of relative
5.0
errors of the dimensionless formation pressure distribution
2.5 with the increase of dimensionless distance is still very
considerable.
0.0 In conclusion, the QPGT has a great effect on the math-
2.0 × 104 4.0 × 104 6.0 × 104 8.0 × 104 1.0 × 105
ematical model solutions of radial flow in low-permeable
tD
reservoirs with TPG, especially for a large value of the
𝛼D = 0.005 dimensionless TPG; the larger the dimensionless distance
𝜆D = 0.034 and dimensionless time, the bigger the effect of the QPGT on
𝜆D = 0.067 the dimensionless formation pressure and the dimensionless
𝜆D = 0.1
transient wellbore pressure. In summary, the mathematical
models of radial flow in low-permeable reservoirs with TPG
Figure 6: Relative error curves for computing dimensionless tran- should take the QPGT into account in their governing
sient wellbore pressure by neglecting quadratic pressure gradient equations, which is more important than those of Darcy’s
term.
flow.
250
25
200
20
PD (rD , 1 × 105 )
15 150
𝛿(tD )
10 100
tD = 1 × 105
5 50
𝜆D = 0.067
𝜆D = 0.067
0
0
0 50 100 150 200 250
101 102 103 104 105
rD tD
𝛼D = 0.003 𝛼D = 0.007 𝛼D = 0.003 𝛼D = 0.007
𝛼D = 0.005 𝛼D = 0.009 𝛼D = 0.005 𝛼D = 0.009
Figure 7: The sensitive effect of QPGT on dimensionless formation Figure 9: The sensitive effect of QPGT on dimensionless transient
pressure distribution. distance of moving boundary.
25 5. Conclusions
The existence of a TPG can lead to relatively steep formation
20 pressure gradients, and, thus, it is not appropriate to neglect
the QPGT for the fluid flow in porous media with the TPG.
PD (0, tD )
15 In consideration of the QPGT in the governing equation,

a numerical method is presented for investigation of the
10
effect of QPGT on a moving boundary problem of radial
flow in low-permeable reservoirs with TPG for the case of
a constant flow rate at the inner boundary. Numerical result
5 analysis shows that the QPGT plays an important role in
𝜆D = 0.067
the model solutions with respect to the formation pressure
0 distribution, transient wellbore pressure, and transient dis-
0.0 2.0 × 104 4.0 × 104 6.0 × 104 8.0 × 104 1.0 × 105 tance of the moving boundary. The mathematical models
tD of radial flow in low-permeable reservoirs with TPG should
𝛼D = 0.003 𝛼D = 0.007 take the QPGT into account in their governing equations,
𝛼D = 0.005 𝛼D = 0.009 which is more important than those of Darcy’s flow. Besides,
the sensitive effects of the QPGT on the numerical solutions
Figure 8: The sensitive effect of QPGT on dimensionless transient for the radial flow model do not change with an increase
wellbore pressure. of the dimensionless TPG. The presented research supports
theoretical foundations for further improving technologies
of well testing and numerical simulation in developing low-
permeable reservoirs.
4.2. Sensitive Effect of QPGT: The Parameter of Dimension-
less Compressibility. Figures 7, 8, and 9 show the sensitive
effect of the QPGT on the formation pressure distribution, Appendix
transient wellbore pressure, and transient distance of moving
boundary, respectively. From these figures, it can be seen Equation (1) can be rewritten as follows:
that the larger the value of the dimensionless compressibility,
1 1
the smaller the values of the dimensionless formation pres- 𝑝= ln 𝜌 − ln 𝜌𝑖 + 𝑝𝑖 . (A.1)
sure, the dimensionless transient wellbore pressure, and the 𝐶𝑓 𝐶𝑓
dimensionless transient distance of the moving boundary.
Moreover, the sensitive effects of the QPGT on the forma- Differentiating two sides of (A.1) with respect to r, we
tion pressure distribution, transient wellbore pressure, and have
transient distance of the moving boundary for the radial flow 𝜕𝑝 1 𝜕𝜌
model do not change with an increase of the dimensionless = . (A.2)
TPG. 𝜕𝑟 𝐶𝑓 ⋅ 𝜌 𝜕𝑟
Equation (A.2) can be rewritten as follows: Expanding the right-hand side of (4) yields
𝜕𝜌 𝜕𝑝 𝜕 (𝜌𝜙) 𝜕𝜙 𝜕𝜌
= 𝐶𝑓 ⋅ 𝜌 . (A.3) =𝜌 +𝜙 . (A.7)
𝜕𝑟 𝜕𝑟 𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑡
In the same manner as above, from (1) and (2), the Substituting (A.4) into the right-hand side of (A.7) yields
following equations can also be deduced as
𝜕 (𝜌𝜙) 𝜕𝑝 𝜕𝑝
𝜕𝜌 𝜕𝑝 = 𝜌 ⋅ 𝐶𝜙 ⋅ 𝜙 ⋅ + 𝜙 ⋅ 𝐶𝑓 ⋅ 𝜌 ⋅
= 𝐶𝑓 ⋅ 𝜌 , 𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑡
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑡 (A.8)
(A.4) 𝜕𝑝 𝜕𝑝
𝜕𝜙 𝜕𝑝 =𝜌⋅𝜙⋅ ⋅ (𝐶𝜙 + 𝐶𝑓 ) = 𝜌 ⋅ 𝜙 ⋅ ⋅ 𝐶𝑡 .
= 𝐶𝜙 ⋅ 𝜙 . 𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑡
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑡
The left-hand side of (4) can be expanded as follows: Substituting (A.6) and (A.8) into (4), the governing
equation in consideration of the QPGT can be obtained as
1 𝜕 follows:
− ⋅ (𝑟 ⋅ 𝜌 ⋅ 𝜐)
𝑟 𝜕𝑟
𝑘 1 𝜕 𝜕𝑝 𝑘𝜌 [ 2
[ 𝜕 𝑝 + 1 ⋅ 𝜕𝑝 − 𝜆 + 𝜕𝑝 2 ] ]
= ⋅ ⋅ (𝑟 ⋅ 𝜌 ⋅ ( − 𝜆)) [ 𝐶 𝑓 ⋅ ( ) ]
𝜇 𝑟 𝜕𝑟 𝜕𝑟 𝜇 ⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟
𝜕𝑟2 𝑟 𝜕𝑟 𝑟 𝜕𝑟
⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟
(A.9)
[ Main Term Quadratic Gradient Term]
𝑘 1 𝜕𝑝 𝑘 1 𝜕𝜌 𝜕𝑝
= ⋅ ⋅ (𝜌 ⋅ ( − 𝜆)) + ⋅ ⋅ (𝑟 ⋅ ⋅ ( − 𝜆)) 𝜕𝑝
𝜇 𝑟 𝜕𝑟 𝜇 𝑟 𝜕𝑟 𝜕𝑟 =𝜌⋅𝜙⋅ ⋅ 𝐶𝑡 .
𝜕𝑡
𝑘 1 𝜕2 𝑝
+ ⋅ ⋅ (𝑟 ⋅ 𝜌 ⋅ 2 ) Equation (A.9) can be equivalently simplified, by cancel-
𝜇 𝑟 𝜕𝑟 ing the variable 𝜌 in its both sides, as follows:
𝑘 1 𝜕𝑝 𝑘 1
= ⋅ ⋅ (𝜌 ⋅ ( − 𝜆)) + ⋅ 𝜕2 𝑝 1 𝜕𝑝 𝜆 𝜕𝑝 2 𝜇𝜙𝐶𝑡 𝜕𝑝
𝜇 𝑟 𝜕𝑟 𝜇 𝑟 + ⋅ − + 𝐶𝑓 ⋅ ( ) = . (A.10)
𝜕𝑟2 𝑟 𝜕𝑟 𝑟 𝜕𝑟 𝑘 𝜕𝑡
𝜕𝑝 𝜕𝑝
⋅ (𝑟 ⋅ 𝐶𝑓 ⋅ 𝜌 ⋅ ⋅ ( − 𝜆))
𝜕𝑟 𝜕𝑟 Conflict of Interests
2
𝑘 1 𝜕𝑝 Wenchao Liu and Jun Yao declare that there is no conflict of
+ ⋅ ⋅ (𝑟 ⋅ 𝜌 ⋅ 2 )
𝜇 𝑟 𝜕𝑟 interests regarding the publication of this paper.
𝑘𝜌 𝜕2 𝑝 1 𝜕𝑝 𝜆 𝜕𝑝 𝜕𝑝
= [ 2 + ⋅ − + 𝐶𝑓 ⋅ ⋅ ( − 𝜆)] Acknowledgments
𝜇 𝜕𝑟 𝑟 𝜕𝑟 𝑟 𝜕𝑟 𝜕𝑟
The authors would like to acknowledge the funding by the
𝑘𝜌 Projects Grants nos. 11102237 and 51404232, both sponsored
=
𝜇 by the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), and the
Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research
Team in University (Grant no. IRT1294).
[ 𝜕2 𝑝 1 𝜕𝑝 𝜆 𝜕𝑝 2 𝜕𝑝 ]
×[ + ⋅ −
[⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟ + 𝐶 ⋅ ( ) − 𝐶𝑓 ⋅ 𝜆 ⋅ ] .
𝜕𝑟 2 𝑟 𝜕𝑟 𝑟 𝑓
𝜕𝑟
⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟ 𝜕𝑟 ]
⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟⏟
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/370101
Research Article
A Differential-Algebraic Model for the Once-Through Steam
Generator of MHTGR-Based Multimodular Nuclear Plants
Zhe Dong1,2
1
Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
2
Key Laboratory of Advanced Reactor Engineering and Safety, Ministry of Education of China, Beijing 100084, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Zhe Dong; dongzhe@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn
Received 4 April 2014; Accepted 4 August 2014
Academic Editor: Zhijun Zhang
Copyright © 2015 Zhe Dong. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Small modular reactors (SMRs) are those fission reactors whose electrical output power is no more than 300 MWe . SMRs usually
have the inherent safety feature that can be applicable to power plants of any desired power rating by applying the multimodular
operation scheme. Due to its strong inherent safety feature, the modular high temperature gas-cooled reactor (MHTGR), which uses
helium as coolant and graphite as moderator and structural material, is a typical SMR for building the next generation of nuclear
plants (NGNPs). The once-through steam generator (OTSG) is the basis of realizing the multimodular scheme, and modeling of the
OTSG is meaningful to study the dynamic behavior of the multimodular plants and to design the operation and control strategy. In
this paper, based upon the conservation laws of mass, energy, and momentum, a new differential-algebraic model for the OTSGs of
the MHTGR-based multimodular nuclear plants is given. This newly-built model can describe the dynamic behavior of the OTSG
in both the cases of providing superheated steam and generating saturated steam. Numerical simulation results show the feasibility
and satisfactory performance of this model. Moreover, this model has been applied to develop the real-time simulation software for
the operation and regulation features of the world first underconstructed MHTGR-based commercial nuclear plant—HTR-PM.
1. Introduction reactors have become much more significant than before.

Small modular reactors (SMRs) are those nuclear fission
Nuclear fission energy is a crucial type of clean energy sources reactors whose electrical output power is less than 300 MWe .
that can meet the world’s increasing energy demands and also Due to the low power density and large heat capacity, SMRs
address challenges associated with global climate and envi- usually have the inherent safety feature, and could be bene-
ronmental impact. After the successful development of small ficial in providing electricity power to remote areas without
(tens of megawatts) light water reactors (LWRs) for propul- transmission or distribution infrastructure, in generating
sion by the U.S. Navy, the commercial fission reactors began local power for a large population center and in being
to commission in the late 1950s and early 1960s, which were viable for specific applications such as heat sources for the
essentially the scaled-up versions of those naval nuclear reac- industrial complexes [2]. SMRs with load following function
tors [1]. As plant sizes grew and as operational issues began to can be incorporated with new energy sources such as the
moderate the industry’s confidence in the plant safety, more solar and wind to build microgrids that have the virtues of
stringent safety requirements were imposed, which induced a persistent power supply, free refueling of nuclear fission fuels,
complex layering of redundant safety and auxiliary systems to and capability of seawater desalination and heat production.
the original simple LWRs. This escalation of plant complexity Moreover, by adopting multimodular operation strategy, that
contributed to rapidly increasing costs, licensing periods, is, multi-SMRs providing steam for one turbine/generator set,
and construction delays. However, these complicated safety the inherent safety feature can then be applicable to large
equipment still cannot well guarantee the plant safety. After power plants of any desired power ratings. Relative to the
the severe nuclear accidents, that is, the Three Mile Island, conventional nuclear plant, the most advanced feature of
Chernobyl, and Fukushima, the safety issues of nuclear the SMR-based plants is the inherent safety feature which
(a) IRIS (b) NuScale (c) mPower (d) SMART
Figure 1: Schematic views of some LWR-type SMRs.
Shutdown rod
Reflector
(a) Reactor (b) Plant structure (c) OTSG
Figure 2: 4S nuclear energy system.
prevents SMRs from the hazards of core-melting, radiological SMRs usually have the safety features of strong natural-
release, and LOCA (Loss of Coolant Accident). Furthermore, circulation and self-pressurized and are usually tightly cou-
SMRs can offer simpler, safer, and standardized modular pled with the once-through steam generators (OTSGs) to
design by being factory built, requiring smaller initial capital provide superheated steam [3, 4]. The second group are
investment, and having shorter construction period, and have those SMRs cooled either by liquid metal or liquid salt
been viewed by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) such as the 4S (Super-Safe, Small and Simple) fast reactor
as one of the active developing trends of nuclear energy. designed by Toshiba, fueled with enriched uranium or
There are three major groups of SMR designs that are plutonium and cooled by sodium. The schematic view of
actively being developed in the US, China, Japan, Korea, the 4S nuclear energy system is shown in Figure 2 from
and other countries. As shown in Figure 1, the first group of which we can see that the OTSG is also utilized here for
SMRs is based on the design concepts of proven and widely providing super-heated steam [4]. The third group consists of
used light water reactors (LWRs) such as the IRIS (interna- gas-cooled SMRs. The modular high temperature gas-cooled
tional reactor innovative and secure), NuScale and mPower reactor (MHTGR), which uses helium as coolant and graphite
designed by US, and the SMART designed by Korea. These as both moderator and structural materials, is a crucial
Control rod drivers

NSSS
Fuel elements Pebble-bed

Reflector
Helium blower
Steam turbine
Generator
Hot chamber
OTSG
Coaxial duct
Steam valve
Condenser
Feedwater pump
Figure 3: Structure of the HTR-PM plant.
gas-cooled SMR and has been seen as one the best candidates temperature, the OTSG is more proper for building multi-
for building the next generation of nuclear plant (NGNP). SMR based nuclear plants [10]. Therefore, it is clear that the
The inherent safety feature of the MHTGR is given by its low dynamic model of the OTSG is very crucial for studying
power density, strong negative temperature feedback effect, behavior of the SMR-based plant and also for verifying the
and slim reactor shape [5]. The first MHTGR of China, that operation and control strategies. Up to now, there have
is, 10 MWth pebble-bed high temperature gas-cooled reactor already been some works in building the dynamic models of
HTR-10, which was developed by the institute of nuclear OTSGs. Through dividing the OTSG secondary side into the
and new energy technology (INET) of Tsinghua University, subcooled, evaporating, and superheated sections, Ray gave a
achieved its full power-level in 2003 [6]. Based upon HTR-10, nonlinear dynamic model to the OTSG of a solar plant [11, 12].
the high temperature gas-cooled reactor pebble-bed module By further dividing the aforementioned evaporating section
(HTR-PM) plant has already been designed by INET and is into the two regions of nucleate boiling and film boiling,
now under construction. From Figure 3, HTR-PM is a two- Tzanos and Abdalla independently proposed the four region
modular nuclear plant that is the first MHTGR-based under- moving boundary models for the helical-coil OTSGs of the
constructed commercial plant. Each module of HTR-PM is a advanced liquid metal reactor (ALMR) [13, 14]. Recently, Li
nuclear steam supply system (NSSS) constituted by a pebble- et al. gave a three-region dynamic model for the OTSG of the
bed one-zone MHTGR, a side-by-side arranged helical-coil HTR-10 plant [15].
OTSG and some connecting pipes [7, 8]. Similar to the first The above OTSG models are all developed under the
and second groups of SMRs, the outlet steam of HTR-PM’s assumption that the outlet steam is superheated. However,
NSSS is also superheated. in some actual cases such as the plant startup or operation
From the above introduction, it is clear to see that the in very low power, the OTSG might also generate saturated
OTSG is key equipment in the SMR-based nuclear energy steam. The OTSG dynamics in these cases is quite significant
systems. Actually, this is given by the necessity of building for designing the plant operation strategy, but it cannot be
large nuclear plants based on parallel-operated multi-SMRs. described by the models presented in [11–15]. Therefore, it
The precondition of applying this parallel operation scheme is very necessary to give OTSG models for describing the
is that the pressure of the steam generated by each NSSS dynamic behavior in the cases of generating saturated steam.
must be equal to each other. Since the widely-utilized U-tube In this paper, a moving boundary region dynamic model
steam generators (UTSG) can only provide saturated steam of the OTSG of the MHTGR-based multimodular nuclear
whose pressure and temperature must obey the one-to-one plant is proposed. This model can be used to describe the
relationship, parallel-operating SMRs based on the UTSGs OTSG dynamics in the cases of providing superheated steam
may lead to the drift in the steady values of the coolant tem- and generating saturated steam. Then, numerical simulation
peratures [9]. Since the OTSG can provide superheated steam results show the feasibility of this new model. This model
which does not satisfy the one-to-one map from pressure to has already been adopted to develop the real-time simulation
Primary side Moreover, to obtain the lumped parameter model of the

Cold helium Hot helium
OTSG based on integrating (1)–(3) along the direction of
𝑥-axis defined in Figure 4, the following useful lemma is
O x introduced here.
Subcooled section Boiling section
Water
1 2 3 4 5
Steam Lemma 1 (Leibnitz). For a continuously differentiable func-
tion 𝛼(𝑡), 𝛽(𝑡), and 𝛾(𝑧, 𝑡), equation
Secondary side
Figure 4: Nodalization scheme of the OTSG. 𝑑 𝛽(𝑡)

∫ 𝛾 (𝑧, 𝑡) 𝑑𝑧
𝑑𝑡 𝛼(𝑡)
𝛽(𝑡) 𝜕𝛾 (𝑧, 𝑡) 𝑑𝛽 (𝑡)
software for the operation and control characteristics of HTR- =∫ 𝑑𝑧 + 𝛾 (𝛽 (𝑡) , 𝑡) (4)
PM plant. Moreover, the approach of building this new model 𝛼(𝑡) 𝜕𝑡 𝑑𝑡
can be applied to give the dynamic models for the OTSGs of
𝑑𝛼 (𝑡)
other SMR-based multimodular nuclear plants. − 𝛾 (𝛼 (𝑡) , 𝑡)
𝑑𝑡
2. Modeling Principles can be well-satisfied, where 𝑧, 𝑡 ∈ 𝑅.
The OTSG of MHTGR-based multimodular nuclear plants 3. Nonlinear Differential-Algebraic Model

such as the HTR-PM is a helical-coil once-through shell-
and-tube counterflow heat exchanger. The hot helium flows Based upon conservation laws (1)–(3) and Lemma 1, the
into the primary shell side, and the cold water is fed into the dynamic model of OTSG is developed in the following parts
secondary tube side. The hot helium transfers the thermal of this section.
power from the primary side to the secondary water/steam
two phase flow, which results in cooling the helium and 3.1. Dynamic Equations of the Secondary Side. The dynamic
heating the feedwater to superheated or saturated steam. equations of both the subcooled and boiling sections of the
Here, it is assumed that the two phase flows in all the tubes OTSG secondary side are established in this subsection.
of the OTSG are identical, which means that the OTSG can
be simply treated as a single tube heat exchanger. In order
to obtain dynamic model that is suitable to not only the 3.1.1. Subcooled Section. In the subcooled section, integrate
case of providing superheated steam but also the case of (1) and (2) along the direction of 𝑥-axis defined in Figure 4,
generating saturated steam, the OTSG is divided into two and we have
sections, that is, the subcooled section and boiling section. 𝑑 (𝜌𝑠2 𝑙13 ) 𝑑𝑙
This nodalization scheme is illustrated in Figure 4, and the − 𝜌𝑠3 13 + 𝐷3 − 𝐷1 = 0, (5)
boundary between these two sections is assumed to be 𝑑𝑡 𝑑𝑡
movable. Here, define 𝑙𝑖𝑗 (𝑖, 𝑗 = 1, . . . , 5 and 𝑖 < 𝑗) as the 𝑑 (𝜌𝑠2 ℎ𝑠2 𝑙13 ) 𝑑𝑙
length between nodes 𝑖 and 𝑗 in Figure 4. − 𝜌𝑠3 ℎ𝑠3 13 + 𝐷𝑠3 ℎ𝑠3 − 𝐷𝑠1 ℎ𝑠1
𝑑𝑡 𝑑𝑡
Then, under the coordinate frame given in Figure 4 (6)
and based on the conservation laws of mass, energy, and 𝑄 𝑑 (𝑃𝑠2 𝑙13 ) 𝑑𝑙
= 𝑠2 + − 𝑃𝑠3 13 ,
momentum at position 𝑥 in the flow channel at time 𝑡, we 𝐴2 𝑑𝑡 𝑑𝑡
have
where 𝑄𝑠2 and 𝑄𝑠2 are the heat flux from the tube-wall to
𝜕𝜌 𝜕𝐷 the flow of the secondary side in the subcooled and boiling
+ = 0, (1)
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥 sections, respectively.
Moreover, since the dynamic behavior of the pressure-
𝜕 (𝜌ℎ) 𝜕 (𝐷ℎ) 𝑞 𝜕𝑃
+ = + , (2) flow process is much faster than that of the enthalpy-
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥 𝐴 𝜕𝑡 temperature process, the time-differentiation term in (3) can
𝜕𝐷 𝜕 𝐷2 𝜕𝑃 1 𝐷2 𝑆 be omitted here; that is, we can suppose that
+ ( )+ =− 𝑓 − 𝜌𝑔, (3)
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥 𝜌 𝜕𝑥 2 𝜌 𝐴 𝑓 𝜕 𝐷2 𝜕𝑃 1 𝐷2 𝑆
( )+ =− 𝑓 − 𝜌𝑔. (7)
𝜕𝑥 𝜌 𝜕𝑥 2 𝜌 𝐴 𝑓
where 𝜌 is the fluid density (kg/m3 ), 𝐷 is the fluid mass
velocity (kg/(s⋅m2 )), ℎ is the fluid enthalpy per unit mass Then, by integrating (7) along 𝑥-axis in the subcooled
(J/kg), 𝑞 is the heat flux per unit length, 𝑃 is the fluid pressure section, we have
(Pa), 𝑓𝑓 is the fanning friction factor, 𝑆 is the flow channel
wetted perimeter (m), 𝐴 is the area of the flow cross-section 2
𝑃𝑠3 = 𝑃𝑠1 − 𝜌𝑠2 𝑔𝑙13 sin 𝜃 − 𝐹𝑠2 𝑙13 𝐷𝑠2 , (8)
(m2 ), and 𝑔 is the gravitational acceleration (N⋅m/s2 ). The
OTSG dynamic model in this paper is obtained based upon where 𝜃 is the helically coiled angle of the tubes and 𝐹 is the
the conservation laws determined by (1)–(3). friction factor of pressure.
Since the water near point 3 in Figure 4 is saturate, from From Lemma 1 and by integrating (1), (2), and (7) along
the thermodynamic features of saturate water, we can derive the direction of 𝑥-axis in the boiling section, we can obtain
that that
𝑑ℎ𝑠3 𝜕ℎ𝑠3 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝑑𝑃𝑠3
= 󵄨 .
𝜕𝑃𝑠3 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑃𝑠3 𝑑𝑡
(9) 𝑑 (𝜌𝑠4 𝑙35 )
𝑑𝑡 𝑑𝑙
+ 𝜌𝑠3 13 + 𝐷𝑠5 − 𝐷𝑠3 = 0, (16)
𝑑𝑡 𝑑𝑡
Moreover, it is not loss generality to assume that
𝑑 (𝜌𝑠4 ℎ𝑠4 𝑙35 ) 𝑑𝑙
𝐺𝑠2 = 𝐷𝑠2 𝐴 𝑠2 , + 𝜌𝑠3 ℎ𝑠3 13 + 𝐷𝑠5 ℎ𝑠5 − 𝐷𝑠3 ℎ𝑠3
𝑑𝑡 𝑑𝑡
(17)
𝐺 + 𝐺𝑠3 𝑄 𝑑 (𝑃𝑠4 𝑙35 ) 𝑑𝑙
𝐺𝑠2 = 𝑠1 , = 𝑠4 + + 𝑃𝑠3 13 ,
2 𝐴 𝑠4 𝑑𝑡 𝑑𝑡
ℎ𝑠1 + ℎ𝑠3 (10)
2
ℎ𝑠2 = , 𝑃𝑠5 = 𝑃𝑠3 − 𝜌𝑠4 𝑔𝑙35 sin 𝜃 − 𝐹𝑠4 𝑙35 𝐷𝑠4 . (18)
2
𝑃𝑠1 + 𝑃𝑠3
𝑃𝑠2 = , Based upon relationship between (14)–(15) and (18) and
2
by subtracting the multiplication of (16) and ℎ4 from (17), we
where 𝐺𝑠 is the flowrate of the secondary side. have
Based on (8)–(10) and by subtracting the multiplication
of (5) and ℎ2 from (6), we have
1 𝑑ℎ
𝜌𝑠4 𝑙35 𝑠5
1 2 𝑑𝑡
[𝜌 (ℎ − ℎ𝑠3 ) + (𝑃𝑠3 − 𝑃𝑠1 )
2 𝑠3 𝑠1 1
+ {𝜌 (ℎ − ℎ𝑠5 ) + (𝑃𝑠5 − 𝑃𝑠3 )
𝜕ℎ𝑠3 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝐺2 𝑑𝑙13 2 𝑠3 𝑠3
+ 𝑙13 (1 − 𝜌𝑠2 󵄨 ) (𝜌𝑠2 𝑔 sin 𝜃 + 𝐹𝑠2 2𝑠2 )]
𝜕𝑃𝑠3 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑃𝑠3 𝐴 𝑠2 𝑑𝑡 𝜕ℎ𝑠3 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝐺2
+ 𝑙35 [(2 − 𝜌𝑠4 󵄨󵄨 ) (𝜌𝑠2 𝑔 sin 𝜃 + 𝐹𝑠2 2𝑠2 )
1 𝑑ℎ 𝐹 𝐺2 𝑙2 𝜕ℎ 󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝑑𝐺𝑠3 𝜕𝑃𝑠3 󵄨󵄨𝑃𝑠3 𝐴 𝑠2
+ 𝜌𝑠2 𝑙13 𝑠1 + 𝑠2 𝑠22 13 (1 − 𝜌𝑠2 𝑠3 󵄨󵄨󵄨 )
2 𝑑𝑡 2𝐴 𝑠2 𝜕𝑃𝑠3 󵄨󵄨𝑃𝑠3 𝑑𝑡 2
𝐺𝑠4 𝑑𝑙
− (𝜌𝑠4 𝑔 sin 𝜃 + 𝐹𝑠4 2
)]} 13
𝑄𝑠2 1 𝐺𝑠1 𝐺𝑠3 𝐴 𝑠4 𝑑𝑡
= + ( + ) (ℎ𝑠1 − ℎ𝑠3 ) .
𝐴 𝑠2 2 𝐴 𝑠1 𝐴 𝑠3 1 𝜕ℎ 󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝐹 𝐺 𝑙
(11) + 𝑙35 [(1 − 𝜌𝑠4 𝑠3 󵄨󵄨󵄨 ) 𝑠2 2𝑠2 13
2 𝜕𝑃𝑠3 󵄨󵄨𝑃𝑠3 𝐴 𝑠2
By considering the transport inertia in the subcooled
section, the dynamics of the secondary-side flowrate and 2𝐹𝑠4 𝐺𝑠4 𝑙13 𝑑𝐺𝑠3
+ ]
water enthalpy at point 1 can be described by 𝐴2𝑠2 𝑑𝑡
𝑑𝐺𝑠3 𝐺𝑠1 − 𝐺𝑠3 𝑄𝑠4 + 𝐺𝑠4 (ℎ𝑠3 − ℎ𝑠5 )
= , (12) = .
𝑑𝑡 𝜏𝐺 𝐴 𝑠4
(19)
𝑑ℎ𝑠1 ℎ𝑓𝑤 − ℎ𝑠1
= , (13)
𝑑𝑡 𝜏𝐻
3.1.3. State-Space Model of the Secondary Side. Define the
respectively, where both 𝜏𝐺 and 𝜏𝐻 are given positive con- state-vector and input-vector of the OTSG secondary side as
stants.
𝑇
3.1.2. Boiling Section. Due to the high velocity and relative x𝑠 = [𝑙13 ℎ𝑠5 ℎ𝑠1 𝐺𝑠3 ] , (20)
low density of the fluid in the boiling section, we assume that
𝑇
u𝑠 = [𝐺𝑠1 ℎ𝑓𝑤 𝑄𝑠2 𝑄𝑠4 ] , (21)
𝐺𝑠3 = 𝐺𝑠4 = 𝐺𝑠5 , (14)
and further we also suppose that respectively.

ℎ𝑠3 + ℎ𝑠5 Then, based upon (11), (19), (13), and (12), the nonlinear
ℎ𝑠4 = , state-space model of the secondary side can be written as
2
(15)
𝑃 + 𝑃𝑠5
𝑃𝑠4 = 𝑠3 . E𝑠 (x𝑠 ) ẋ𝑠 = f𝑠 (x𝑠 , u𝑠 ) , (22)
2
where in Figure 4. Then, by integrating (24) along 𝑥-axis and by

1 using Lemma 1, we have
[𝐸𝑠11 (x𝑠 ) 0 𝜌 𝑙 𝐸 (x )
2 𝑠2 13 𝑠14 𝑠 ]
[ 1 ]
[ 𝐸𝑠24 (x𝑠 )] 𝑑 𝑄𝑝2 − 𝑄𝑠2 𝑑𝑙
E𝑠 (x𝑠 ) = [𝐸𝑠21 (x𝑠 ) 𝜌𝑠4 𝑙35 0 ], 𝜌𝑚 𝐶𝑚 (𝑙13 𝑇𝑚2 ) = + 𝜌𝑚 𝐶𝑚 𝑇𝑚3 13 ,
[ 2 ]
[ 0 0 𝜏𝐻 0 ] 𝑑𝑡 𝐴 𝑚2 𝑑𝑡
(25)
[ 0 0 0 𝜏𝐺 ]
𝑑 𝑄𝑝4 − 𝑄𝑠4 𝑑𝑙
𝜌𝑚 𝐶𝑚 (𝑙35 𝑇𝑚4 ) = − 𝜌𝑚 𝐶𝑚 𝑇𝑚3 13 ,
1 𝑑𝑡 𝐴 𝑚4 𝑑𝑡
𝐸𝑠11 (x𝑠 ) = [𝜌 (ℎ − ℎ𝑠3 ) + (𝑃𝑠3 − 𝑃𝑠1 )
2 𝑠3 𝑠1
where
𝜕ℎ 󵄨󵄨󵄨
+ 𝑙13 (1 − 𝜌𝑠2 𝑠3 󵄨󵄨󵄨 )
𝜕𝑃𝑠3 󵄨󵄨𝑃𝑠3 𝑙35 𝑇𝑚2 + 𝑙13 𝑇𝑚4
𝑇𝑚3 = , (26)
𝑙15
𝐺2
× (𝜌𝑠2 𝑔 sin 𝜃 + 𝐹𝑠2 2𝑠2 )] ,
𝐴 𝑠2
and 𝑄𝑝2 and 𝑄𝑝4 are, respectively, the heat flux from the pri-
2 2
𝐹𝑠2 𝐺𝑠2 𝑙13 𝜕ℎ 󵄨󵄨󵄨 mary helium flow to tube-wall in the subcooled and boiling
𝐸𝑠14 (x𝑠 ) = (1 − 𝜌𝑠2 𝑠3 󵄨󵄨󵄨 ) , sections.
2𝐴2𝑠2 𝜕𝑃𝑠3 󵄨󵄨𝑃𝑠3
From (25) and (26), we can further obtain the dynamic
1 equations of the tube-wall between the primary and sec-
𝐸𝑠21 (x𝑠 ) = {𝜌 (ℎ − ℎ𝑠5 ) + (𝑃𝑠5 − 𝑃𝑠3 ) ondary sides as
2 𝑠3 𝑠3
𝜕ℎ𝑠3 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝑑𝑇𝑚2 𝑄𝑝2 − 𝑄𝑠2 𝑇 − 𝑇𝑚2 𝑑𝑙13

+ 𝑙35 [(2 − 𝜌𝑠4 󵄨 ) = + 𝑚4 ,
𝜕𝑃𝑠3 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑃𝑠3 𝑑𝑡 𝐶𝑚 𝜌𝑚 𝐴 𝑚2 𝑙13 𝑙15 𝑑𝑡
(27)
𝐺2 𝑑𝑇𝑚4 𝑄𝑝4 − 𝑄𝑠4 𝑇 − 𝑇𝑚2 𝑑𝑙13
× (𝜌𝑠2 𝑔 sin 𝜃 + 𝐹𝑠2 2𝑠2 ) = + 𝑚4 .
𝐴 𝑠2 𝑑𝑡 𝐶𝑚 𝜌𝑚 𝐴 𝑚4 𝑙35 𝑙15 𝑑𝑡
2
𝐺𝑠4
− (𝜌𝑠4 𝑔 sin 𝜃 + 𝐹𝑠4 )]} , By defining
𝐴2𝑠4
𝐸𝑠24 (x𝑠 ) x𝑚 = [𝑇𝑚2 𝑇𝑚4 ] ,

𝑇
(28)
1 𝜕ℎ 󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝐹 𝐺 𝑙 2𝐹 𝐺 𝑙 𝑇
= 𝑙35 [(1 − 𝜌𝑠4 𝑠3 󵄨󵄨󵄨 ) 𝑠2 2𝑠2 13 + 𝑠4 2 𝑠4 13 ] , u𝑚 = [𝑄𝑝2 − 𝑄𝑠2 𝑄𝑝4 − 𝑄𝑠4 ] , (29)
2 𝜕𝑃𝑠3 󵄨󵄨𝑃𝑠3 𝐴 𝑠2 𝐴 𝑠2
𝑄𝑠2 1 𝐺𝑠1 𝐺𝑠3 the state-space model of the tube wall can be written as
+ ( + ) (ℎ𝑠1 − ℎ𝑠3 )
[ 𝐴 𝑠2 2 𝐴 𝑠1 𝐴 𝑠3 ]
[ ]
[ 𝑄𝑠4 + 𝐺𝑠4 (ℎ𝑠3 − ℎ𝑠5 ) ] ẋ𝑚 = A𝑚 (x)̇ x𝑚 + B𝑚 (x) u𝑚 ,
[ ] (30)
[ ]
[ 𝐴 𝑠4 ]
f𝑠 (x𝑠 , u𝑠 ) = [
[
].
]
[ ℎ𝑓𝑤 − ℎ𝑠1 ] where
[ ]
[ 𝜏 ]
[ 𝐻 ]
[ 𝐺 −𝐺 ] ̇ −1 1
𝑙13
𝑠1 𝑠3
A𝑚 (x)̇ = [ ],
[ 𝜏𝐺 ] 𝑙15 −1 1
(23) (31)
𝑇
1 1 1
B𝑚 (x) = diag ([ ] ).
3.2. Differential Equations of the Tube-Wall. Since there is 𝐶𝑚 𝜌𝑚 𝐴 𝑚2 𝑙13 𝐴 𝑚4 (𝑙15 − 𝑙13 )
no flow inside the metal tube wall between the primary and
secondary sides, it is clear that partial differential equation (2) 3.3. Algebraic Equations of the Primary Side. According to the
describing the energy conservation law can be simplified as nodalization scheme illustrated in Figure 4, the primary side
𝜕 (𝜌ℎ) 𝑞 is also divided into two sections. Since the primary coolant
= . (24) is single-phase helium whose flowing velocity is much faster
𝜕𝑡 𝐴
than that of the two-phase flow inside the secondary side,
Here, for the simplicity of the model, we assume that the the algebraic equations are used to give the energy and
tube temperature is linearly distributed along 𝑥-axis defined temperature relationship of the first side.
From the conservation law of energy, it is clear that Based on (32)–(34), the algebraic equation for describing
the operation characteristics of the primary side can be
𝑄𝑝2 = 𝐶𝑝 𝐺𝑝 (𝑇𝑝3 − 𝑇𝑝1 ) , written as
(32)
𝑄𝑝4 = 𝐶𝑝 𝐺𝑝 (𝑇𝑝5 − 𝑇𝑝3 ) , A𝑝 (x𝑠 ) x𝑝 = b𝑝 (x𝑚 , x𝑝 ) , (35)
where 𝐺𝑝 is the helium flowrate, 𝐶𝑝 is the helium specific where

heat, and 𝑇𝑝𝑖 is the helium temperature at point 𝑖 (𝑖 =
𝑇
1, . . . , 5). x𝑝 = [𝑇𝑝1 𝑇𝑝2 𝑇𝑝3 𝑇𝑝4 ] , (36)
Moreover, from the energy balance relationship between
the primary and secondary side, it is clear to see that 1 −2 1 0
[ 0 𝑙 −𝑙 𝑙 ]
[ 35 15 13 ]
A𝑝 (x𝑚 ) = [ ,
0 ]
𝑄𝑝2 = 𝐾𝑝2 𝑙13 (𝑇𝑝2 − 𝑇𝑚2 ) , (37)
[−𝐶𝑝 𝐺𝑝 −𝐾𝑝2 𝑙13 𝐶𝑝 𝐺𝑝 ]
𝑄𝑝4 = 𝐾𝑝4 𝑙35 (𝑇𝑝4 − 𝑇𝑚4 ) , [ 0 0 −𝐶𝑝 𝐺𝑝 −𝐾𝑝4 𝑙35 ]
(33)
𝑇
𝑄𝑠2 = 𝐾𝑠2 𝑙13 (𝑇𝑚2 − 𝑇𝑠2 ) , b𝑝 (x𝑚 , x𝑝 ) = [0 0 −𝐾𝑝2 𝑙13 𝑇𝑚2 −𝐾𝑝4 𝑙35 𝑇𝑚4 − 𝐶𝑝 𝐺𝑝 𝑇𝑝5 ] .
𝑄𝑠4 = 𝐾𝑠4 𝑙35 (𝑇𝑚4 − 𝑇𝑠4 ) , (38)
where 𝑇𝑠𝑖 is the temperature of the two-phase flow inside the 3.4. Differential-Algebraic State-Space Model. Based upon the
secondary side at point 𝑖 (𝑖 = 1, . . . , 5), 𝐾𝑝2 and 𝐾𝑝4 are the above analysis and derivation, define the state-vector x and
heat transfer coefficients between the primary side and tube- input-vector u as
wall of the subcooled and boiling sections, respectively, and
𝐾𝑠2 and 𝐾𝑠4 are, respectively, the heat transfer coefficients 𝑇
x = [x𝑠𝑇 x𝑚
𝑇
x𝑝𝑇 ] ,
between the tube-wall and secondary side of the subcooled (39)
and boiling sections. 𝑇
u = [𝐺𝑠1 ℎ𝑓𝑤 𝐺𝑝 𝐺𝑝 𝑇𝑝5 ] ,
Moreover, assume that the helium temperature distribu-
tion along the 𝑥-axis defined in Figure 4 is linear, and then we where x𝑠 , x𝑚 , and x𝑝 are given by (20), (28), and (36),
can easy obtain that respectively. Then, the differential-algebraic model of the
OTSG for MHTGR-based multimodular nuclear plants can
𝑇𝑝1 = 2𝑇𝑝2 − 𝑇𝑝3 , be summarized as
𝑇𝑝2 𝑙35 + 𝑇𝑝4 𝑙13 (34) E (x) ẋ= f (x) + G (x) u, (40)
𝑇𝑝3 = .
𝑙15 where
Ξ (x) O6×4
E (x) = [ ],
O4×6 O4
𝑇
G (x) = [G𝑇1 (x) O4 G𝑇2 (x)] ,
−1
𝐺𝑠3 (2𝐴 𝑠3 ) (ℎ𝑠1 − ℎ𝑠3 ) + 𝐾𝑠2 𝑙13 𝐴−1 𝑠2 (𝑇𝑚2 − 𝑇𝑠2 )
[ ]
[ 𝐴−1 [𝐺 (ℎ − ℎ ) + 𝐾 (𝑙 − 𝑙 ) (𝑇 − 𝑇 )] ]
[ 𝑠4 𝑠4 𝑠3 𝑠5 𝑠4 15 13 𝑚4 𝑠4 ]
[ ]
[ −ℎ 𝜏 −1 ]
[ 𝑠1 𝐻 ]
[ ]
[ −𝐺𝑠3 𝜏𝐺 −1 ]
[ ]
[ ]
[(𝐶 𝜌 𝐴 )−1 [𝐾 𝑇 + 𝐾 𝑇 − (𝐾 + 𝐾 ) 𝑇 ]]
[ 𝑚 𝑚 𝑚2 𝑝2 𝑝2 𝑠2 𝑠2 𝑝2 𝑠2 𝑚2 ]
f (x) = [
[ −1
],
]
[(𝐶𝑚 𝜌𝑚 𝐴 𝑚4 ) [𝐾𝑝4 𝑇𝑝4 + 𝐾𝑠4 𝑇𝑠4 − (𝐾𝑝4 + 𝐾𝑠4 ) 𝑇𝑚4 ]]
[ ]
[ ]
[ 2𝑇𝑝2 − (𝑇𝑝1 + 𝑇𝑝3 ) ]
[ ]
[ ]
[ 𝑙15 𝑇𝑝3 − (𝑙15 − 𝑙13 ) 𝑇𝑝2 − 𝑙13 𝑇𝑝4 ]
[ ]
[ ]
[ 𝐾𝑝2 𝑙13 (𝑇𝑝2 − 𝑇𝑚2 ) ]
[ ]
[ 𝐾𝑝4 (𝑙15 − 𝑙13 ) (𝑇𝑝4 − 𝑇𝑚4 ) ]
𝜌𝑠2 𝑙13
[ 𝐸𝑠11 (x𝑚 ) 0
2
𝐸𝑠14 (x𝑚 ) 0 0]
[ 𝜌 ]
[ 𝑠4 𝑙35 ]
[ 𝐸𝑠21 (x𝑚 ) 0 𝐸𝑠24 (x𝑚 ) 0 0]
[ 2 ]
[ ]
Ξ (x) = [
[ 0 0 𝜏𝐻 0 0 0]
],
[ 0 0 0 𝜏𝐺 0 0]
[ ]
[ ]
[(𝑇𝑚2 − 𝑇𝑚4 ) 𝑙 −1
0 0 0 1 0]
[ 15 ]
−1
[(𝑇𝑚2 − 𝑇𝑚4 ) 𝑙15 0 0 0 0 1]
−1
(2𝐴 𝑠1 ) (ℎ𝑠1 − ℎ𝑠3 ) 0 0 0
[ ]
[ 0 0 0 0]
G1 (x) = [
[
],
[ 0 −1
𝜏𝐻 0 0]
]
[ 𝜏𝐺−1 0 0 0]
0 0 𝐶𝑝 (𝑇𝑝1 − 𝑇𝑝3 ) 0
G2 (x) = [ ].
0 0 𝐶𝑝 𝑇𝑝3 −𝐶𝑝
(41)
In the process of developing dynamic model (40), there temperature 𝑇𝑝1 are shown in Figure 5. Here, steam quality
is no assumption on the outlet steam to be superheated, 𝑥𝑀 is defined by
which means that this model can describe the dynamic
behavior of the OTSG in the case of generating saturate ℎ𝑠5 − ℎ𝑙
𝑥𝑀 = , (42)
steam and also can also roughly describe the dynamics in ℎ𝑔𝑙
the case of providing super-heated steam. Moreover, due to
the simplicity of model (40), it can be used to design steam where ℎ𝑙 is specific enthalpy of saturated steam corresponding
temperature controller for the OTSG. to outlet steam pressure 𝑃𝑠5 , and ℎ𝑔𝑙 is the latent heat of
vaporization corresponding to 𝑃𝑠5 . If 𝑥𝑀 > 1, then the outlet
steam is superheated. If 𝑥𝑀 ≤ 1, then the outlet steam is
4. Numerical Simulation Results saturate.
In order to verify the feasibility of differential-algebraic OTSG
model (40), we applied it to simulate the dynamic behavior of Case B: Step Decrease in the Feedwater Flowrate at 75% RFP.
the OTSG in the HTR-PM plant. The numerical simulation The system operates at the steady state of 75% RFP for 2000 s,
is done in MATLAB/ SIMULINK environment. The model and then a step decrease in the feed-water flowrate with the
parameters are given by physical and thermal design of value of 5 kg/s is added. The transient responses of outlet
this OTSG. In the following, both the steady and transient steam temperature 𝑇𝑠5 , length of the subcooed section 𝑙13 ,
simulations are performed, and some necessary discussions outlet steam quality 𝑥𝑀, and outlet cold helium temperature
are also given. 𝑇𝑝1 are all illustrated in Figure 6.
Case C: Step Increase in the Feedwater Flowrate at 30% RFP.

4.1. Steady Results. The main steady-state results at the oper- The system operates at the steady state of 30% RFP for 2000 s,
ating power-levels of 100%, 90%, 75%, 50%, and 30% reactor and then a step increase in the feed-water flowrate with the
full power (RFP) with comparison to the designed values are value of 25 kg/s is added. The transient responses of outlet
given in Table 1. steam temperature 𝑇𝑠5 , length of the subcooed section 𝑙13 ,
outlet steam quality 𝑥𝑀, and outlet cold helium temperature
4.2. Transient Results. For verifying the feasibility of model 𝑇𝑝1 are all illustrated in Figure 7. This case is utilized to
(40) in describing the OTSG dynamic behavior, the transient show that model (40) can simulate the OTSG dynamics when
results corresponding to the following three cases are given. saturate steam is generated.
Case A: Step Decease in the Helium Flowrate at 75% RFP. After 4.3. Discussions. By comparing the simulated and designed
the system operates at the steady state of 75% RFP for 2000 s, a values given in Table 1, we can clearly see that the maxi-
step decrease of 5 kg/s in the primary helium flowrate is added mal relative error is no more than 2%, which shows that
to the system, and the corresponding transient responses of differential-algebraic model (40) has a high steady precision.
outlet steam temperature 𝑇𝑠5 , the length of the subcooed In case A, since the inlet hot helium temperature is con-
section 𝑙13 , the outlet steam quality 𝑥𝑀, and oulet cold helium stant, the step decrease in the helium flowrate results in
Table 1: Comparison of the steady simulation results and designed data.
Power-level/RFP 100% 90% 75% 50% 30%

Helium flowrate 𝐺𝑝 /(kg/s) 96.26 83.95 72.58 51.3 33.44
Feedwater flowrate 𝐺𝑠1 /(kg/s) 93.25 84.24 70.75 48.76 30.93
Hot helium temperature 𝑇𝑝5 /∘ C 750.0 743.5 733.75 717.5 704.5
Feedwater temperature 𝑇fw /∘ C 205.2 199.1 191.1 175.1 157.1
Designed outlet steam temperature 𝑇𝑠50 /∘ C 571.0 571.0 571.0 571.0 571.0
Simulated outlet steam temperature 𝑇𝑠5 /∘ C 571.0 571.0 571.0 571.0 571.0
Relative error of steam temperature/% 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Designed cold helium temperature 𝑇𝑝1 /∘ C 243.0 237.2 228.5 214.0 202.4
Simulated cold helium temperature 𝑇𝑝1 /∘ C 242.5 236.5 229.4 215.2 200.0
Relative error of cold helium temperature/% 0.20 0.30 0.39 0.56 1.19
580 34
560
32
Ts5 (∘ C)
l13 (m)
540
30
520
500 28
2000 2200 2400 2000 2200 2400
Time (s) Time (s)
1.85 230
1.8
Tp1 (∘ C)
xM
1.75 225
1.7
1.65 220
2000 2200 2400 2000 2200 2400
Time (s) Time (s)
Figure 5: Simulation results in case A.
the decrease of the heat transferred from the primary to Figure 5, the above physical analysis well copes with the
the secondary side, which then induce the decreases in the numerical results.
outlet steam temperature, steam quality and length of the In the case of feedwater flowrate decrease at 75% RFP,
boiling section. Moreover, thermal power transferred from since both the inlet helium temperature and primary helium
the primary to the secondary sides is also reduced, which flowrate remain constant when the step decrease in the
further causes the decrease of the primary average helium feedwater flowrate occurs, the thermal power transferred
temperature. Since the inlet hot temperature is not changed, from the primary helium flow to the tube-wall is not changed
the decrease in average helium temperature certainly results at the beginning. Then, the decrease in the feedwater flowrate
in the decrease of outlet cold helium temperature. From must lead to the increases of the outlet steam temperature and
640 30
620
28
Ts5 (∘ C)
l13 (m)
600
26
580
560 24
2000 2200 2400 2000 2200 2400
Time (s) Time (s)
2 240
1.95
235
Tp1 (∘ C)
xM
1.9
230
1.85
1.8 225
2000 2200 2400 2000 2200 2400
Time (s) Time (s)
Figure 6: Simulation results in case B.
steam quality and lengthening of the boiling section. Since Finally, from the above discussion, we can easily see that
the specific enthalpy of the feedwater is constant, the increase the steady precision of dynamic model (40) is very high,
of the steam temperature reduces the temperature difference and the transient responses of this model can well cope
between the two sides of the OTSG, which leads to the with the physical trend of the OTSG. Moreover, this model
decrease of the thermal power transferred from the primary can well describe the dynamic behavior of the OTSG in
to the secondary sides, and certainly further results in the case of generating saturate steam. Actually, this model has
increase of the temperature of the primary outlet helium flow. already been adopted to develop the real-time software for
From Figure 6, the numerical phenomenon is in accordance the operation and control features of the HTR-PM plant, as
with the above physical analysis in this case. shown in Figure 8 [16].
In case C, after the occurrence of the large step increase
in the feedwater flowrate, the outlet steam temperature 5. Conclusions
is quickly and largely decreased since the thermal power
transferred from the primary side is nearly not changed at Due to the inherent safety feature of the SMR, SMR-based
the initial stage. The decrease in the steam temperature is nuclear plants are an important developing trend of the
certainly equivalent to the decreases of the boiling section nuclear energy systems. Based upon the multimodular oper-
length and steam quality, and results in a larger temperature ation strategy, SMRs can be used to build nuclear plants
difference between the two sides of the OTSG. This difference with any desired power rating and inherent safety. The
certainly enlarges thermal power transferred to the secondary OTSG is key equipment of any SMR-based multimodular
side, and then results in the temperature decrease of the pri- nuclear plants, and developing the dynamic model for the
mary outlet cold helium. The above analysis well accords with OTSG is very meaningful to study the dynamic behavior
the numerical results in Figure 7. Moreover, from Figure 7, of the multimodular nuclear plants. In this paper, based on
the step increase of the feedwater flowrate is so large that the conservation laws of mass, energy, and momentum, a
the OTSG outlet steam becomes saturated quickly, which differential-algebraic model for the OTSG of those MHTGR-
means that differential-algebraic model (40) can be used for based multimodular nuclear plants is presented. This model
transient simulation in case of generating saturate steam. can describe the dynamic behavior of the OTSG in both
700 60
600
50
Ts5 (∘ C)
l13 (m)
500
40
400
300 30
2000 2200 2400 2000 2200 2400
Time (s) Time (s)
2 250
1.5 200
Tp1 (∘ C)
xM
1 150
0.5 100
2000 2200 2400 2000 2200 2400
Time (s) Time (s)
Figure 7: Simulation results in case C.
plant. In the future, more simulation results of the closed-

loop dynamic responses will be given by coupling this new
OTSG model with steam temperature control laws.
Conflict of Interests
The author declares that there is no conflict of interests
regarding the publication of this paper.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/989260
Research Article
A Numerical Study of Natural Convection Heat
Transfer in Fin Ribbed Radiator
Hua-Shu Dou,1 Gang Jiang,2 and Lite Zhang1

1
The Province Key Laboratory of Fluid Transmission Technology, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Automation,
Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou 310018, China
2
Huadian Electric Power Research Institute, Hangzhou 310030, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Hua-Shu Dou; huashudou@yahoo.com
Received 6 March 2014; Accepted 11 April 2014
Copyright © 2015 Hua-Shu Dou et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
This paper numerically investigates the thermal flow and heat transfer by natural convection in a cavity fixed with a fin array. The
computational domain consists of both solid (copper) and fluid (air) areas. The finite volume method and the SIMPLE scheme
are used to simulate the steady flow in the domain. Based on the numerical results, the energy gradient function 𝐾 of the energy
gradient theory is calculated. It is observed from contours of the temperature and energy gradient function that the position where
thermal instability takes place correlates well with the region of large 𝐾 values, which demonstrates that the energy gradient method
reveals the physical mechanism of the flow instability. Furthermore, the effects of the fin height, the fin number, and the fin shape on
the heat transfer rate are also investigated. It is found that the thermal performance of the fin array is determined by the combined
effect of the fin space and fin height. It is also observed that the effect of fin shape on heat transfer is insignificant.
1. Introduction into a vertical, 45-degree plate and a horizontal plate,

respectively. They obtained some free natural convection data
Natural convection heat transfer from finned surfaces has which were widely used in the subsequent investigations.
received much attention in both numerical simulations and Harahap and McManus [2] obtained more detailed data by
experimental modeling, it is adopted extensively in various investigating free convection heat transfer from horizontal
industrial devices, such as gas cooled nuclear reactors, auto- fin arrays using the schlieren shadowgraph technique. Jones
mobile, aerospace vehicles, and electronic systems. Nowa- and Smith [3] applied a Mach-Zender interferometer in their
days, as electronic equipment tends to be large as well as experiments to study the variation of local heat transfer
miniature, removing heat rapidly from the equipment is coefficient for isothermal vertical fin arrays on a horizontal
much more desirable than before, since the thermal efficiency base. With a fixed fin height 𝐿 = 254 mm, the experi-
of heat removal from the equipment can impact the life-span mental data shows that the overall heat transfer coefficient
of the equipment. There are mainly two ways to enhance heat depends strongly on the fin space but weakly on the fin
transfer from heat-generating electronic equipment. The first height. Rammohan Rao and Venkateshan [4] experimentally
convenient method is to cool the electronic equipment by investigated the interaction of free convection and radiation
blowing air at a moderate velocity, and the second way is in a horizontal fin array. The most important conclusion
to use fin arrays. Since the forced convection approach has made in their research was that there was a mutual interaction
inherited problems and has to bear extra running cost, more between free convection and radiation and hence a simplistic
and more researchers focus on designing optimum fin arrays, approach based on additivity of radiation and convection
which can provide moderate heat transfer rates if designed heat transfer, calculated independently based on isothermal
properly. surfaces, was unsatisfactory. Yüncü and Anbar [5] also made
In early stage, Starner and McManus [1] made some some experiments to research the effects of the fin space, the
experiments by inserting four different rectangular fin arrays fin height, and the temperature difference on heat transfer
with a fixed fin height and fin thickness. They found that numerical simulations to investigate the effect of fin parame-
there was an optimum fin spacing which was not related to ters on dynamic natural convection from long horizontal fin
the temperature difference. However, optimum fin spacing arrays. They observed that the optimum fin spacing decreases
was inversely proportional with the fin height. Mobedi and significantly with the fin height and increases slightly with the
Yüncü [6] numerically investigated the steady state natural fin length. Furthermore, their observations agreed well with
convection heat transfer in longitudinally short rectangular the results reported in the literature.
fin arrays on a horizontal base. They observed two types of All the above experimental and numerical research
flow patterns. For the fin arrays with narrow fin spacing, focused on optimum design of the fin arrays in order to
air could only enter into the channel from the end regions. improve heat transfer rate. Almost all the related factors
However, for the fin arrays with wide fin spacing, the air was result in laminar convection involving low values of heat
also entrained into the channel from the region between the transfer coefficients. However, it is well known that the heat
fins, turned 180 degrees at the base, and then moved up along transfer rate will be prompted when the base flow loses its
the fin surface, while it flowed into the central part of the stability and flows in a turbulent manner [15]. Although
channel. some optimum fin arrays design can obtain a satisfying heat
More recently, lots of researchers tried to enhance heat transfer rate which resulted from flow instability, the physical
transfer rate of fin arrays using fin arrays. Arquis and Rady mechanism of flow instability of natural convection is still
[7] investigated natural convection heat transfer and fluid not fully understood. Recently, Dou et al. [16–24] suggested
flow characteristics from a horizontal fluid layer with finned an energy gradient method which can reasonably reveal the
bottom surface, and observed that the number of convection physical mechanism of flow instability. Dou and Phan-Thien
cells between two adjacent fins is a function of the values of [16] described the rules of fluid material stability from the
the fin height and Rayleigh number. Liu [8] considered an viewpoint of energy field. They claimed that the instability of
optimum design problem for the longitudinal fin arrays with natural convection could not be resolved by Newton’s three
a constant heat transfer coefficient in a fuzzy environment, laws, for the reason that a material system moving in some
where the grid requirements to strictly satisfy the total fin cases is not simply due to the role of forces. This approach
volume and array width and maximize the heat dissipation explains the mechanism of flow instability from physics and
rate are softened. Harahap et al. [9] conducted some exper- derives the criteria of turbulence transition. Accordingly,
iments to investigate the effects of miniaturizing the base this method does not attribute Rayleigh-Benard problem to
plate dimensions of vertically based straight rectangular fin forces, but to energy gradient. It postulates that when the fluid
arrays on the steady state heat dissipation performance under is placed on a horizontal plate and is heated from below, the
dominant natural convection conditions. They found that fluid density in the bottom becomes low which leads to an
the relevant correlations proposed for large fin arrays were energy gradient 𝜕𝐸/𝜕𝑦 > 0 along 𝑦-coordinate. Only when
not applicable to the experimental data obtained from the 𝜕𝐸/𝜕𝑦 is larger than a critical value will the flow become
miniaturized vertical rectangular fin arrays. Subsequently, unstable and then fluid cells of vorticities will be formed.
Harahap et al. [10] conducted concurrent calorimetric and More recently, Dou et al. [25] applied the energy gradient
interferometric measurements to investigate the effect that method to natural convection and the results from numerical
the reduction of the base plate dimensions has on the steady simulations accord well with those predicted based on the
state performance of the rate of natural convection heat criteria originated from energy gradient method.
transfer from miniaturized horizontal single plate-fin systems This study is focused on the research of effects of fin arrays
and plate-fin arrays. Their conclusions suggested that the fin parameters on convection heat transfer coefficient. Then, the
height 𝐿 and the fin number are the prime geometric variables energy gradient method is employed to reveal the physical
for generalization. Dogan and Sivrioglu [11] experimentally mechanism of flow instability and explain the reason why the
investigated mixed convection heat transfer, and the results optimum fin arrays can result in better heat transfer rate.
obtained showed that the optimum fin spacing which yielded
the maximum heat transfer is 𝑆 = 8-9 mm and the optimum 2. Computational Geometry and
fin spacing depends on the value of Ra. Azarkish et al. Numerical Procedures
[12] used a modified genetic algorithm to maximize the
objective function which is defined as the net heat transfer 2.1. Computational Geometry. The computational geometry
rate from the fin surface for a given height. Their results is shown in Figure 1. Here, the geometry is simplified from the
show that the number of the fins is not affected by the fin 3D solid of GH-4 ribbed radiator model [26]. The simplified
profile, but the heat transfer enhancement for the arrays cavity in this study is a two-dimensional (2D) square, in
with optimum fin profile is about 1–3 percent more than which the length of the square cavity is 250 mm, and the
that for the arrays with conventional fin profiles. Giri and origin of the coordinates is at the lower left corner of the
Das [13] numerically performed laminar mixed convection cavity. The fin arrays are fixed at the hot bottom of the cavity
over shrouded vertical rectangular fin arrays attached to a with an equal distance. Here, 𝑆 is the fin space, 𝐻 is the fin
vertical base. They found that the drop in pressure defect for height, and 𝐻 and 𝑆 are variable. In addition, 𝑓𝑡 means the
forced convection, induced velocity for mixed convection and thickness of the fin arrays which is fixed at 2 mm in this study
overall Nusselt number for mixed convection are correlated and can be neglected by comparing to the fin height and
well with governing parameters of the considered problem. the length of the cavity, while 𝑏𝑡 means the thickness of the
Wong and Huang [14] made some three-dimensional (3D) bottom plate which is equal to 3 mm.
Cold top
are the velocity components in the 𝑥 and 𝑦 directions,
respectively, 𝑔 is the acceleration due to gravity, 𝛽 is the
coefficient of thermal expansion, 𝜌 is the fluid density, 𝑘 is
the thermal diffusivity, and 𝜐 is the kinematic viscosity.
2.3. Numerical Algorithm. The governing equations (1) are

Sym. Sym. implicitly solved using a finite-volume SIMPLE scheme, with
ft the QUICK scheme approximating the advection term. The
S diffusion terms are discretized using central differencing
with a second-order accuracy. The discretized equations
are iterated with the specified underrelaxation factors. In
addition, it should be noted that the flow is steady.
H In this study, the mean value of the local Nusselt number
along the top cold wall is calculated for measuring heat
Hot transfer performance as follows:
bt
bottom
󵄨󵄨 󵄨󵄨
1 𝐿 󵄨󵄨𝜕𝑇/𝜕𝑦󵄨󵄨𝑦−𝐿 1 𝐿 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝑇 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨
Figure 1: Numerical geometry. Nu = ∫ ( ) 𝑑𝑥 = ∫ 󵄨 󵄨 𝑑𝑥 (2)
𝐿 0 Δ𝑇/𝐿 Δ𝑇 0 󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑦−𝐿
The computational geometry is divided into two areas, Here, 𝜆 is the thermal conductivity, Δ𝑇 is the temperature
which contains a solid area and a fluid area. The solid area difference, and 𝑐𝑝 is the specific heat capacity.
includes the fin arrays and the base plate, in which the
material is copper, while the rest of the geometry is the fluid
area where the air fills in it. All the walls of the cavity are solid 3. Grid Independent Test
and no-slip. The wall style of the left and the right walls of the
cavity is symmetric. The top wall of the cavity is given a fixed In order to examine the independence of the gird size
temperature of 300 K, and the base of the plate is given a fixed to the computing result, three different sized meshes are
temperature of 360 K. Furthermore, the fluid area is given an constructed. Here, grid (a) is uniformly meshed with Δ𝑥 =
initial temperature of 300 K. 0.004 mm, grid (b) is uniformly meshed with Δ𝑥 =
0.002 mm, and grid (c) is uniformly meshed with Δ𝑥 =
2.2. Governing Equations. For the problem described in the 0.001 mm.
previous section, the development of natural convection Figure 2 shows the temperature contours in three dif-
in the fluid area is governed by the following continuity ferent mesh sizes. It can be quantitatively observed that the
equations, two-dimensional steady Navier-Stokes equations temperature contours are almost the same in three different
and an energy equation. The heat transfer in the solid area is
mesh sizes by making a comparison. Figure 3 shows the
governed by a heat conduction equation. All these equations
are based on Boussinesq approximation and listed as follows: temperature versus iterations at the same monitor point
with the three different mesh sizes. It can be found that
𝜕𝑢 𝜕V the temperature difference is getting smaller as the dif-
+ = 0, ference of the mesh size is getting smaller. Furthermore,
𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦
for the two finer meshes the difference of the steady-state
𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑢 1 𝜕𝑝 𝜕 2 𝑢 𝜕2 𝑢 temperature is negligible. In what follows, the medium
+𝑢 +V =− + 𝜐( 2 + 2),
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦 𝜌 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦 (or fine) mesh resolution is adopted for all the calcula-
tions.
𝜕V 𝜕V 𝜕V 1 𝜕𝑝 𝜕2 V 𝜕 2 V
+𝑢 +V =− + 𝜐 ( 2 + 2 ) + 𝑔𝛽 (𝑇 − 𝑇0 ) ,
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦 𝜌 𝜕𝑦 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦
4. Application of Energy Gradient Method
𝜕𝑇 𝜕𝑇 𝜕𝑇 𝜕 2 𝑇 𝜕2 𝑇
+𝑢 +V = 𝑘( 2 + 2 ), 4.1. Energy Gradient Method. It is observed in Figure 2 that
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦
the base flow loses its stability by forming vorticities and
𝜕2 𝑇 𝜕2 𝑇 by moving with a wave form, which is helpful to enhance
+ = 0, heat transfer. However, the physical mechanism of the flow
𝜕𝑥2 𝜕𝑦2
(1) instability of natural convection is still not fully understood.
Energy gradient method will be applied in natural convection
where 𝑥 and 𝑦 are the horizontal and vertical coordinates, 𝑡 to explain the physical mechanism of flow instability in this
is the time, 𝑇 is the temperature, 𝑝 is the pressure, 𝑢 and V study.
Grid (a) Grid (b)
(a) (b)
Grid (c)
(c)
Figure 2: Temperature contours with three different meshes: grid (a) Δ𝑥 = 0.004 mm, grid (b) Δ𝑥 = 0.002 mm, and grid (c) Δ𝑥 = 0.001 mm.
Dou et al. [16–24] suggested an energy gradient method field variable (function) and means the ratio of the transversal
which can be treated as the criteria of flow instability. And the energy gradient and the rate of the energy loss along the
criteria of flow instability can be expressed as follows: streamline. 𝐻𝑠 is the loss of the total mechanical energy per
unit volumetric fluid along the streamline for finite height.
Δ𝐸 (𝜕𝐸/𝜕𝑛) (2𝐴/𝜋) Here, 𝐸 = 𝑝 + 1/2 𝜌 𝑉2 expresses the total mechanical energy
𝐹= = per unit volumetric fluid, 𝑠 is along the streamwise direction,
Δ𝐻 (𝜕𝐻𝑠 /𝜕𝑠) (𝜋/𝜔𝑑 ) 𝑢
(3) and 𝑛 is along the transverse direction.
󸀠
2 𝐴𝜔𝑑 2 V𝑚
= 𝐾 = 2𝐾 < Const,
𝜋2 𝑢 𝜋 𝑢 4.2. Application of Energy Gradient Method in Natural Con-
vection. In the present study, we will use the energy gradient
where function 𝐾 to reveal the physical mechanism of flow instabil-
𝜕𝐸/𝜕𝑛 ity in natural convection. The fluid fills in a 2D simplified fin
𝐾= . (4) radiator model and the base flow is initially stationary. Based
𝜕𝐻𝑠 /𝜕𝑠
on the energy gradient method and the particular condition
of the base flow, the energy gradient function 𝐾 of natural
Here, 𝑢 is the streamwise velocity of main flow, 𝐴 is the
convection can be expressed as follows:
amplitude of the disturbance distance, 𝜔𝑑 is the frequency of
󸀠
the disturbance, V𝑚 = 𝐴𝜔𝑑 is the amplitude of the disturbance 𝜕𝐸 2 𝜕𝐸 2
of velocity, and 𝜋 is the circumference ratio. Furthermore, 𝐹 𝐾 = √( ) +( ) . (5)
𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦
is a function of coordinates which expresses the ratio of the
energy gained in a half-period by the particle and the energy It should be noted that the influence of the gravitational
loss due to viscosity in the half-period. 𝐾 is a dimensionless energy is neglected in terms of the total mechanical energy in
the cavity is relatively large, while the velocity between the

330 adjacent fins is very weak. This large velocity difference in
the cavity is due to the variation of the heat transfer modes.
325
The reason why the velocity near the left and right walls and
Temperature (K)
320
in the center of the cavity is large is that the heat flux is
focused in these areas and moves downward driven by the
315 buoyancy. However, the heat flux between the adjacent fins
is rare and the buoyancy can be neglected attributed to the
310 small temperature difference between adjacent fins; hence the
velocity between adjacent fins is very weak. Thirdly, there
305 are two blue areas where the velocity is very weak above
the fin arrays. This is due to the convection of heat along
300 the symmetrical wall, and these blue areas are not affected
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 evidently by convection.
Iterations
Similarly, the findings from Figure 5(b) can be summa-
Grid (a) rized as follows. Firstly, the total pressure decreases gradually
Grid (b) from the top to the bottom. The fluid flow and the heat
Grid (c) flux along the symmetrical wall move upward driven by the
buoyancy and concentrates near the top wall of the cavity;
Figure 3: Temperature profile calculated with three different grid
thus the total pressure difference will be produced. Secondly,
meshes: grid (a) Δ𝑥 = 0.004 mm, grid (b) Δ𝑥 = 0.002 mm, and grid
two circulating regions occur symmetrically above the fin
(c) Δ𝑥 = 0.001 mm.
arrays. This is due to the circulation flow of the heat flux along
the symmetrical walls. Thirdly, the total pressure gradient is
y irregular above the fin arrays, while the total pressure gradient
between the adjacent fins is regular. The circulation flow of
𝜕E/𝜕y heat flux above the fin arrays which results in the irregular
K distribution of total pressure gradient. The regular gradient
distribution between the fins is attributed to the symmetrical
movement of heat flux along the fin arrays surfaces and the
weak buoyancy between the fins.
Figures 6(a) and 6(b) show the contours of temperature
and the contours of the value of 𝐾 at the iterations of
o
𝜕E/𝜕x x 4000, respectively. It can be seen in Figure 6(a) that the base
flow downstream of the fin loses its stability forming small
Figure 4: Calculation of 𝐾. vorticities and by moving in a wave form. It can be seen in
Figure 6(b) that the value of 𝐾 in the red area and the yellow
area is much higher than that in other areas. In the meantime,
this study since the fluid is air; then 𝐸 ∼ 𝑝0 is obtained; con- there exist two symmetrical green areas with high value of
sequently the energy gradient function 𝐾 of transient natural 𝐾 on the trajectory of the heat flux circulation. Based on
convection can be written as 𝐾 = √(𝜕𝑝0 /𝜕𝑥)2 + (𝜕𝑝0 /𝜕𝑦)2 , the criteria of flow instability of the energy gradient method,
which is shown in Figure 4. Here, 𝑝0 represents the total there is a critical value 𝐾𝑐 , above which the flow will lose its
stability. Thus, the flow instability could most likely occur in
pressure.
the red, yellow, and green areas. Making a further comparison
between Figures 6(a) and 6(b), it is easy to observe that
5. Results and Discussions the positions where instabilities take place are in accordance
with the area with the higher value of 𝐾. This phenomenon
5.1. Physical Mechanism of Flow Instability. Patterson and indicates that the application of the energy gradient method
Imberger [15] announced that the flow instability could in the simplified mode of ribbed radiator is reliable, and the
enhance heat transfer rate of natural convection, and the heat energy gradient method can reveal the physical mechanism
transfer rate increases with the addition of the intensity of of flow instability of natural convection.
flow instability. In the following, the physical mechanism of
flow instability will be discussed using the energy gradient Moreover, it can be found that the regions with high
method. velocity magnitude accord well with the areas with large value
Figures 5(a) and 5(b) show the contours of velocity of 𝐾. Consequently, the flow instability of natural convection
and total pressure respectively with iterations of 4000. The has an instinct affection on the velocity of the fluid flow.
following observations can be made in Figure 5(a). Firstly,
the velocity in the whole flow field distributes symmetrically 5.2. Effect of Fin Height. In order to investigate the effect
along the vertical center line. Secondly, the magnitude of of fin height on heat transfer rate, here two groups of fin
velocity near the left and right walls and in the center of arrays are chosen for comparison. In the first group, all the
(a) Velocity contours (b) Total pressure contours
Figure 5: Velocity contours and total pressure contours, 𝐻 = 65 mm.
(a) Temperature contours (b) 𝐾 contours
Figure 6: Validation of energy gradient method, 𝐻 = 65 mm.
fin spaces are fixed at 61 mm, and the fin height changes from method, which in turn demonstrates that the application of
25 mm to 105 mm with an equal increment of 20 mm. In the energy gradient method to natural convection is reasonable.
second group, all the fin spaces are fixed at 26 mm and the fin Secondly, it is found that the intensity of flow instability
height changes over the same range in the first group. In the changes dramatically in Figure 7 when the fin height changes
following section, the Nusselt number is selected to represent from 45 mm to 65 mm with a fixed fin space of 61 mm. It also
the heat transfer rate. means that the heat transfer rate will be increased fiercely.
Figure 7 shows the temperature contours and contours However, it is found in Figure 8 that the flow instability varies
of the value of 𝐾 with different fin height where the fin in a very small range, which means that the variation of
space is fixed at 61 mm. Figure 8 shows the temperature heat transfer rate is limited. At the same time, it is found
contours and contours of the value of 𝐾 with different fin from the second row of Table 1 that the variation range of
height where the fin space is fixed at 26 mm. Table 1 shows Nusselt number is notable, while the Nusselt number alters
the Nusselt number in different numerical cases. It is easy within a limited extent detected from the third row of Table 1.
to observe the following results by comparing Figures 7 This accordance between flow instability and heat transfer
and 8 and Table 1. Firstly, Figures 7 and 8 show that the rate validates the hypothesis made by Patterson and Imberger
areas where flow instabilities occur in temperature contours [15]. The heat transfer rate increases with the addition of the
accord well with the region where the value of 𝐾 is very intensity of flow instability. Thirdly, it is found in Figure 7 that
large in contours of the value of 𝐾. These results validate the heat flux moves right by jumping over the fins when the
the criteria of flow instability based on the energy gradient fin height is 25 mm and 45 mm, respectively, whereas the flux
Table 1: Effect of fin height, 𝐻 and 𝑆 mean fin height and fin space respectively.
Nu 𝐻 = 25 mm 𝐻 = 45 mm 𝐻 = 65 mm 𝐻 = 85 mm 𝐻 = 105 mm
𝑆 = 61 mm 1.92 1.97 2.35 2.35 2.34
𝑆 = 26 mm 2.37 2.38 2.38 2.39 2.39
T temperature contours T temperature contours T temperature contours T temperature contours

T temperature contours H = 65 mm H = 85 mm
H = 25 mm H = 45 mm H = 105 mm
K K contours H = 25 mm K K contours H = 45 mm K K contours H = 65 mm K K contours H = 85 mm K K contours H = 105 mm
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)
Figure 7: Temperature contours and contours of the value of 𝐾 with different fin heights where fin space is fixed at 61 mm: (a) 𝐻 = 25 mm,
(b) 𝐻 = 45 mm, (c) 𝐻 = 65 mm, (d) 𝐻 = 85 mm, and (e) 𝐻 = 105 mm.

T temperature contours H = 45 mm H = 65 mm H = 85 mm H = 105 mm
H = 25 mm
K K contours H = 25 mm K K contours H = 45 mm K K contours H = 65 mm K K contours H = 85 mm K K contours H = 105 mm
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)
Figure 8: Temperature contours and contours of the value of 𝐾 with different fin heights where fin space is fixed at 26 mm: (a) 𝐻 = 25 mm,
(b) 𝐻 = 45 mm, (c) 𝐻 = 65 mm, (d) 𝐻 = 85 mm, and (e) 𝐻 = 105 mm.
Table 2: Effect of fin space, 𝐻 and 𝑆 mean fin height and fin space, respectively.
Nu 𝑆 = 82 𝑆 = 61 𝑆 = 48.4 𝑆 = 40 𝑆 = 34 𝑆 = 29.5 𝑆 = 26 𝑆 = 23.2

𝐻 = 45 mm 2.76 1.97 2.37 2.27 2.30 2.32 2.38 2.42
𝐻 = 85 mm 2.95 2.36 2.38 2.28 2.31 2.35 2.39 2.43
(a) (b) (c) (d)

(e) (f) (g) (h)
Figure 9: Temperature contours with a fixed fin height of 45 mm and the fin space changes from 82 mm to 23.2 mm characterized by the
increase of fin number (𝑛): (a) 𝑛 = 2, (b) 𝑛 = 3, (c) 𝑛 = 4, (d) 𝑛 = 5, (e) 𝑛 = 6, (f) 𝑛 = 7, (g) 𝑛 = 8, and (h) 𝑛 = 9.
moves upward along the symmetric wall when the fin height second set of numerical cases, the fin height is fixed at
is 65 mm, 85 mm, and 105 mm, respectively. It is observed 85 mm and the fin space decreases characterized by the same
in Figure 8 that the heat flux moves upward symmetrically pattern in the first set. Figures 9 and 10 show the temperature
in all the numerical cases. The difference of flow behavior is contours and contours of the value of 𝐾 for the first set of
jointly affected by the fin height and the fin space. When the numerical cases described above, in which all the fin heights
fin height is small, the heat flux jumps over the fins driven are given as 45 mm. Figures 11 and 12 show the temperature
by the buoyancy. When the fin height is small, the buoyancy contours and contours of the value of 𝐾 for numerical cases,
between the fins is weak, and it is not very easy for the heat in which all the fin heights are fixed at 85 mm. Table 2 lists the
flux to jump over the fins. In addition, when the fin space Nusselt number of different numerical cases.
reduces characterized by the increase of the fin number, the Comparing Figures 9–12 and Table 2, some observations
difficulty for the heat flux jumps over the fins will increase. can be obtained. Firstly, when the fin number is 2, the
Moreover, the temperature difference between adjacent fins strongest intensity of flow instability occurs, which possesses
is very weak which results in a negligible buoyancy between the most efficient heat transfer rate. The heat flux focuses
adjacent fins. Thus, the decrease of the fin space reduces the in the center of the cavity, and it moves upward along the
driven force, which is needed for the heat flux to jump over vertical center line of the cavity. Once the largely extracted
the fins. heat flux loses its stability and spreads randomly, the intensity
It is summarized from the above discussion that the of flow instability is much stronger than any other patterns of
flow behavior is dominated by the combined influences of flow instability. Secondly, Figures 9 and 10 indicate that the
fin space and fin height, which affects the heat transfer intensity of flow instability is very weak when the fin number
rate ultimately. The influences on heat transfer rate can be is 3. However, the intensity difference of flow instability can
explained with the energy gradient theory. be neglected when the fin number is larger than 3. This
result can be validated by the data in Table 2. When the
5.3. Effect of Fin Space. Two sets of numerical cases are fin number is 3, the heat flux moves right by jumping over
selected to study the effect of fin space on flow instability the fins and focuses in the adjacent fins near the right wall.
or heat transfer rate. In the first set of numerical cases, the Hence, little heat flux moves upward, which results in a weak
fin height is fixed at 45 mm, and the fin space decreases intensity of flow instability. However, the heat fluxes in all
characterized by the increasing of the fin number. In the the cavities move upward symmetrically, which results in
K K contours K K contours K K contours K K contours
(a) (b) (c) (d)

(e) (f) (g) (h)
Figure 10: Contours of the value of 𝐾 with a fixed fin height of 45 mm and the fin space changes from 82 mm to 23.2 mm characterized by
the increase of fin number (𝑛): (a) 𝑛 = 2, (b) 𝑛 = 3, (c) 𝑛 = 4, (d) 𝑛 = 5, (e) 𝑛 = 6, (f) 𝑛 = 7, (g) 𝑛 = 8, and (h) 𝑛 = 9.
(a) (b) (c) (d)
(e) (f) (g) (h)
Figure 11: Temperature contours with a fixed fin height of 85 mm and the fin space changes from 82 mm to 23.2 mm characterized by the
increase of fin number (𝑛): (a) 𝑛 = 2, (b) 𝑛 = 3, (c) 𝑛 = 4, (d) 𝑛 = 5, (e) 𝑛 = 6, (f) 𝑛 = 7, (g) 𝑛 = 8, and (h) 𝑛 = 9.
a negligible heat transfer rate when the fin number is more the fin space is small, the heat conduction between adjacent
than 3. Thirdly, it is easy to find that the intensity of flow fins plays a leading role and it restricts flow instability.
instability changes slightly when the fin number is more than At the same time, more heat flux moves upward which
2 by comparing Figures 11 and 12 and Table 2. This can be results in stronger flow instability. The change of the fin
attributed to the effect of fin space. When the fin space is space results in the change of specific weight of the heat
large, the convection between adjacent fins plays a leading conduction and heat convection between adjacent fins, as
role and it can trigger flow instability. Meanwhile, more heat well as the change of the accumulation of heat flux between
flux focuses between adjacent fins and little heat flux moves adjacent fins. At last, the intensity of flow instability changes
upward; thus the flow instability will be restricted. When slightly.
(a) (b) (c) (d)

(e) (f) (g) (h)
Figure 12: Contours of the value of 𝐾 with a fixed fin height of 85 mm and the fin space changes from 82 mm to 23.2 mm characterized by
the increase of fin number (𝑛): (a) 𝑛 = 2, (b) 𝑛 = 3, (c) 𝑛 = 4, (d) 𝑛 = 5, (e) 𝑛 = 6, (f) 𝑛 = 7, (g) 𝑛 = 8, and (h) 𝑛 = 9.
Model-(A)-T temperature Model-(B)-T temperature Model-(C)-T temperature Model-(D)-T temperature

contours contours contours contours
(a) (b) (c) (d)

Model-(A)-K K contours Model-(B)-K K contours Model-(C)-K K contours Model-(D)-K K contours
(e) (f) (g) (h)
Figure 13: Temperature contours and contours of the value of 𝐾 in different fin shape with a fixed fin space of 82 mm.
Consequently, in addition to the validation of criteria of straight fin arrays are chosen as the base group as model-(A)
flow instability based on the energy gradient method, another shown in Figure 13. The shapes of models-(B–D) shown in
two conclusions can be summarized as follows. (1) The cavity Figure 13 are all different from each other and a fixed fin space
possesses the most efficient heat transfer rate when the fin of 26 mm is chosen for all cases. The fin arrays in model-(B)
number is 2. (2) The change of the fin space results in the are curved for one piece in the same direction with a radius of
change of the specific weight of heat conduction and heat 70 mm. The fin arrays in model-(C) are curved for one piece
convection as well as the accumulation of heat flux between with a radius of 70 mm, which are fixed symmetrically. The fin
adjacent fins; hence the heat transfer rate changes slightly. arrays in model-(D) are curved for four pieces with a radius
of 10 mm.
5.4. Effect of Fin Shape. In this part, the effect of the fin Figures 13–15 show the temperature contours and con-
shape on flow instability or heat transfer rate is discussed. The tours of the value of 𝐾 when the fin space is 82 mm, 48.4 mm,

(a) (b) (c) (d)

(e) (f) (g) (h)
Figure 14: Temperature contours and contours of the value of 𝐾 in different fin shape with a fixed fin space of 48.4 mm.

(a) (b) (c) (d)

(e) (f) (g) (h)
Figure 15: Temperature contours and contours of the value of 𝐾 in different fin shape with a fixed fin space of 29.5 mm.
and 29.5 mm, respectively. Figure 16 shows the heat transfer in the center of the cavity and spreads around and produces
rate obtained with four different fin shapes, and fin space is a large intensity of flow instability. However, the heat fluxes
characterized by the fin number. in models-(B–D) move upward symmetrically and produce
It is easy to get the following results by comparing Figures relatively small flow instability. Thus, this result is validated
13–15 to Figure 16. Firstly, it is found in Figure 13 that the in Figure 16, which shows that the most efficient heat transfer
largest intensity of flow instability occurs in model-(A), and rate occurs in model-(A) when the fin space is 82 mm.
the intensity difference in other models can be neglected. Secondly, it is found in Figure 14 that the flow instability
These results accord well with the data in Figure 16. This in model-(C) is very weak, and the intensity variation of
is attributed to the effect of fin shape, which results in the flow instability in other models is very small. This heat
different form of flow instability. Convection occurs mainly transfer rate difference is due to the bent direction of the fins.
2.55 (1) The areas of flow instabilities in temperature contours

and the regions of high value of 𝐾 in contours of
2.50 the value of 𝐾 accord well, which reveals the physical
mechanism of flow instability.
2.45
Nusselt number
(2) The fin height and the fin space jointly dominate the
2.40 flow behavior of the base flow and thus affect the heat
transfer rate.
2.35
(3) For a given fin height, the change of the fin space
2.30 results in the change of the accumulation and move-
ment of the heat flux between adjacent fins, as well
2.25 as the relative magnitude of heat conduction and
heat convection between adjacent fins; hence the heat
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 transfer rate changes slightly.
Fin number
(4) The effect of the fin shape on heat transfer is distinct
Model-(A) Model-(C) when the fin space is large.
Model-(B) Model-(D)
Figure 16: Nusselt number versus fin space characterized with fin
number in different fin shape. The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests
The symmetrically bent fins in model-(C) will restrict the

Acknowledgments
movement of the heat flux above the fin arrays, thus reduce
the intensity of flow instability. The fins in other models are This work is supported by the Science Foundation of Zhejiang
either curved in the same direction or are straight, which has Sci-Tech University (ZSTU) under Grant no. 11130032241201
a limited effect on the variation of the heat transfer modes and the special major project of science and technology
(i.e. convection versus conduction). Thus the intensity differ- of Zhejiang Province (no. 2013C01139). The authors would
ence of flow instability is not distinct. Comparing these like to thank Associate Professor Chengwang Lei at The
results to the data in Figure 16, it is easy to make a conclusion University of Sydney and Dr. Feng Xu in Beijing Jiaotong
that the symmetrically bent fins can reduce the heat transfer University for the helpful discussions. The authors also thank
rate when the fin space is fixed at 48.4 mm. Thirdly, it is the support from Huadian Electric Power Research Institute.
observed in Figure 15 that the intensity of flow instability
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/494585
Research Article
Numerical Study of Buoyancy Convection of Air under
Permanent Magnetic Field and Comparison with That under
Gravity Field
Kewei Song, Wenkai Li, Yang Zhou, and Yuanru Lu

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou, Gansu 730070, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Kewei Song; songkw@mail.lzjtu.cn
Received 9 May 2014; Revised 12 August 2014; Accepted 14 August 2014; Published 3 September 2014
Copyright © 2014 Kewei Song et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
Magnetothermal free convection of air in a square enclosure under a nonuniform magnetic field provided by a permanent
neodymium-iron-boron magnet is numerically studied. The natural convection under the gravity field alone is also studied for
comparison. The physical fields of magnetizing force, velocity, and temperature as well as the local distribution characteristic of
Nusselt number are all presented in this paper. The results show that the buoyancy convection of air in the square enclosure under
magnetic field is quite different from that under the gravity field. The local value of Nusselt number under the magnetic field supplied
by a permanent magnet with a residual magnetic flux density of about 4.5 Tesla can reach a high value of about three times larger
than the maximum local value of Nusselt number under the gravity field. Relatively uniform distributions of temperature gradient
and Nusselt number can be obtained along the cold wall of the enclosure under the magnetic field. A permanent magnet with high
magnetic energy product with 𝐵𝑟 reaching to 3.5 Tesla can play a comparative role on the averaged Nusselt number compared with
that under the gravity environment.
1. Introduction effects of a strong magnetic field in fluid convection. In the

fields of fluid mechanics and heat transfer, the application of
The heat transfer and flow characteristics of natural con- such high magnetic field on the control of natural convection
vection in enclosures have attracted much research over the has received considerable attention [11–21]. The heat transfer
years due to their many practical engineering applications, control of natural convection is based on the principle that
such as in building insulation, growing crystals, solar energy the magnetizing force acts at a molecular level depending
collection, cooling of electrical industries, and flows in rooms on the values of magnetic susceptibility of fluid. Therefore,
due to thermal energy sources [1, 2]. Natural convection the utilization of the magnetizing force is equivalent to
flows in a vertical cavity with two vertical walls at different the local gravity control within the region where the high
temperatures and with adiabatic horizontal surfaces are the gradient magnetic field exists. Braithwaite et al. [11] reported
most considered configuration in the studies of natural enhancement or cancellation of gravitational convection due
convection because of their relative simplicity and practical to a magnetic field for a solution of gadolinium nitrate in
importance [3–5]. a shadow layer heated from below and cooled from above.
Fast development of superconducting materials at high Tagawa et al. [12–20] carried out studies about the effects of
temperature has enabled us to utilize commercial supercon- magnetic fields on the natural convection. These studies have
ducting magnets that produce a magnetic flux density up to 10 shown experimentally and numerically how to enhance or
Tesla or more. With the advent of superconducting magnets, suppress heat transfer by the application of a magnetic field
magnetic convection can be studied on Earth, and various supplied by superconducting magnet.
new findings have been reported in the last decades [6–10]. Most of the previous studies about the magnetothermal
Wakayama [8–10] has been active in finding new and notable natural convection in a vertical cavity focus on the effect of
Fx− Fx+
Cold
Hot
z
Fz−
Cold
Hot
x
g
z
S
x
Magnet
(a) (b)
Figure 1: Configuration of simulation models. (a) Permanent magnetic field and (b) gravity field.
magnetic field supplied by superconducting magnet together 2. Physical Model

with gravity field on natural convection. Bednarz et al. [21]
studied the transient magnetic convection boundary layer in The physical model, two-dimensional square enclosure, con-
a microgravity environment. But the magnetic field supplied sidered in this paper is shown in Figure 1. A cubic permanent
by the superconducting magnet is often assumed to be magnet with the residual magnetic flux density in the 𝑧
uniform; that is, the magnetic field gradient is constant. In direction is put on the bottom of the square enclosure. The
this case, the problem under the uniform magnetic field is length of both the magnet and square enclosure is 0.05 m.
similar to that under gravity field. As the magnetic field There is a gap of 1 mm between the magnet and the square
supplied by permanent magnet is nonuniform and the gravity enclosure. Figures 1(a) and 1(b) show the physical model
field is uniform, the natural convection characteristics under in which the left wall is heated and right wall is cooled
such two fields must be quite different. Recently, along with isothermally, and the other two walls are thermally insulated.
the development of the technology and improvement of Figure 1(a) shows the physical model under gravity field;
manufacturing process, the residual magnetic flux density of Figure 1(b) shows the model under magnetic field. The
a permanent magnet increases quickly. The maximum value direction of magnetizing force and the gravity acceleration
of the residual magnetic flux density of a neodymium-iron- are also shown in Figure 1.
boron magnet can reache to 1.5 Tesla or more. It is believed
that the residual magnetic flux density of a permanent magnet
will reach a larger value relying on the fast development 3. Mathematical Equations
of technology. The permanent magnet with large residual
magnetic flux density can supply a nonuniform magnetic field In a single phase with isothermal state, both the magnetizing
and drive the gas free convection easily under a gradient force and gravitational force are the conservative force and
temperature field. Thus, the permanent magnet which has hence convection does not occur by itself no matter how
high magnetic energy product can be widely applied in future strong it is. In order to arouse the convection, both the
for control of natural convection without any power supply magnetic field gradient and the temperature gradient are
from outside like a superconducting magnet. necessary. In a normal expression, the magnetizing force is
The present study focuses on the heat transfer and flowing written by the equation as follows [22]:
characteristic of the magnetothermal convection of air in a
square enclosure driven by a permanent magnet field alone.
Comparison is also carried out for the convection driven by 𝜇𝑚 1
f𝑚 = 𝜒𝜌∇H2 ≅ 𝜌𝜒∇B2 . (1)
magnetic field and gravity field, respectively. 2 2𝜇𝑚
The momentum equation including the magnetizing Magnetic susceptibility of air is a function of temperature;
force alone is as follows: this follows the Curie law:
𝜕u 1 𝐶
𝜌[ + (u ⋅ ∇) u] = −∇𝑝 + 𝜇∇2 u + 𝜌𝜒∇B2 . (2) 𝜒= . (10)
𝜕𝑡 2𝜇𝑚 𝑇
And the momentum equation including the gravity buoy- Here, 𝐶 is a constant; then
ancy force alone is 𝜕𝜒 𝜕 𝐶 𝜒
= ( )=− . (11)
𝜕u 𝜕𝑇 𝜕𝑇 𝑇 𝑇
𝜌[ + (u ⋅ ∇) u] = −∇𝑝 + 𝜇∇2 u − 𝜌𝑔. (3)
𝜕𝑡 The volumetric coefficient of expansion for an ideal gas
can be given from the ideal gas law:
We assume that the air is an incompressible Newtonian
fluid and the Boussinesq approximation is employed. When 𝑝 = 𝜌𝑅𝑔 𝑇. (12)
we consider the isothermal state, the fluid density 𝜌 and
susceptibility 𝜒 would be constant, and convection does not Then, from (7)
arise in both the gravity and magnetic fields. Parameters 1 𝜕𝜌 1 𝜕 𝑝 𝑝 1
under this state are 𝜌0 , 𝑝0 , and 𝜒0 at reference temperature 𝛽=− =− ( )= 2
= ,
𝜌 𝜕𝑇 𝜌 𝜕𝑇 𝑅𝑔 𝑇 𝜌𝑅𝑔 𝑇 𝑇
𝑇0 . Hence we get (13)
1 𝜕𝜌
0 = −∇𝑝0 + 𝜌 𝜒 ∇B2 = −𝜌𝛽
2𝜇𝑚 0 0 (4)
𝜕𝑇
so that
0 = −∇𝑝0 − 𝜌0 𝑔.
𝜌 𝜒
When there is a temperature difference, the magnetic 𝜌𝜒 − (𝜌𝜒)0 = (−𝜒 − 𝜌 ) (𝑇 − 𝑇0 )
𝑇 𝑇 0 (14)
susceptibility and density also change with temperature.
Subtracting (4) from (2) and (3) gives = −2𝜌0 𝛽0 𝜒0 (𝑇 − 𝑇0 ) .
𝜕u Given 𝑝 = 𝑝0 + 𝑝󸀠 , the momentum equation (5) can be
𝜌[ + (u ⋅ ∇) u]
𝜕𝑡 written as follows:
𝜌𝜒 − 𝜌0 𝜒0 2 𝜕u
= −∇ (𝑝 − 𝑝0 ) + 𝜇∇2 u + ∇B [ + (u ⋅ ∇) u]
2𝜇𝑚 𝜕𝑡
𝜕u 1 𝜇 𝛽 𝜒 (𝑇 − 𝑇0 ) 2
𝜌[ + (u ⋅ ∇) u] =− ∇𝑝󸀠 + ∇2 u − 0 0 ∇B
𝜕𝑡 𝜌0 𝜌0 𝜇𝑚
(15)
2
= −∇ (𝑝 − 𝑝0 ) + 𝜇∇ u − (𝜌 − 𝜌0 ) 𝑔. 𝜕u
[ + (u ⋅ ∇) u]
(5) 𝜕𝑡
1 𝜇
The density can be expressed by a Taylor expansion =− ∇𝑝󸀠 + ∇2 u + 𝑔𝛽0 (𝑇 − 𝑇0 ) .
(keeping two terms only) around a reference state 𝑇0 as 𝜌0 𝜌0
follows: Thus, the government equations for the natural con-
𝜕𝜌 vection caused by the magnetic buoyancy force or gravity
𝜌 = 𝜌0 + ( ) (𝑇 − 𝑇0 ) + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ . (6) buoyancy force are summarized as follows.
𝜕𝑇 0
Continuity equation is
On the other hand, the thermal volume coefficient of
expansion 𝛽 is defined for fluid as follows [23]: ∇ ⋅ u = 0. (16)
1 𝜕𝑉 1 𝜕1/𝜌 1 𝜕𝜌 Momentum equation, for magnetic field alone is
𝛽= ( ) = ( ) =− ( ) . (7)
𝑉 𝜕𝑇 𝑝 1/𝜌 𝜕𝑇 𝑝 𝜌 𝜕𝑇 𝑝 𝜕u
[ + (u ⋅ ∇) u]
Then, (6) can be written as follows: 𝜕𝑡
(17)
𝜕𝜌 1 𝜇 𝛽 𝜒 (𝑇 − 𝑇0 ) 2
𝜌 − 𝜌0 = ( ) (𝑇 − 𝑇0 ) = −𝜌0 𝛽0 (𝑇 − 𝑇0 ) . (8) = − ∇𝑝󸀠 + ∇2 u − 0 0 ∇B .
𝜕𝑇 0 𝜌0 𝜌0 𝜇𝑚
The difference of 𝜌𝜒 can be written as And for gravity field alone
𝜕𝜌𝜒 𝜕u
𝜌𝜒 − (𝜌𝜒)0 = ( ) (𝑇 − 𝑇0 ) [ + (u ⋅ ∇) u]
𝜕𝑇 0 𝜕𝑡
(9) (18)
𝜕𝜌 𝜕𝜒 1 𝜇
= (𝜒 + 𝜌 ) (𝑇 − 𝑇0 ) . =− ∇𝑝󸀠 + ∇2 u + 𝑔𝛽0 (𝑇 − 𝑇0 ) .
𝜕𝑇 𝜕𝑇 0 𝜌0 𝜌0
Energy equation is A is the vector potential. The vector potential generated

by the permanent magnet at the calculated point is as follows:
𝜕𝑇
𝜌𝑐𝑝 [ + (u ⋅ ∇) 𝑇] = 𝜆∇2 𝑇. (19) 𝜇0 M × r1
𝜕𝑡 A= ∫ 𝑑V. (28)
4𝜋 V 𝑟2
In all the subsequent computation, the reference temper-
ature 𝑇0 is selected equal to the temperature of the cold wall Here, V is the volume of the magnet, 𝑟 is the distance from
𝑇𝑐 . the element volume 𝑑V of the magnet to the point where the
The initial condition (𝑡 < 0) is field is calculated, and r1 is the unit vector along 𝑟. When the
calculated field point is fixed and the source point, that is the
𝑢 = 𝑤 = 0, 𝑇0 = 𝑇𝑐 . (20) center of element volume 𝑑V, is moving, the gradient of 1/𝑟
taken at the source point is
Boundary conditions are
1 r
∇ ( ) = 12 . (29)
𝑢 = 𝑤 = 0, at 𝑥 = 0, 𝐿, or 𝑧 = 0, 𝐿 𝑟 𝑟
𝑇 = 𝑇ℎ , at 𝑥 = 0 Equation (28) can be rewritten as
𝑇 = 𝑇𝑐 , at 𝑥 = 𝐿 (21) 𝜇0 1
A= ∫ M × ∇ ( ) 𝑑V. (30)
4𝜋 V 𝑟
𝜕𝑇
= 0, at 𝑧 = 0, 𝐿.
𝜕𝑧 According to the curl calculus identities, the curl of the
product of a scalar function 𝑓 and a vector function C is
The Rayleigh number is
∇ × (𝑓C) = ∇ (𝑓) × C + 𝑓 (∇ × C)
Pr 𝛽𝑔 (𝑇ℎ − 𝑇𝑐 ) 𝐿3
Ra = . (22) M 1 1 (31)
]2 ∇×( ) = ∇ ( ) × M + (∇ × M) .
𝑟 𝑟 𝑟
The local heat transfer coefficient ℎlocal is defined as
And one of the properties of vector product is that the vector
𝜆 󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝑇 󵄨󵄨
󵄨󵄨 󵄨󵄨 product is anticommutative:
ℎlocal = 󵄨󵄨 󵄨󵄨 . (23)
𝑇ℎ − 𝑇𝑐 󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝑥 󵄨󵄨
1 1
∇ ( ) × M = −M × ∇ ( ) . (32)
The local Nusselt number Nulocal represents the ratio of 𝑟 𝑟
heat transfer rate by convection to that by conduction in the Then,
fluid. Nulocal is given by
1 M 1
ℎ 𝐿 M × ∇ ( ) = −∇ × ( ) + (∇ × M) . (33)
Nulocal = local . (24) 𝑟 𝑟 𝑟
𝜆
Equation (30) can be rewritten as
The overall averaged Nusselt number is obtained by
averaging Nulocal on the wall involved in heat transfer: 𝜇0 M 1
A= ∫ (−∇ × ( ) + (∇ × M)) 𝑑V. (34)
4𝜋 V 𝑟 𝑟
1
Nu𝑚 = ∫ Nu 𝑑𝑧. (25) The curl calculus identity has
𝐿 𝐿 local
In this study, the magnetic field is assumed to be provided M M×n
∫ (∇ × ) 𝑑V = − ∫ 𝑑𝑎, (35)
by a cubic permanent neodymium-iron-boron (Nd-Fe-B) V 𝑟 𝑆 𝑟
magnet which has a high magnetic energy product and
could drive the gas free convection easily under a gradient where 𝑆 is the surface bounding the volume V; 𝑑𝑎 is element
temperature field. The magnetic field is solved using the area of the surface 𝑆, n is the direction normal to the surface
vector potential method [24]. 𝑆. The magnetic vector potential can be rewritten as
According to Maxwell’s equations, the divergences of B is 𝜇0 M×n 𝜇 ∇×M
always zero: A= ∫ 𝑑𝑎 + 0 ∫ 𝑑V. (36)
4𝜋 𝑆 𝑟 4𝜋 V 𝑟
∇ ⋅ B = 0. (26) M × n is the equivalent surface current density and ∇ × M
is the equivalent volume current density; the unit vector r1
The fact that the divergence of B is zero means that there points, from the source, which is the loop, to the point where
cannot exist sources of B. Because the divergence of the curl the magnetic field is calculated. Here using the Biot-Savart
of a vector is identically equal to zero. Thus the magnetic law we can write down the value of B:
induction B can be expressed as the curl of a vector A.
𝜇0 M × n × r1 𝜇 ∇ × M × r1
B = ∇ × A. (27) B= ∫ 𝑑𝑎 + 0 ∫ 𝑑V. (37)
4𝜋 𝑆 𝑟2 4𝜋 V 𝑟2
Table 1: Grid independence tests (Ra = 105 , 𝐵𝑟 = 0).
Grid system Nu
62 × 62 × 62 4.540
82 × 82 × 82 4.523
102 × 102 × 102 4.520
Table 2: Parameters and constants (300 K, 1 atm).
Acceleration coefficient of gravity (𝑔) 9.8 m/s2

Prandtl number (Pr) 0.702
Density of gas at 300 K (𝜌) 1.177 kg/m3
Kinematic viscosity of gas (]) 15.718 × 10−6 m2 /s
z Viscosity of gas (𝜇) 18.5 × 10−6 Pa⋅s
Conduction coefficient (𝜆) 2.646 × 10−2 W/(m⋅K)
Thermal diffusivity of gas (𝛼) 22.45 × 10−6 m2 /s
x Mass magnetic susceptibility of
1.738 × 10−6 m3 /kg
oxygen (𝜒O2 )
Figure 2: Magnetic field lines in the enclosure.
Cold wall temperature (𝑇𝑐 ) 300.0 K
Volumetric coefficient of expansion 1/300.0 (1/K)
of gas (𝛽)
Thus, if we know the permanent magnet’s magnetization M, Magnetic permeability of free space 4𝜋 × 10−7 H/m
we can find the equivalent current densities. Then we can use (𝜇0 )
the equivalent currents to calculate B by the upper equation.
In this study, the permanent magnet is applied near the
bottom wall, and the poles of the magnet are lined parallel the physical model under the gravity field, as shown in Fig-
to the 𝑍-direction. The square enclosure is placed on top of ure 3(a), the temperature field looks rotationally symmetric
the cubic magnet in the middle of the 𝑦-side and parallel to about the center of the enclosure. The temperature gradient
the 𝑋-𝑍 plane. The computed magnetic field lines supplied normal to the hot wall decreases and the temperature gradi-
by the cubic permanent magnet in the enclosure are shown ent near the cold wall increases gently from the bottom wall
in Figure 2. to the top wall. The largest temperature gradient near the hot
The SIMPLE algorithm developed by Patankar [25] is wall locates at the position close to the bottom wall, but near
used to solve the coupled heat transfer and fluid flow problem. the cold wall it is close to the top wall. The temperature field
The power-law scheme is used in the finite difference formu- structure under the magnetic field, as shown in Figure 3(b),
lation of convection terms and a fine grid system is selected to is quite different from the temperature field under the gravity
raise the simulation precision. The grid-independence test for field. The temperature gradient near the hot and cold walls
the solutions is carried out with three grid systems under the decreases along 𝑧-direction. The maximum gradient of the
gravity field only. The averaged Nusselt numbers at different temperature near the hot wall locates at the bottom of the
grid systems are presented in Table 1. Since the difference of hot wall, and the maximum temperature gradient on the cold
Nusselt number between three grid systems is less than 0.5%, wall locates at the position close to the bottom wall. The
the grid system 82 × 82 is selected for all computations. The temperature gradient normal to the cold wall changes a little
physical properties of air and other constants used in this from top wall to the position close to the bottom wall, and
paper are summarized in Table 2. then it decreases quickly till to the bottom wall in a small
range.
4. Results and Discussion 4.2. Magnetizing Force Fields. Figure 4 shows the gravity
4 buoyancy force and magnetizing buoyancy force fields in
All the computations are carried out from Ra = 10 to Ra =
106 , and the residual flux densities of permanent magnet the enclosure. From these figures we can find that the
changes from 0.5 T to 4.5 T. The flow field, temperature field, magnetizing buoyancy force is different from the gravity
and the distribution of local Nusselt number along the walls buoyancy force. The gravity buoyancy force parallels along
are obtained under the magnetic field with 𝐵𝑟 = 4.5 T; the 𝑧-direction, but the magnetizing buoyancy force’s direction
difference of the effect of magnetic field and gravity field on changes in the enclosure. The magnetizing buoyancy force
natural convection is also studied. increased with increase of magnet strength. There is large
magnetizing force near the bottom wall of the enclosure
and the force near the hot wall is larger than that near the
4.1. Temperature Fields. Figure 3 shows the temperature fields cold wall. The magnetizing force decreases quickly along
of the studied physical models at Ra = 104 and 105 . For 𝑧-direction. But for the gravity field, the distribution of
300.0 300.2 300.3 300.5 300.7 300 301 303 304 305 306 308
Ra = 104 Ra = 105
(a)
300.0 300.2 300.3 300.5 300.7 300 301 303 304 305 306 308
Ra = 104 Ra = 105
(b)
Figure 3: Temperature fields at Ra = 104 and 105 . (a) Under gravity field and (b) under magnetic field, 𝐵𝑟 = 4.5 T.
gravity buoyancy force is quite different. The larger gravity vortex in the center of the enclosure at Ra = 104 . When
buoyancy force locates in the region near the top and hot Ra increases to 105 , the core of the vortex is divided into
wall, and the gravity buoyancy force decreases from hot wall two cores, one is located near the top and hot walls, and the
to cold wall and increases from bottom wall to top wall. The other one locates close to the cold and bottom walls. When
maximum value of magnetizing buoyancy force is larger than there is magnetic field only, the velocity field is different
the maximum gravity buoyancy force. from that under the gravity field. A vortex is also formed
in the enclosure, but the core of the vortex locates close to
4.3. Velocity Fields. Figure 5 shows the velocity fields under the bottom wall at Ra = 104 . When Ra increases to 105 ,
gravity field and magnetic field. When there is gravity field there is still only one core of the vortex and the core moves
only, as shown in Figure 5(a), the large value of velocity much closer to the hot wall. Figures 6(a) and 6(b) show the
locates near the walls and the value of velocity decreases streamlines in the enclosure under gravity field and magnetic
from the walls to the center of the enclosure. There is one field, respectively. The streamlines related to gravity field look
Ra = 104 Ra = 105
0.1 N 0.5 N
(a)
Ra = 104 Ra = 105
0.1 N 0.5 N
(b)
Figure 4: Gravity and magnetizing buoyancy force fields. (a) 𝑔 and (b) 𝐵𝑟 = 4.5 T.
rotationally symmetric about the center of the enclosure; z3 are at the positions 𝑧/𝐿 = 0.1, 0.5, and 0.8, respectively.
large velocity gradient normal to the wall locates near the In the region near the hot wall, the temperature under the
bottom segment of the hot wall and the top segment of magnetic field along the line z1 is lower than that under the
the cold wall. But under the magnetic field, the streamlines gravity field, but along the lines z2 and z3, the temperature
are not symmetric and there are dense streamlines near the under the magnetic field is higher than the temperature
corner of the hot and bottom walls where there is large value under the gravity field. In the region near the cold wall,
of magnetizing force as shown in Figure 4(b). In the region the temperature related to magnetic field is higher than the
near the top wall, the velocity gradient normal to the wall is temperature related to gravity field along the lines z1 and z2,
significantly less than that in other regions. and the temperature related to magnetic field is lower than the
temperature related to the gravity field along line z3. The high
temperature near the cold wall means a high temperature
4.4. Distribution of Temperature along Lines. The distribution gradient and high temperature near the hot wall means a
curves of temperature at Ra = 105 along the lines parallel low temperature gradient. For the magnetic field, the largest
to 𝑥-axis are plotted in Figure 7; these three lines z1, z2, and temperature gradient near the cold wall is along the line z2
Ra = 104 Ra = 105
0.005 m/s 0.01 m/s

(a)
Ra = 104 Ra = 105
0.005 m/s 0.01 m/s

(b)
Figure 5: Comparison of velocity vectors of physical models. (a) Under gravity field and (b) under magnetic field.
and the largest temperature gradient near the hot wall is along Nusselt number along the hot wall. The value of the Nusselt
the line z1. We can obtain the same conclusion as in Figure 7 number increases nearly linearly from bottom wall and gets
that the distribution of the temperature under the magnetic the peak value near the top wall; then it decreases again till
field is quite different from that under the gravity field. to the top wall. Figure 8(b) shows the distribution curves of
local Nusselt number under the magnetic field with 𝐵𝑟 =
4.5. Heat Transfer on the Walls. The distribution curves of 4.5 T. We can see that the distribution of the local Nusselt
the local Nusselt number along the hot and cold walls are number for the model under magnetic field is different from
plotted in Figure 8. The distribution of the local Nusselt that shown in Figure 8(a). The local Nusselt number gets a
number under gravity field is shown in Figure 8(a). The peak high peak value at the bottom of the hot wall and it decreases
value along the hot wall locates near the bottom wall and quickly for a short distance and then continues decreasing at
decreases nearly linearly to the top wall. The distribution of a relatively slow rate till it reaches the top wall. The change of
local Nusselt number along the cold wall is symmetric about the local Nusselt number along the cold wall is much gentler
the central line of the enclosure with the distribution of local compared with that along the hot wall. The local Nusselt
Ra = 104 Ra = 105
(a)
Ra = 104 Ra = 105
(b)
Figure 6: Comparison of streamlines. (a) Under gravity field and (b) under magnetic field.
number increases slowly from the top wall to the position magnetic flux density of a permanent magnet ranging from
near the bottom wall and then it decreases quickly till it 1.5 T to 4.5 T. The average Nu under the magnetic field has
reaches the bottom wall. a similar distribution curve compared with that under the
The comparison of the distribution curves of the local gravity field. The averaged Nu increases with increase of 𝐵𝑟 .
Nusselt number under gravity field and magnetic field are The averaged Nusselt numbers on the hot wall with Ra =
presented in Figure 9. The value of local Nusselt number 105 are summarized in Table 3. When 𝐵𝑟 is about 3.5T,
along the hot wall is larger than the value under the gravity the averaged Nu is nearly the same as that under gravity
filed in a short line segment from the bottom wall; the peak field; this means that the magnetizing buoyancy force has a
value of local Nusselt number related to magnetic field is comparative effect on Nu in the enclosure compared with the
more than three times larger than the peak value related to gravity buoyancy force.
the gravity field. On the cold wall, the local Nusselt number
related to magnetic field changes much more gently and has 5. Conclusion
larger value on the lower part of the wall compared with that
related to gravity field. Natural convection of air in a two-dimensional square enclo-
Figure 10 shows the distribution of the average Nusselt sure under a nonuniform magnetic field provided by a per-
number with Ra ranging from 104 to 106 and the residual manent magnet is carried out. The results are compared with
310 magnet with 𝐵𝑟 = 3.5 T can play a comparative role on

the averaged Nusselt number compared with that under the
gravity environment.
308
Nomenclature
306 A: Vector potential
B: Magnetic flux density (T)
T 𝐵𝑟 : Residual magnetic flux density of a
304
permanent magnet (T)
f𝑚 : Magnetizing force (N/m3 )
𝑔: Acceleration coefficient of gravity (m/s2 )
H: Magnetic field strength (A/m)
302 M: Magnetization
Nu: Nusselt number
𝑝: Pressure (N/m2 )
300 𝑝0 : Reference pressure without convection of
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 gas (N/m2 )
x (L) 󸀠
𝑝 : Perturbed pressure due to convection
z1 Gravity field Pr: Prandtl number
z2 Magnetic field r: Unit vector
z3 Ra: Rayleigh number
𝑡: Time (s)
Figure 7: Temperature distribution along three lines parallel to 𝑥- 𝑇: Temperature (K)
axis.
u: Velocity vector (𝑢, 𝑤)(m/s)
𝑥: Coordinate (m)
Table 3: Summary of computed results. 𝑧: Coordinate (m).
Model 𝐵𝑟 Nu
0.5 T 1.289 Greek Symbols
1.5 T 2.632
Magnetic field 2.5 T 3.617
𝛼: Thermal diffusivity of gas (m2 /s)
3.5 T 4.434
𝛽: Volume coefficient of expansion of gas due
4.5 T 5.149
to temperature difference (1/K)
Gravity field 𝑔 4.523 𝜇: Viscosity of gas (Pa⋅s)
𝜇𝑚 : Magnetic permeability of free space (H/m)
]: Kinematic viscosity of gas (m2 /s)
that under the gravity field. As the magnetizing buoyancy 𝜌: Density of gas (kg/m3 )
force of air in the magnetic field is quite different from the 𝜌0 : Density of gas at a reference state of no
gravitational buoyancy force, the natural convection in the convection (kg/m3 )
enclosure under a magnetic field provided by a permanent 𝜒: Mass magnetic susceptibility of air
magnet has quite different characteristics. For the model (m3 /kg)
studied in this paper, the velocity and temperature fields are 𝜆: Conduction coefficient (W/(m⋅K)).
rotationally symmetric about the center of the enclosure. The
heat transfer Nusselt numbers on the hot wall and the cold
wall are symmetrical about the center line of the enclosure. Subscripts
But the velocity and temperature fields under the magnetic
field do not have such characteristics. Heat transfer Nusselt
number is different on the hot and cold walls. The value of 0: Reference state
local Nusselt number has a peak value on the bottom of the 𝐶: That of a cold wall
hot wall and decreases quickly along the hot wall, but the local ℎ: That of a hot wall.
Nusselt number changes with a relatively gentle rate on the
cold wall. The peak value on the hot wall is three times larger
than that under the gravity field when 𝐵𝑟 = 4.5 T and 2 times Conflict of Interests
larger when 𝐵𝑟 = 2.5 T. When 𝐵𝑟 is about 3.5 T, the value of
averaged Nu is nearly the same with that under gravity field. The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests
This means that in the zero gravity environment, a permanent regarding the publication of this paper.
20 70
56
15
42
Nu local
Nu local
10
28
5
14
0 0
0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1 0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1
z (L) z (L)
Gravity field Magnetic field

Ra = 106 Nu local-c Ra = 106 Nu local-c
Ra = 105 Nu local-h Ra = 105 Nu local-h
Ra = 104 Ra = 104
(a) (b)
Figure 8: Distribution curves of Nulocal along the walls. (a) Under gravity field and (b) under magnetic field.
70 21
56
10
14
42
Nu local-h
Nu local-c
28
7
0
0.25 0.5 0.75 1
14
0 0
0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1 0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1
z (L) z (L)
Ra = 106 Gravity field Ra = 106 Gravity field

Ra = 105 Magnetic field Ra = 105 Magnetic field
Ra = 104 Ra = 104
(a) (b)
Figure 9: Comparison of Nulocal along the hot wall and cold wall. (a) Along hot wall and (b) along cold wall.
10 [7] N. I. Wakayama, “Behavior of gas flow under gradient magnetic

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8
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[13] T. Tagawa, R. Shigemitsu, and H. Ozoe, “Magnetizing force
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inclined in general orientations,” Fluid Dynamics Research, vol.
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tinguished Young Scientists (no. 145RJDA324), the National [16] P. Filar, E. Fornalik, M. Kaneda, T. Tagawa, H. Ozoe, and
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/267276
Research Article
System Model of Heat and Mass Transfer Process for Mobile
Solvent Vapor Phase Drying Equipment
Shiwei Zhang,1 Yufang Zhu,1 Baozhen Qiao,2 and Zhijun Zhang1

1
2
Shenyang Chengqiao Science and Technology Development Co., Ltd., Shenyang 110025, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Shiwei Zhang; shwzhang@mail.neu.edu.cn
Received 16 May 2014; Accepted 17 July 2014; Published 3 September 2014
Copyright © 2014 Shiwei Zhang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
The solvent vapor phase drying process is one of the most important processes during the production and maintenance for large oil-
immersed power transformer. In this paper, the working principle, system composition, and technological process of mobile solvent
vapor phase drying (MVPD) equipment for transformer are introduced in detail. On the basis of necessary simplification and
assumption for MVPD equipment and process, a heat and mass transfer mathematical model including 40 mathematical equations
is established, which represents completely thermodynamics laws of phase change and transport process of solvent, water, and air
in MVPD technological processes and describes in detail the quantitative relationship among important physical quantities such
as temperature, pressure, and flux in key equipment units and process. Taking a practical field drying process of 500 KV/750 MVA
power transformer as an example, the simulation calculation of a complete technological process is carried out by programming with
MATLAB software and some relation curves of key process parameters changing with time are obtained such as body temperature,
tank pressure, and water yield. The change trend of theoretical simulation results is very consistent with the actual production
record data which verifies the correctness of mathematical model established.
1. Introduction insulation class and voltage endurance of transformer. At

present, because of its advantages in drying the large power
Large power transformer is the important equipment of transformer, the VPD equipment has become indispensable,
power transmission and transformation system. Insulation ideal, reliable, and advanced equipment for drying the large
system of transformer is the key factor affecting the reli- power transformer with extrahigh voltage and large capacity
able operation of transformer. If the insulation system of [3, 4].
transformer was affected with damp due to various reasons, Due to transformer characteristics and actual demand,
its insulation performance and reliability would decrease. the power transformers are made larger and larger which
With the rapid development of power industry in China, the brings much difficulty for transportation. Besides, large
transformer drying process difficulty increases and higher power stations are mostly built in the energy center at south-
quality requirements are required because of higher voltage western or northwestern area of China where the transporta-
class of transformer, larger capacity, and more insulating tion condition is very poor. Therefore, the transportation cost
materials. Drying process during transformer manufacture in its entirety is expensive, and even entirety transportation
occupies a very important position and it has always been a is impossible sometimes. Thus, the ASA (advanced on site
key link on affecting the transformer quality and production assemble) transformer emerges, and then the MVPD equip-
[1, 2]. ment emerges at the right moment for drying the ASA trans-
Solvent vapor phase drying (VPD) process is one of the former.
most important processes during the production and main- The ASA transformer after the test can be directly divided
tenance of large oil-immersed power transformer. Since it into some small system components which can be conve-
is the last process before oiling, it will directly affect the niently transported. These small system components can be
transported to the work place of power station and be High vacuum

Leakage pump
assembled again. The transformer will inevitably be affected pump
with damp during decomposition and assembly, so the VPD
process for the transformer in the power station is necessary.
Besides, The MVPD technology is also the most ideal choice
for old transformer which needs maintenance on site. Transformer
In recent years, much attention has been paid to the Evaporator Distiller Condenser tank
MVPD equipment. Some companies in China have taken the
lead in trial-producing several sets of MVPD equipment in
the world which have been applied to deal with many sets Solvent Heat conduction
storage tank oil
of large transformer equipment. Multiple manufacturers are
also developing and trial-producing the MVPD equipment in
China [5, 6]. Figure 1: Structural schematic diagram of the MVPD system.
However, at present, related basic theory research about
the MVPD technology is still weak. During the equipment
manufacture and use, manufacturers and users mainly copy material mainly exists in the form of capillary adsorption.
and imitate the actual experience data from stationary VPD The drying process is that water molecules obtain enough
devices for lacking theoretical guidance. However, many dif- energy to change into water vapor molecules and water
ferences exist between the mobile VPD devices and original vapor molecules diffuse into the surrounding space through
stationary VPD ones. For instance, distributed control and capillary porosity of insulation material to break away from
separate lines are adopted in the MVPD equipment which
the insulation material. The motivation driving water vapor
makes its structure more compact. Considering the trans-
molecules to escape from insulation material is the pressure
portation problem, every single component in the MVPD
difference Δ𝑃 between the interior of material and the
equipment system should not be too large. Transformer shell
surrounding space. So the greater the Δ𝑃 is, the higher the
is directly used as vacuum chamber in the MVPD process.
drying rate is. There are mainly two ways to increase the
The MVPD equipment mainly uses electricity as original
power while the stationary equipment uses coal-burning pressure difference Δ𝑃. On the one hand, we can increase
boiler as original power. These changes of MVPD equipment the temperature of insulation material so as to increase the
bring new problems to the designers, manufacturer, and saturated vapor pressure of its internal moisture. On the other
users. They need to solve the problems combining with its hand, we can decrease the pressure of surrounding space [1].
specific characteristics. The working principle of MVPD technology is as follows.
In fact, there are few technical documents about MVPD The tank of power transformer is used as a vacuum chamber
technology at present, and most of them only give a quali- and is evacuated. The liquid solvent, a kind of kerosene oil,
tative introduction of MVPD processes. The heat and mass is adopted as the heat carrier and is vaporized into solvent
transfer for the MVPD processes and equipment are studied vapor by an evaporator. The solvent vapor at high temperature
rarely, so the mechanism analysis is nearly blank. But research enters vacuum chamber and condenses when it encounters
on this aspect has an important significance and function the transformer body at low temperature. The phase change
for the development of MVPD technology and devices [7– takes place and solvent vapor turns into liquid solvent again
9]. For example, in the aspect of process control, judg- which will be sent into the evaporator and will be recycled.
ment conditions for transformation from heating stage into The temperature of whole transformer, including tank, iron
depressurization stage and for ending the drying process are core, copper wire, and insulation material, rises by absorbing
very important. If the judgment conditions can be predicted the latent heat of phase changing from solvent vapor. The
and controlled accurately by theoretical model, the drying temperature of moisture inside the insulation material will
efficiency will be greatly increased and the goal of saving also rise. And the internal moisture will escape from the
energy and reducing consumption will be achieved [10–12]. insulation material because of the evaporation phase change.
In order to meet the practical needs of quantitative theo- In order to increase the drying rate, vacuum process and heat
retical research and numerical simulation in process control, process are alternated in turn to promote the condensation
a comprehensive heat and mass transfer mathematical model of solvent and the evaporation of moisture, until moisture
for the MVPD process is set up in this paper. The quantitative content in insulation material meets the index requirements.
relationship among the important physical quantities in the
MVPD key device units and technical process are described 2.2. System Structure of MVPD Equipment. The MVPD
in detail, such as temperature, pressure, and flux. The model equipment basically consists of the following systems: trans-
may provide a theoretical reference for the manufacturers and former tank, vacuum system, condensing system, solvent
users of MPVD equipment [8, 13]. vapor system, solvent storage and delivery system, heat
conduction oil heating system, pneumatic system, cooling
2. Principle and Equipment Structure of water system, control system, and ventilation system. The
MVPD Technology principle block diagram is shown in Figure 1.
Modularized design pattern with double evaporators was
2.1. Working Principle of MVPD Equipment. According to adopted in the first set of the MVPD equipment made in
the drying theory, the moisture in transformer insulation China. Its system principle diagram is shown in Figure 2. This
Figure 2: MVPD8.2 system principle diagram of MVPD equipment with two evaporators.
MVPD equipment is made up of the following cell modules vapor enters into the transformer tank, condenses on the cold
[6]: surface of transformer body, and releases the latent heat of
phase change. The condensed solvent liquid is discharged
(a) main big module 1: vacuum unit and condensation from the bottom of transformer tank and is then delivered
module; back to the evaporator to reheat and vaporize. In this case,
(b) main big module 2: evaporator and electric heater the transformer body is heated by the circular solvent vapor,
module; so the body temperature is gradually getting higher. With the
(c) small equipment module: coarse filter and solvent temperature increasing, moisture in insulation material starts
circulating pump module; to evaporate and diffuse gradually.
At the heating stage, the transformer tank is consistently
(d) auxiliary equipment module 1: solvent tank and evacuated by the leakage pump in order to ensure pressure
wasted oil tank module; difference between the transformer tank and the evaporator.
(e) auxiliary equipment module 2: water tank and water The evacuated gas in transformer tank is the mixture includ-
chiller unit, air compressor, and air tank; ing uncondensed solvent vapor, released water vapor, and
(f) auxiliary component module: box loading connection leaking air. The mixed gas enters into the main condenser.
pipes (two wide pipes and three thin tubes); Solvent vapor and water vapor condense into liquids and
then flow into the collecting tank. Due to the different
(g) thermal insulation blanket and tank heating device density, solvent and water are naturally separated by gravity
module. settling. Water deposits at the bottom of collecting tank and
is discharged while the solvent at upper layer is collected and
2.3. Working Processes of MVPD Equipment. According to delivered to evaporator, thus forming another cycle.
the time order, there are mainly the following processes when The temperature of solvent vapor should be controlled at
the MVPD equipment works [1, 14, 15]. 130∘ C to 135∘ C which is determined according to the max-
imum allowable temperature of class A insulation materials
(1) Preparation Stage. At first, condensation system and under the anaerobic condition. In the several times of heating
evaporator are evacuated by the leakage pump. Then enough stage, about 90% of the water content in insulation material
solvent liquid is injected into the evaporator from the sol- may be drawn out.
vent storage tank. The vacuum system is started and the
transformer tank is evacuated until its pressure drops below (3) Intermediate Pressure Lower Stage. The condensation of
700 Pa. In order to save time, the evaporator is preheated at solvent vapor will be restrained after the insulation material
the preparation stage and its temperature is controlled at 80∘ C absorbing enough solvent, which will hinder both subsequent
to 90∘ C. solvent vapor from condensation and internal moisture
from migrating outwards. In order to increase the solvent
(2) Heating Stage. Close the main vacuum valve and stop the condensation and the moisture migration, it is needed to stop
vacuum system. Open the solvent vapor valve. Solvent in the heating stage and enter the intermediate pressure lower (IPL)
evaporator is heated and changed into solvent vapor. Solvent stage.
Table 1: Symbol definition in the simplified calculation process model of MVPD system.
Process units Process logistics
(1) Liquid solvent enters into the evaporator
(A) Solvent storage tank
(2) Solvent vapor enters into transformer tank and starts to heat transformer
(B) Evaporator (3) Mixed gas enters into condensation system and condenses
(C) Condenser (4) Leakage pump system evacuates the transformer tank through condensation system
(D) Transformer (5) Solvent condensed by condensation system returns evaporator and is reused
(E) High vacuum system (6) Condensed liquid solvent flows into evaporator from the bottom of transformer tank and is reused
(F) Leakage pump system (7) High vacuum system vacuumizes the transformer tank to drain out condensed water
Close the solvent liquid inlet valve to stop solvent entering

F
into the evaporator. Evacuate the transformer tank by the 2
4
leakage pump so that the solvent remaining in the insulation 3 7
A 1 B C D E
material can evaporate again. Then a large amount of solvent
vapor and partial water vapor enter into the main condenser, 8
condense into liquids, and flow into the collecting tank. Sep- 9 5 6
arate the water and solvent in the collecting tank and make
all solvent liquid back to the solvent storage tank. The inter- Figure 3: Simplified calculation process model of MVPD system.
mediate pressure lower stage ends when the vacuum degree
in the transformer tank reaches 4.5 kpa.
According to the different models and specifications of equipment, the system structure is simplified as a model of
transformer, heating stage and intermediate pressure lower calculation flow chart shown in Figure 3. The specific mean-
stage can be repeated cyclically for many times. ings of each symbol in this figure, the process units expressed
with alphabet letters, and the process flow expressed with
(4) High Vacuum Stage. The high vacuum stage is needed numbers have been shown in Table 1.
when the moisture content in insulation material is very little, Before setting up a mathematical model, the symbols and
less than 10% of the total initial moisture content. This part units of required physical quantities are defined and shown in
of moisture is dispersed in insulation material, especially in Table 2 while the first and second subscript of each physical
thicker insulation parts, and is difficult to be drawn out. The quantity are defined and shown in Table 3.
method of increasing temperature is unavailable to accelerate To simplify calculation, the fundamental assumptions for
the moisture evaporation because the temperature of trans- system are made as follows.
former is as high as the allowable temperature of insulation
material at this moment. Therefore, the method of reducing (1) Ignore the heat loss to surrounding environment in
the external pressure is adopted. The transformer tank is the whole process, because this part of heat does not
deeply evacuated in order to make the solvent and moisture take part in the internal heat and mass transfer of
further vaporize until the drying standard is reached. MVPD system.
(5) Oil Filling Stage. After the moisture and solvent in insula- (2) Neglect the latent heat of moisture content in insula-
tion material are drawn out, the space occupied by original tion material, because it is much smaller than the total
moisture and solvent should be immediately filled with heat exchange.
electric insulation oil in order to prevent absorbing moisture (3) Assume that the temperature of the whole trans-
again in space with larger humidity. Under the vacuum con- former body changes evenly; that is, a lumped param-
dition, transformer oil is poured into the tank to fully saturate eter model is adopted for the transformer tank.
insulation parts.
The MVPD equipment is always automatically recording (4) Assume that the flow of solvent vapor and water vapor
and monitoring the important technical parameters of drying in pipes is a steady Poiseuille’s laminar flow.
process in the whole working process, such as the tempera-
ture of transformer body, the gas pressure inside the tank, and 3.2. Unit Model of MVPD Equipment
the total water yield. According to the process parameters,
operators can make decisions about the subsequent process. 3.2.1. Unit Model of Evaporator. The substance composition
in evaporator 𝐵 is only solvent, which is in two phase states,
3. Heat and Mass Transfer Model of liquid solvent and solvent vapor. The liquid solvent flows into
MVPD System the evaporator through the logistics pipelines 1 and 9, absorbs
heat provided by the heater, and evaporates to become the
3.1. System Simplification, Variable Definition, and Basic solvent vapor. The solvent vapor flows out of the evaporator
Assumption. In order to more clearly show the internal struc- through the logistics pipeline 2. The mathematical model
ture relationship and material flow direction in the MVPD reflecting the unit process includes the following equations.
Table 2: Definition of physical quantity symbols and units. The temperature of liquid solvent is 𝑇𝐵𝑆 :
𝑀 Mass (kg) 𝑑𝑇𝐵𝑆
𝑄 Heat (J) 𝑐𝑂 ⋅ 𝑀𝐵𝑆 = 𝑝𝐵 − 𝑔𝐵𝑂 ⋅ ℎ𝐵𝑆 . (4)
𝑑𝜏
𝑇 Temperature (K)
𝑞 Heat flow (w) The temperature of solvent vapor is 𝑇𝐵𝑂:
𝑚 Mass flow (kg/s)
𝑇𝐵𝑂 = 𝑇𝐵𝑆 . (5)
𝑔 Phase change rate (kg/s)
ℎ Phase change latent heat (J/kg) According to the test data provided by a manufacture
𝜏 Time (s) factory, the saturated vapor pressure of liquid solvent can be
𝐿 Length (m) computed by the following equation:
𝑟 Radius (m)
𝑆 Area (m2 ) 2153.6
lg𝑃𝐵𝑆 = 10.1 − . (6)
𝑐 Specific heat capacity (J/kg⋅K) 𝑇𝐵𝑆 − 34.3
𝑝 Power (W)
The pressure of solvent vapor is 𝑃𝐵𝑂 and it may be com-
𝑃 Pressure (Pa) puted by the perfect gas state equation under low pressure:
𝜌 Density (kg/m3 )
𝜂 Viscosity coefficient (Pa⋅s) 𝑀𝐵𝑂𝑅𝑇𝐵𝑂
𝑃𝐵𝑂 = . (7)
𝜕 Boiling heat transfer coefficient (w/m2 ⋅K⋅Pa) 𝑉𝐵 𝜇𝐵𝑂
𝛽 Condensation surface coefficient (w/m2 ⋅K⋅Pa)
𝜆 Convective heat transfer coefficient (w/m⋅K) 3.2.2. Unit Model of Transformer. The substances composi-
𝜇 Molar mass (kg/mol) tion concerned in the heat and mass transfer process in the
𝐶 Constant transformer 𝐷 consists of solvent, water, and air. There are
𝑘 Coefficient two phase states including liquid state and vapor state for sol-
vent and water. The solvent vapor flows into the transformer
Table 3: Definition of the first and second subscripts of each physi- tank through the logistics pipeline 2 and then condenses and
cal quantity. turns into liquid solvent. The heat released by phase change
ABCDEF Process unit label
will heat the transformer tank, iron cores, copper wires, and
The first subscript
insulation material. The mass conversion and heat exchange
123456789 Process logistics label
in this unit can be expressed by the following mathematical
I II III IV V Time phase
equations.
𝑆 Liquid solvent
𝑂 Solvent vapor (1) Air. The mass of air is 𝑀𝐷𝐴 :
𝑊 Liquid water
𝑉 Water vapor 𝑑𝑀𝐷𝐴
= 𝑚𝐴 − 𝑚3𝐴 , (8)
The second subscript 𝐴 Air 𝑑𝜏
𝑗 Insulation materials where 𝑚𝐴 is the amount of leakage air.
𝑖 Iron core The air temperature is 𝑇𝐷𝐴 and it is equal to the tempera-
𝑏 Transformer tank ture of solvent vapor 𝑇𝐷𝑂 in unit 𝐷:
𝑐 Copper wire
𝑇𝐷𝐴 = 𝑇𝐷𝑂. (9)
The mass of liquid solvent in 𝐵 is 𝑀𝐵𝑆 : The partial pressure of air in the transformer 𝐷 is 𝑃𝐷𝐴 :
𝑑𝑀𝐵𝑆 𝑀𝐷𝐴 𝑅𝑇𝐷𝐴
= 𝑚1𝑆 + 𝑚9𝑆 − 𝑔𝐵𝑂. (1) 𝑃𝐷𝐴 = . (10)
𝑑𝜏 𝑉𝐷𝜇𝐷𝐴
The mass of solvent vapor in 𝐵 is 𝑀𝐵𝑂:
(2) Water. The water in the transformer 𝐷 includes the liquid
𝑑𝑀𝐵𝑂 absorbed water existing in the insulation material and the
= 𝑔𝐵𝑂 − 𝑚2𝑂. (2)
𝑑𝜏 water vapor evaporating into the space. About the water vapor
see the following.
Phase change rate is 𝑔𝐵𝑂:
The mass of water vapor is 𝑀𝐷𝑉:
𝜇𝐵𝑆 𝑃 𝑃
𝑔𝐵𝑂 = 𝜕𝐵𝑆 ⋅ √ ⋅ ( 𝐵𝑆 − 𝐵𝑂 ) ⋅ 𝑆𝐵 𝑑𝑀𝐷𝑉
2𝜋𝑅 √𝑇𝐵𝑆 √𝑇𝐵𝑂 = 𝑔𝐷𝑉 − 𝑚3𝑉 . (11)
(3) 𝑑𝜏
𝑃𝐵𝑆 𝑃 The temperature of water vapor is 𝑇𝐷𝑉 and it is equal to
= 𝑘𝐵𝑆 ⋅ ( − 𝐵𝑂 ) ,
√𝑇𝐵𝑆 √𝑇𝐵𝑂 the temperature of solvent vapor 𝑇𝐷𝑂:
where 𝑘𝐵𝑆 = 𝜕𝐵𝑆 ⋅ √𝜇𝐵𝑆 /2𝜋𝑅 ⋅ 𝑆𝐵 . 𝑇𝐷𝑉 = 𝑇𝐷𝑂. (12)

The partial pressure of water vapor is 𝑃𝐷𝑉: The condensation heat transfer coefficient of solvent
vapor in the tank is 𝛽𝐷𝑂:
𝑀𝐷𝑉 𝑅𝑇𝐷𝑉
𝑃𝐷𝑉 = . (13) 2 2
𝑉𝐷𝜇𝐷𝑉 𝛽𝐷𝑂 = 𝑘𝐷 (𝐶𝐷𝑆 − 𝑀𝐷𝑆 ). (22)
About the liquid water see the following. 𝛽𝐷𝑂 is related to the mass of condensed liquid solvent. The
The mass of liquid water is 𝑀𝐷𝑊: condensation heat transfer coefficient is decreasing with the
mass increasing of condensed liquid solvent. The maximum
𝑑𝑀𝐷𝑊 mass of condensed liquid solvent in the tank is defined as
= −𝑔𝐷𝑉. (14)
𝑑𝜏 𝐶𝐷𝑆 . When 𝑀𝐷𝑆 = 𝐶𝐷𝑆 , then 𝛽𝐷𝑂 = 0, which means that the
The temperature of liquid water is 𝑇𝐷𝑊 and it is equal to solvent vapor will no longer condense and the solvent vapor
the temperature of transformer body 𝑇𝐷: entering the tank is mainly taken out by the leakage pump
through the logistics pipeline 3. In this case, the intermediate
𝑇𝐷𝑊 = 𝑇𝐷. (15) pressure lower stage should be entered.
About the liquid solvent see the following.
The saturation pressure of liquid water is 𝑃𝐷𝑊 given by The mass of liquid solvent is 𝑀𝐷𝑆 :
the following equation [15, 16]:
𝑑𝑀𝐷𝑆
1657.46 = 𝑔𝐷𝑂 − 𝑚6𝑆 . (23)
lg𝑃𝐷𝑊 = 10.07406 − . (16) 𝑑𝜏
𝑇𝐷𝑊 − 45.98
The temperature of liquid solvent is 𝑇𝐷𝑆 :
The evaporation phase change rate of liquid water is 𝑔𝐷𝑉: 𝑇𝐷𝑆 = 𝑇𝐷. (24)
𝜇𝐷𝑊 𝑃 𝑃 The saturation pressure of liquid solvent is 𝑃𝐷𝑆 :
𝑔𝐷𝑉 = 𝜕𝐷𝑊 ⋅ √ ⋅ ( 𝐷𝑊 − 𝐷𝑉 ) ⋅ 𝑆𝐷
2𝜋𝑅 √𝑇𝐷 √𝑇𝐷𝑉
2153.6
(17) lg𝑃𝐷𝑆 = 10.1 − . (25)
𝑃 𝑃 𝑇𝐷𝑆 − 34.3
= 𝑘𝐷𝑊 ⋅ ( 𝐷𝑊 − 𝐷𝑉 ) ,
√𝑇𝐷 √𝑇𝐷𝑉 (4) Transformer Body. The transformer body includes iron
cores, copper wires, and insulation materials of transformer
where 𝑘𝐷𝑊 = 𝜕𝐷𝑊 ⋅ √𝜇𝐷𝑊/2𝜋𝑅 ⋅ 𝑆𝐷. core and transformer tank. The temperature of transformer
body is 𝑇𝐷:
(3) Solvent. The solvent includes the solvent vapor entering
through the logistics pipeline 2 and the liquid solvent pro- 𝑑𝑇𝐷
(𝑐𝐷𝑗 𝑀𝐷𝑗 + 𝑐𝐷𝑐 𝑀𝐷𝑐 + 𝑐𝐷𝑖 𝑀𝐷𝑖 + 𝑐𝐷𝑏 𝑀𝐷𝑏 )
duced by condensation phase change. Most of the liquid sol- 𝑑𝜏 (26)
vent flows out through the logistics pipeline 6, and the rest
retains on the wall surface of transformer tank and in the = 𝑔𝐷𝑂 ⋅ ℎ𝐷𝑆 − 𝑚6𝑆 ⋅ ℎ6𝑆 + 𝜆 𝐷𝑂 ⋅ 𝑆𝐷 ⋅ (𝑇𝐷𝑂 − 𝑇𝐷𝑆 ) .
insulation material.
About the solvent vapor see the following. 3.3. Process Logistics Model of the MVPD Equipment
The mass of solvent vapor is 𝑀𝐷𝑂:
(1) Logistics 2. There is only the solvent vapor in the logistics
𝑑𝑀𝐷𝑂 pipeline 2 and the flow from evaporator 𝐵 towards trans-
= 𝑚2𝑂 − 𝑔𝐷𝑂 − 𝑚3𝑂. (18) former 𝐷 is in accordance with the Poiseuille flow. The flux
𝑑𝜏
of logistics 2 depends on the pressure difference between the
The temperature of solvent vapor is 𝑇𝐷𝑂: solvent vapor pressure in the evaporator and the total pres-
sure of mixed gas in the transformer, as well as the structure
𝑇𝐷𝑂 = 𝑇𝐵𝑂 − Δ𝑇, (19)
of pipeline 2.
where Δ𝑇 is the temperature loss of pipeline 2, Δ𝑇 = 3 K. The volume flow of solvent vapor is 𝑄2𝑂:
The pressure of solvent vapor is 𝑃𝐷𝑂:
𝜋𝑟24 2 2
𝑄2𝑂 = ⋅ (𝑃𝐵𝑂 − 𝑃𝐷𝑇 ). (27)
𝑀𝐷𝑂𝑅𝑇𝐷𝑂 16𝜂2 𝐿 2
𝑃𝐷𝑂 = . (20)
𝑉𝐷𝜇𝐷𝑂 The mass flow of solvent vapor is 𝑚2𝑂:
The condense-phase-change rate of solvent vapor is 𝑔𝐷𝑂: 𝑚2𝑂 = 𝜌2𝑂 ⋅ 𝑄2𝑂
𝜇𝐷𝑂 𝑃 𝑃
𝑔𝐷𝑂 = 𝛽𝐷𝑂 ⋅ √ ⋅ ( 𝐷𝑂 − 𝐷𝑆 ) ⋅ 𝑆𝐷 𝑃𝐵𝑂𝜇𝐵𝑂 𝜋𝑟24 2 2
2𝜋𝑅 √𝑇𝐷𝑂 √𝑇𝐷𝑆 = ⋅ ⋅ (𝑃𝐵𝑂 − 𝑃𝐷𝑇 )
𝑅𝑇𝐵𝑂 16𝜂2 𝐿 2 (28)
(21)
𝑃𝐷𝑂 𝑃 𝑃𝐵𝑂
= 𝑘𝐷𝑂 ⋅ 𝛽𝐷𝑂 ⋅ ( − 𝐷𝑆 ) , = 𝑘𝐵𝑂 ⋅ 2
⋅ (𝑃𝐵𝑂 2
− 𝑃𝐷𝑇 ),
√𝑇𝐷𝑂 √𝑇𝐷𝑆 𝑇𝐵𝑂
where 𝑘𝐷𝑂 = √𝜇𝐷𝑂/2𝜋𝑅 ⋅ 𝑆𝐷. where 𝑘𝐵𝑂 = (𝜇𝐵𝑂/𝑅) ⋅ (𝜋𝑟24 /16𝜂2 𝐿 2 ).
(2) Logistics 3. The substance composition in logistics 3 (3) Other Logistics. The mass flow of condensed solvent liquid
includes solvent vapor, water vapor, and air. The flow of mix- in logistics 6 is directly related to the phase change rate of
ture from transformer 𝐷 towards condenser 𝐶 is in accor- solvent vapor in transformer 𝐷. Consider the following:
dance with Poiseuille flow. The flux of mixed gas depends
on the pressure difference between the total pressure in 𝑚6𝑆 = 𝑘6𝑆 ⋅ 𝑔𝐷𝑆 . (38)
condenser 𝐶 and the total pressure in the transformer, as well
as the structure of pipeline 3. The volume flow ratio of each The mass flow of condensed solvent liquid in logistics 5 is
gas is proportional to the partial pressure ratio of this gas in equal to the mass flow of solvent vapor in flow 3:
transformer 𝐷. The parameters 𝑚3𝐴, 𝑚3𝑉 , and 𝑚3𝑂 in (8), (11), 𝑚5𝑆 = 𝑚3𝑂. (39)
and (18) can be calculated through the following equation.
The total volume flow of mixed gas is 𝑄3𝑇 : The mass flow of liquid solvent in logistics 9 is equal to
the sum of logistics 5 and logistics 6:
𝜋𝑟34 2
𝑄3𝑇 = ⋅ (𝑃𝐷𝑇 − 𝑃𝐶2 ) , (29) 𝑚9𝑆 = 𝑚6𝑆 + 𝑚5𝑆 . (40)
16𝜂𝐷𝑇 𝐿 3
where the total pressure of mixed gas is equal to the sum of 4. Simulation and Discussion
each gas partial pressure; namely,
Based on the mathematical model given above, we can carry
𝑃𝐷𝑇 = 𝑃𝐷𝑂 + 𝑃𝐷𝐴 + 𝑃𝐷𝑉. (30) out the numerical simulation of MVPD process. Under the
limit of thesis space, the model established above and the
The equivalent viscosity coefficient of mixed gas depends
following simulation will focus on the heat and mass trans-
on the viscosity coefficient of each gas and the proportion of
formation and transfer process of various working medium
mixed gas; namely,
in evaporator 𝐵 and vacuum chamber 𝐷. Much attention is
𝜌𝐷𝐴 paid to the variations of the transformer body temperature,
𝜂𝐷𝑇 = 𝜂𝐷𝐴 ⋅ the pressure in the tank, and the water yield while the process
𝜌𝐷𝐴 + 𝜌𝐷𝑂 + 𝜌𝐷𝑉
parameters changes of other auxiliary process units and flows
𝜌𝐷𝑂 𝜌𝐷𝑉 are not concerned.
+ 𝜂𝐷𝑂 ⋅ + 𝜂𝐷𝑉 ⋅ .
𝜌𝐷𝐴 + 𝜌𝐷𝑂 + 𝜌𝐷𝑉 𝜌𝐷𝐴 + 𝜌𝐷𝑂 + 𝜌𝐷𝑉
(31) 4.1. Simulation Calculation Flow Chart. The simulation is in
accordance with time sequence and time is taken as the inde-
The volume flow of air in mixed gas is pendent variable; simulation process starts at a time point
𝑃𝐷𝐴 when all necessary technological parameters are given as the
𝑄3𝐴 = ⋅ 𝑄3𝑇 . (32) initial condition. The recurrence method is used to extrapo-
𝑃𝐷𝑇
late calculation value of every variable at the next moment in
The volume flow of water steam in mixed gas is turn (time step is 1 second). Every simulation cycle finishes a
whole MVPD process (about dozens of hours). In the process
𝑃𝐷𝑉 of simulation, the end criterion conditions of preparation
𝑄3𝑉 = ⋅ 𝑄3𝑇 . (33) stage, heating stage, intermediate pressure lower stage, and
𝑃𝐷𝑇
high vacuum stage are set. As simulation parameters reach
The volume flow of solvent vapor in mixed gas is the end criterion conditions, simulation program will shift to
the next stage automatically. The simulation calculation flow
𝑃𝐷𝑂 chart of MVPD process is shown in Figure 4.
𝑄3𝑂 = ⋅ 𝑄3𝑇 . (34)
𝑃𝐷𝑇
4.2. Calculation Example. A simulation example is given
If the volume flow is converted into the mass flow, the
below. This example comes from an actual field drying pro-
mass flow of air in mixed gas is
cess of a transformer. The voltage insulation class of this
𝑃𝐷𝐴 𝜇𝐷𝐴 large power transformer is 500 kV and the capacity of it is
𝑚3𝐴 = ⋅ 𝑄3𝐴 . (35) 750 MVA. The MVPD 8.2 equipment is adopted in actual pro-
𝑅𝑇𝐷
duction to perform dry processing.
The mass flow of water steam in mixed gas is According to the formulas of heat and mass transfer
model of MVPD system, simulation calculation procedure is
𝑃𝐷𝑉𝜇𝐷𝑉 programmed with MATLAB software. Based on actual pro-
𝑚3𝑉 = ⋅ 𝑄3𝑉 . (36)
𝑅𝑇𝐷 cess, the whole simulation time of heating stage and interme-
diate pressure lower stage is set as 66 hours, and time step is 1
The mass flow of solvent vapor in mixed gas is second. The structural and physical parameters of both trans-
former and MVPD equipment used in simulation calculation
𝑃𝐷𝑂𝜇𝐷𝑂
𝑚3𝑂 = ⋅ 𝑄3𝑂. (37) and the constant parameters in simulation process are listed
𝑅𝑇𝐷 in Table 4.
Table 4: Parameters used in simulation process.
The physical meaning of parameters Symbol Value Unit

Voltage class 𝑈 500 kV
Transformer capacity 𝐼 750 MVA
Flow of logistics 1 𝑚1𝑠 1.35 kg/s
Universal gas constant 𝑅 8.314 [J/(mol⋅K)]
Heating power 𝑝𝐵 200 kW
Pipe radius of logistics 2 𝑟2 125 mm
Pipe radius of logistics 3 𝑟3 75 mm
Pipe length of logistics 2 𝐿2 3000 mm
Pipe length of logistics 3 𝐿3 5000 mm
Gas volume of evaporator 𝑉𝐵 3.14 m3
Gas volume of transformer tank 𝑉𝐷 392.62 m3
Heat transfer area of evaporator 𝑆𝐵 4 m2
Heat transfer area of transformer tank 𝑆𝐷 15 m2
Specific heat capacity of solvent vapor 𝑐𝑂 2015 J/kg⋅K
Specific heat capacity of insulation materials 𝑐𝐷𝑗 1200 J/kg⋅K
Specific heat capacity of copper wire 𝑐𝐷𝑐 390 J/kg⋅K
Specific heat capacity of iron core 𝑐𝐷𝑖 460 J/kg⋅K
Specific heat capacity of tank 𝑐𝐷𝑏 470 J/kg⋅K
Mass of insulation materials 𝑀𝐷𝑗 22000 kg
Mass of copper wire 𝑀𝐷𝑐 30000 kg
Mass of iron core 𝑀𝐷𝑖 180000 kg
Mass of box 𝑀𝐷𝑏 100000 kg
Mass density of air 𝜌𝐷𝐴 0.946 (at 130 C) ∘ kg/m3
Mass density of solvent 𝜌𝐷𝑂 810 kg/m3
Mass density of water 𝜌𝐷𝑉 958.4 kg/m3
Molar mass of air 𝜇𝐷𝐴 29 g/mol
Molar mass of water steam 𝜇𝐷𝑣 18 g/mol
Molar mass of water 𝜇𝐷𝑊 18 g/mol
Molar mass of solvent vapor 𝜇𝐷𝑂 128 g/mol
Molar mass of solvent liquid 𝜇𝐷𝑆 128 g/mol
Solvent enthalpy in the evaporator ℎ𝐵𝑠 180000 J/kg
Solvent enthalpy in logistics 6 ℎ6𝑠 40000 J/kg
Solvent enthalpy in transformer tank ℎ𝐷𝑠 180000 J/kg
Viscosity coefficient of logistics 2 𝜂2 7.52 × 10 5 Pa⋅s
Viscosity coefficient of air 𝜂𝐷𝐴 1.79 × 10−5 Pa⋅s
Viscosity coefficient of solvent vapor 𝜂𝐷𝑂 7.52 × 10 5 Pa⋅s
Viscosity coefficient of water steam 𝜂𝐷𝑉 2.838 × 10 8 Pa⋅s
Heat transfer coefficient of water 𝜕𝐷𝑊 0.284 W/m2 ⋅Pa
Heat transfer coefficient of solvent 𝜕𝐵𝑆 0.5 W/m2 ⋅Pa
Maximum mass of condensed solvent in tank 𝐶𝐷𝑆 100 kg
Leakage pump pressure 𝑃𝐶 4500 (heating) Pa

2500 (IPL)
400
Start
380
Preparation stage 360
TD (K)
340
MBS = 2400 kg No 320

TB ≥ 90∘ C
300
Yes
280
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Heating stage Time (h)
Figure 5: Simulation curve of transformer body temperature.
No
dTD 12000
=0
d𝜏
Manifold cycles 10000
Yes
8000
PDT (Pa)
Middle depressurization stage
6000
4000
dMDL No 2000
=0
d𝜏
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Time (h)
Yes
High vacuum stage Figure 6: Simulation curve of pressure in the tank.
No
PD ≤ 10 Pa
Yes
In this simulation result, the simulation curve of total
water yield 𝑀𝐷𝐿 changing over time is shown in Figure 7.
Oiling stage During the actual drying process of 500 kV/750 MVA
transformer, the MVPD8.2 equipment can record the process
End parameters of different times by sensors. Summarizing the
data and program by VB, finally the actual process curve of
Figure 4: The flow chart of calculation program. MVPD can be got as shown in Figure 8. Figure 8 has shown,
respectively, the change law of key process parameters over
time such as temperature value, pressure value, and water
4.3. Simulation Results and Discussion. The simulation in this yield.
paper focuses on the variation of key process parameters By comparing the simulated curve and measured curve,
over time such as transformer body temperature, pressure in we can find that the simulation results are quite coincident
the tank, and water yield. The change curve of transformer with the measured values in the aspect of change trend
body temperature via time is shown in Figure 5. The change of key parameters. Both transformer body temperature and
curve of pressure in the tank via time is shown in Figure 6. pressure in the tank increase at heating stage and decrease at
Total water yield 𝑀𝐷𝐿 in the operation process via time is intermediate pressure lower stage. Besides, their range ability
the most intuitive index parameter reflecting transformer and change law are also very consistent.
drying effect. It should be equal to the difference between the Comparison results show that the mathematical model
initial moisture content 𝑀𝐷𝑊0 of insulation materials and the established and the calculation procedure programmed can
residual moisture content 𝑀𝐷𝑊. correctly reflect the heat and mass transfer law of MVPD
Namely, process and can predict quantitatively the change trend of key
physical parameters [17].
𝑀𝐷𝐿 = 𝑀𝐷𝑊0 − 𝑀𝐷𝑊. (41) The obvious difference between the simulation results and
the practical measured values is as follows. The simulation
The dehydration rate of insulation materials at a certain calculation shows that only 8 times heating stages and 7 times
time point is intermediate pressure lower stages are enough for the whole
drying process, while 11 times heating stages and 10 times
𝑑𝑀𝐷𝐿 intermediate pressure lower stages were used in the actual
= 𝑚𝐷𝑉 . (42)
𝑑𝜏 operation process. The reason for this difference is that
500 250
450
400 200
350
300
MDL (kg)
150
PB (kW)
250
200 100
150
100
50
50
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Time (h) Time (h)
Figure 7: Simulation curve of total water yield.
Figure 9: Curve of evaporator heat power via time in the drying
process.
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12-03-02
12-03-03
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200
180
5. Conclusion
160
140 On the basis of analyzing in detail the working principle,
120 system composition, and technological process of the MVPD
100 equipment, a simplified process model reflecting the rela-
80 tionship between internal operation units and processes is
60
extracted in this paper. According to the principle of mass
40
20 and energy conservation, a heat mass transfer mathematical
0 model including 40 mathematical equations is established.
09:26:40
23:56:40
14:29:00
05:03:02
19:29:35
09:56:28
00:23:22
14:53:06
05:26:52
21:02:28
11:26:49
01:51:13
This mathematical model represents completely thermo-

dynamics laws of phase change and migration process of
solvent, water, and air in technological process, describes in
Transformer body temperature Total water yield detail the quantitative relationship among important physical
Pressure in the tank quantities such as temperature, pressure, and flux in key
Figure 8: Actual craft process curve of MVPD 8.2. equipment units and processes logistics, and reflects the inter-
nal mechanism of heat and mass transfer and conversion.
According to this mathematical model and taking an
the end criterion conditions and the judgment of every actual drying technological process of a 500 kV/750 MVA
process transformation are different. In the practical oper- transformer as example, the simulation calculation of a
ation process, operators usually depend on their practical complete technological process treatment is finished by pro-
experience. gramming with MATLAB software. Simulation results give
In practical MVPD process, when the ascent rate of body the change law of key process parameters over time such
temperature is less than a setting value and the pressure in as transformer body temperature, pressure in the tank, and
the tank is greater than a setting value, heating stage will water yield. Comparing the simulation results and the actual
be stopped and intermediate pressure lower stage will be
record data, it is found that their change trend are very
started, so saving the process time. However, the end criterion
conditions of heating stage set in this program are that consistent with each other, which verifies the correctness of
the ascent rate of transformer body temperature is zero. mathematical model established.
Therefore, the times of process transformation in simulated In the future, based on the mathematical model, the influ-
calculation are less. ence of structure parameters and operation process para-
Based on the mathematical model established and the meters of the MVPD equipment on the whole drying process
simulation procedure programmed in this paper, by ana- and drying effect can be studied quantitatively. This math-
lyzing the simulation results, some reasonable and useful ematical model can be applied to provide theoretical basis
conclusions can be obtained. The optimal values of some for the drying technological process control and result pre-
process parameters can be speculated so that the optimization diction and can serve as a reference for relevant researchers
of structure and process parameters of MVPD can be done. in optimizing the equipment structure design and process
For example, the value of heating power 𝑃𝐵𝑂, which should operation.
make sure that evaporator 𝐵 can produce proper quantity of
solvent vapor, can be calculated by the flux of solvent vapor in
logistics 2, and the simulation result is shown in Figure 9. This Conflict of Interests
value may direct the power control of the heater in evaporator
𝐵 as a supplement of the negative feedback control used in The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests
practical MVPD equipment. regarding the publication of this paper.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by National Natural Sci-
ence Foundation of China (Grant nos. 31000665, 51176027,
31371873, and 31300408) and the Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities of China (Grant no.
N130403001).
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fer in the process of transformer vacuum vapor phase drying,”
Drying Technology and Equipment, vol. 4, no. 3, 2006 (Chinese).
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ical Industry Press, Beijing, China, 2004, (Chinese).
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disperse microstructure on rheology and quality aspects of ice
cream,” LWT—Food Science and Technology, vol. 37, no. 8, pp.
881–891, 2004.
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2007.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/794650
Research Article
Research on the Impact of Wind Angles on the Residential
Building Energy Consumption
Zou Huifen, Yang Fuhua, and Zhang Qian

School of Municipal and Environmental Engineering, Shenyang Jianzhu University, Shenyang 110168, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Zou Huifen; jerry zou@163.com
Received 15 May 2014; Accepted 14 July 2014; Published 27 August 2014
Copyright © 2014 Zou Huifen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
Wind angles affect building’s natural ventilation and also energy consumption of the building. In winter, the wind direction in
the outdoor environment will affect heat loss of the building, while in summer the change of wind direction and speed in the
outdoor environment will affect the building’s ventilation and indoor air circulation. So, making a good deal with the issue of the
angle between local buildings and the dominant wind direction can effectively solve the winter and summer ventilation problems.
Thereby, it can enhance the comfort of residential person, improve indoor air quality, solve heat gain and heat loss problems in
winter and summer in the severely cold and cold regions, and reduce building energy consumption. The simulation software CFD
and energy simulation software are used in the paper. South direction of the building is the prototype of the simulation. The angle
between the direction of the building and the outdoor environment wind is changed sequentially. Energy consumption under
different wind angle conditions is compared with each other. Combined with natural ventilation under various wind angles, the
paper gives the best recommended solution of building direction in Shenyang.
1. Introduction convection and evaporation cooling of the body, which is

conducive to physical and mental health of the human body
In recent years, with the rapid economic development and the [3]. Natural ventilation not only is an important passive
accelerated process of urbanization, the construction area of building energy-saving technology, but also represents a
urban housing is increasing. It is expected that, at the end healthy, natural lifestyle.
of 2020, China’s urban housing construction area will reach While wind angles affect buildings’ natural ventilation,
26.1 billion m2 [1]. While there is a vigorous development in they also affect energy consumption of the building. In winter,
residential construction, total building energy consumption the wind direction in the outdoor environment will affect
is also increasing year by year. In 1970s, 10% of the total heat loss of the building, while in summer the change of
energy consumption is the building energy consumption wind direction and speed in the outdoor environment will
while, in 2013, 27% to 30% of total energy consumption is the affect the building’s ventilation and indoor air circulation
building energy consumption [2]. The contradiction between [4]. So, making a good deal with the issue of the angle
the shortage of energy supply and the increasing energy between local buildings and the dominant wind direction can
consumption becomes to be a huge obstacle which constrains effectively solve the winter and summer ventilation problems.
the sustainable economic development. So, developing the Thereby, it can enhance the comfort of residential person,
use of energy-efficient buildings and improving the comfort improve indoor air quality, solve heat gain and heat loss
of the living environment are the principal thing to be solved. problems in winter and summer in the severely cold and
By using air energy of the nature, natural ventilation cold regions, and reduce building energy consumption [5].
generally cools the building, reduces the indoor temperature, The simulation software CFD and energy simulation software
adds fresh and clean natural air to the indoor area, and are used in the paper. South direction of the building is the
takes away the damp polluted air. Indoor air flow enhances prototype of the simulation. The angle between the direction
of the building and the outdoor environment wind is changed

sequentially. Energy consumption under different wind angle
conditions is compared with each other. Combined with
natural ventilation under various wind angles, the paper
gives the best recommended solution of building direction in
Shenyang.
2. The Principle of Natural Ventilation

As one of the oldest and the most energy-efficient ventila-
tion ways, the natural ventilation is the basic method for
enhancing the indoor thermal comfort, one of the main
methods for improving indoor air quality, and one of the
main measures to reduce buildings’ energy consumption
[6]. Natural ventilation generally refers to indoor air flow
generated by purposeful opening, which will improve the
indoor environment. This flow is directly affected by the
pressure of the outer surface of the building, the wind speed
distribution, different opening positions, and the opening
Figure 1: “Hole” ventilation under the hot action.
characteristics. Pressure on the surface of the building is
divided into wind pressure and hot pressing. Hot pressing
is mainly formed by the temperature difference between
indoors and outdoors. Wind pressure is mainly the effect of
the static pressure difference between indoors and outdoors,
which is caused by the role of the outdoor air working on the
external structure of the building [7].
2.1. Natural Ventilation under the Hot Action. When there

exists a heat source in the building, the indoor air is heated,
its density decreases, and the air floats upwards, which causes
higher air pressure of the upper portion in the building
construction than that of the outside. Thus, indoor air flows
through the opening to the outside, while continuous inflow
of air at the bottom of the building fills up the space let out
by upper outflow of air at the same time. The continuous
air flow forms the natural ventilation under the hot-pressing
action. According to the height difference between positions
and different orifices, hot ventilation can be divided into
“hole” ventilation (see Figure 1) and the “holes” ventilation
(see Figure 2) [8].
The formula of the hot action is
Figure 2: “Holes” ventilation under the hot action.
Δ𝑃 = 𝛼𝜌0 𝐻 (𝑇𝑖 − 𝑇𝑜 ) , (1)
where Δ𝑃 is the thermal pressure of openings on both sides,
Pa; 𝛼 is expansion coefficients of air, K−1 ; 𝜌0 is outdoor
air density, Kg/m3 ; 𝑔 is acceleration of gravity, m/s2 ; 𝐻 a certain distance. Due to the blocking of the building,
is opening vertical height, m; 𝑇𝑖 is the average indoor air the distribution of air pressure around the building will
temperature, K; and 𝑇𝑜 is the average outdoor air temperature, change. Because of the obstruction of the airflow, the reduced
K. dynamic pressure, and the increasing static pressure, a pos-
Thus, the role of natural ventilation under the hot effect itive pressure area will form in the windward side of the
depends on the vertical height of the opening of the building building. Because of local vortex and reduced static pressure,
and the temperature difference between the inside and the negative pressure area will form on the top and the back of
outside of the building. the building. Compared with undisturbed air flow far from
the building, the change of the static pressure on the surface
2.2. Natural Ventilation under the Wind Pressure. When the of a building is called pressure under the wind action [9].
outdoor air flows through the building, the phenomenon The wind pressure distribution around a building is
called “flowing around” will take place and air flow parallel related to the geometry of the building and the wind direction
motion can resume in the process of flowing around after and speed outdoors. When the wind direction is constant
− −
−
+ − + −
(a) (b)
−
+ −
+ −
+ −
(c) (d)
Figure 3: Pressure distributions under different roof heights. (a) Flat roof building (vertical section), (b) pitched roof construction with 30∘
slope, (c) pitched roof construction with 45∘ slope, and (d) building plans.
outdoors, the value of a pressure point of building envelope variation can be described by exponential function, and its
structure can be expressed as follows [10]: expression is shown as follows:
𝐻 𝛼
V𝑜 = V10 ( ) , (3)
𝜌𝑜 V𝑜2 10
𝑃=𝐾 , (2)
2
where V𝑜 is outdoor air velocity at the height of H, m/s; V10 is
outdoor wind speed at the standard height (10 m), m/s; 𝐻 is
where 𝑃 is the value of a pressure point on the building height of any point, m; 𝛼 is roughness coefficient of surface, in
envelope structure, Pa; 𝐾 is aerodynamic coefficient; V𝑜 is a built-up city center 𝛼 = 0.20, in offshore island and desert
outdoor air flow rate, m/s; 𝜌𝑜 is outdoor air flow rate, kg/m3 . 𝛼 = 0.12, and in rural and suburban 𝛼 = 0.16.
The aerodynamic coefficient K of different shapes of
buildings is different at different wind directions. When the 2.3. Natural Ventilation under the Action of Wind Pressure and
K value is positive, the wind pressure value of the point is Heat Pressure. In most cases, building natural ventilation is
positive, and when the K value is negative, the wind pressure not caused by a factor, but by the factors of wind pressure
value of the point is negative. Under the action of wind and heat pressure together. Their functions are varying and
pressure, the wind enters from the positive pressure side and their contributions to the whole building’s natural ventilation
gets out from the negative pressure side. Figure 3 represents are different. When the building is bearing heat and wind
the wind pressure distributions under different roof heights pressure at the same time, the internal and external pressure
[11]. In any case, the wind pressure is negative near the surface difference of each window hole is equal to the sum of
of flat roofs and irrelevant to the wind direction, and its the pressure difference of inside and outside window hole
variation is very small. When the pitched roof ’s slope is small, when the building bears the heat pressure and the wind
both the front and the back have negative pressure while, with pressure independently [12]. Effect of wind pressure and heat
the increase of slope, the front roof has positive pressure, and pressure on the natural ventilation in architecture is often
the back roof has negative pressure. inseparable, and the heat pressure of building is relatively
In the surface layer, outdoor wind speed of v has larger stable and easy to implement, but the action of the wind
variation with height; the average wind speed with the height is unstable and is often affected by the building’s shape, the
(2) Simulation of the Flow Field Equations. In fluid mechanics,

3000 4500 2400
fluid flow follows three basic laws of conservation of mass,
conservation of momentum, and conservation of energy.
Balcony By the laws of conservation of these, the continuity equa-
tion, momentum, and energy equations can be obtained in
mathematical research. These equations are expressed as a
differential form of the continuity equation [15, 16], also
4200
Master Living room
4200
Study
bedroom known as mass conservation equations, whose differential
expression is
13800
A
𝜕𝜌 𝜕
+ (𝜌𝑢𝑖 ) = 0,
2400
(4)
2400
13800
Lobby
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥𝑖
1500
where 𝜌 is expressed as the density of the fluid and 𝜇𝑖 is
expressed as the fluid component along the i direction.
4500
Bedroom Restaurant Momentum equation is

Kitchen 3000
𝜕 (𝜌𝑢𝑖 ) 𝜕 (𝜌𝑢𝑖 𝑢𝑗 )
+
1200
1200
Balcony 𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥𝑗
3000 3300 2100 1500 𝜕𝑝 𝜕 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑢𝑗
9 =− + [𝜂 ( 𝑖 + )] + 𝜌𝛽 (𝑇0 − 𝑇) 𝑔𝑖 .
𝜕𝑥𝑖 𝜕𝑥𝑗 𝜕𝑥𝑗 𝜕𝑥𝑖
(5)
Figure 4: Apartment A.
Energy equation is
surrounding environment, and the impact of factors such as 𝜕 (𝜌𝑇) 𝜕 (𝜌𝑢𝑗 𝑇) 𝜕 𝜂 𝜂 𝜕𝑇

wind direction and wind speed. So, the joint effect of heat and + = [( + ) ] + 𝑆𝑇 , (6)
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥𝑗 𝜕𝑥𝑗 Pr 𝜎𝑘 𝜕𝑥𝑗
wind pressure is more complex. And, so far, the principle of
natural ventilation under the action of heat pressure and wind
pressure is still under exploration. where 𝑆𝑇 is expressed as the volume of chemical reaction heat
or other heat sources.
Unifying the above formula, it can be expressed as
3. Create and Simulate Working Conditions of
the Model 𝜕
(𝜌𝜑) + div (𝜌𝑢𝜑) = div (Γ grad 𝜑) + 𝑆, (7)
3.1. Model Building. This section will measure data as a 𝜕𝑡
boundary condition, the mathematical model to build indoor
heating, and the use of CFD software for the indoor thermal where 𝜑 is expressed as universal variables, which represents
environment and indoor air quality housing to simulate and 𝜇, V, 𝜔, 𝑇 and other variables. Γ represents the diffusion
analyze the effects of natural ventilation. coefficient. 𝑆 represents the source term. Where Γ and 𝑆 are
specific for the corresponding. In the general formula, the
above four items represent time, convection term, diffusion,
3.1.1. Mathematical Model and source terms.
(1) Mathematical Model Building. Mathematical model of (3) Select Turbulence Model. After the study of turbulence
the problem is the mathematical description of the study. by people for more than a century, now it has a variety of
According to thermal models, indoor gas meets the equation turbulence models, such as Reynolds stress model (RSM),
of the ideal gas state. Secondly, the pressure is usually treated algebraic stress model (ASM), and sticky coefficient model
as a constant flow of indoor air. Further, the common flow (EVM). Based on solving differential turbulent viscosity
of indoor air flowing is substantially vulgar, with flow often coefficient equations, EVM is divided into zero-equation
at 10∼20 m/s or less, and, therefore, the indoor air can be model, one-equation model, and two equation model. Their
treated as incompressible fluid [13]. Finally, the indoor air calculations have small amount and they are very suitable for
viscosity cannot be neglected; we must use the theory to study engineering applications where 𝑘-𝜀 model is most commonly
the dynamics of a viscous fluid. Further, the indoor air flow used [17].
is usually a turbulent flow, with the corresponding need to 𝑘-𝜀 model is a semiempirical formula model; it is assumed
simulate turbulence theory [14]. to be a fully developed turbulent flow, and viscosity derived
N
E
Figure 5: Residential building model diagram.
Normal
2.00
1.75
Entrance wind 1.50
1.25
Speed (m/s)
1.00
𝛼 Building surface 0.75
0.50
0.25
0.00
Figure 6: Wind angle.
molecules can be ignored. K equation and 𝜀 equations are as

follows:
𝜕 (𝜌𝑘) 𝜕 (𝜌𝑢𝑗 𝑘) 𝜕 𝜂 𝜕𝑘
+ = ( − ) + 𝐺𝑘 + 𝐺𝑏 − 𝜌𝜀,
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥𝑗 𝜕𝑥𝑗 𝜎𝑘 𝜕𝑥𝑖
𝜕 (𝜌𝜀) 𝜕 (𝜌𝑢𝑗 𝜀)
+
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥𝑗
𝜕 𝜂 𝜕𝜀 𝜀
= ( − ) + + (𝑐1 𝐺𝑘 + 𝑐3 𝐺𝑏 − 𝑐2 𝜌𝜀) ,
𝜕𝑥𝑗 𝜎𝜀 𝜕𝑥𝑖 𝑘
(8) Figure 7: The wind speed distribution of the wind angle 𝛼 = 75∘ .
2
2.00 2.00
11.75 1.75
Speed (m/s)
11.50 1.50
Speed (m/s)
11.25 1.25
11.00 1.00
00.75 0.75
00.50 0.50
00.25 0.25
00.00 0.00
Figure 8: The wind speed distribution of the wind angle 𝛼 = 60∘ . Figure 9: The wind speed distribution of the wind angle 𝛼 = 45∘ .
where, 𝑐1 , 𝑐2 are the empirical constants and they are 1.44, (b) The preferred shape of the grid cell is a regular
1.92, respectively. 𝐾 is the turbulent dynamic coefficient. 𝜀 is hexahedron or tetrahedron.
the turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate, the relationship
(c) A coarse mesh should be used in the place where
between them is
temperature gradient and velocity gradient are small.
𝑘3/2 However, mesh refinement should be used in the
𝜀 = 𝐶𝐷 . (9) place where temperature gradient and velocity gradi-
𝑙
ent are very big.
Laminar turbulent kinetic energy is generated by the
velocity gradient; the expression is 3.1.2. Physical Model. In this paper, the simulation object
is located in a residential district in Shenyang city, and it
𝜕𝑢𝑖 𝜕𝑢𝑗 𝜕𝑢𝑖 is seven layers of ordinary residence; its total construction
𝐺𝑘 = 𝜇𝑡 ( + ) . (10)
𝜕𝑥𝑗 𝜕𝑥𝑖 𝜕𝑥𝑗 area is 1669.18 m2 . Every floor has two households, and the
height of each household is 3 m. The function layout of every
𝐺𝑏 of buoyancy turbulent kinetic energy is generated; the room is the same with an apartment layout (see Figure 4). In
expression is the simulations, we headed for the building of the south as
the prototype of simulation, and the model simplified in the
𝜇𝑡 𝜕𝑇 premise of indoor thermal characteristics is not missing, as
𝐺𝑏 = 𝛽𝑔𝑖 ; (11)
𝜎𝑇 𝜕𝑥𝑖 shown in Figure 5.
for turbulent sticky factor, the expression is
3.2. The Setting of the Simulation Conditions. This paper
2 has studied the impact of the wind angle (see Figure 6) on
𝑐𝜇 𝜌𝑘
𝜇𝑡 = . (12) buildings’ energy consumption. Wind angle 𝛼 is the angle
𝜀 between the normal outdoor environment wind and the
(4) Meshing. CFD meshing software usually follows the normal direction of inlet plane (building surface). When the
following principles. flow is perpendicular to the surface of the building, 𝛼 is 0∘ ,
and when the flow is parallel to the surface of buildings, 𝛼 is
(a) A grid cell to another grid cell expansion coefficient 90∘ . As provisions, the clockwise direction is positive and the
ratio is generally maintained between 2 and 5; the counterclockwise direction is negative. The angles are shown
critical areas should be smaller. in Figure 6.
2.00 2.00
1.75 1.75
1.50 1.50
Speed (m/s)
Speed (m/s)
1.25 1.25
1.00 1.00
0.75 0.75
0.50 0.50
0.25 0.25
0.00 0.00
Figure 10: The wind speed distribution of the wind angle 𝛼 = 30∘ . Figure 12: The wind speed distribution of the wind angle 𝛼 = 0∘ .
2.00 wind direction angle which, respectively, includes 0∘ , 15∘ , 30∘ ,

1.75 45∘ , 60∘ , and 75∘ .
1.50
Speed (m/s)
1.25 (1) The Settings of the Indoor Disturbance. In the numerical

1.00 simulation of the residential indoor thermal environment,
0.75 the indoor heat productivity is usually replaced by three
0.50 heat resources, the human body, equipment, and lighting
0.25 [18]. The form of the three heat sources affecting the indoor
0.00 environment is not the same. The moisture gain process
is usually accompanied with the release of the latent heat,
directly affecting the indoor air and improving the enthalpy
of the indoor air.
The released sensible heat of the human body, equipment,
and lighting, on one hand, can be transmitted to the sur-
rounding air in the form of convection. On the other hand,
the heat can be transmitted to the indoor objects in the form
of radiation and then the heat is transmitted from the object
surface to the surrounding air by convection heat [19]. As all
the residential building functions are basically the same and
the indoor heat productivity is comparatively stable during
the research process, the representative data of the heat inside
the residential buildings can be obtained through the method
of investigation.
Figure 11: The wind speed distribution of the wind angle 𝛼 = 15∘ . Combining the building structure, the building layout,
room function, family structure, and the number of people, a
Tsinghua professor Yiwen [20] summarized four residential
patterns, as shown in Table 1. After statistically analyzing
During the simulation, the released heat of the indoor the indoor heat survey data under four residential patterns,
human body, lighting and equipment, and uptime of the air we can get hourly variety of the human body, lighting, and
conditioner has been a unified set. In order to obtain compa- equipment under different modes.
rable data in the simulation, we have chosen buildings mainly The third residential mode is used in this paper. Father,
facing south. The change factor in the simulation model is the mother, and child are in the family. There are no more than 2
Table 1: The residential construction and personnel structures under different modes.
Mode 1 Mode 2 Mode 3 Mode 4

Residential patterns
Two rooms one hall Two rooms one hall Pager Pager
Double bedroom Double bedroom (PC) Double bedroom Double bedroom (PC)
Study (PC) Single bedroom Single bedroom Double bedroom
Living room, dining Living room, dining Study (PC) Single bedroom
Rooms feature
Kitchen Kitchen Living room, dining Living room, dining
Toilet Toilet Kitchen Kitchen
— — Toilet Toilet
Family structure Couples Parents and children Parents and children Spouses, parents, and children
Number of people 2 3 3 5
184.571
568.068
161.500
497.060 Mean age of air (s)
Mean age of air (s)

138.428
426.051
355.043 115.357
284.034 92.2855
213.025 69.2141
142.017 46.1427
71.0085 23.0714
0.00000 0.00000
Figure 14: The distribution of average air age of the wind angle 𝛼 =
Figure 13: The distribution of average air age of the wind angle 𝛼 = 60∘ .
75∘ .
Table 2: Time table of indoor people, lighting, and devices in cold

regions.
people in the master bedroom, no more than 1 person in the Room Bedroom Living room Kitchen
second bedroom, and no more than 3 people in the living 7:00∼8:00
Lighting 22:00∼23:00 19:00∼22:00
room. The calorific value for one person in the room is 53 W. 18:00∼19:00
The largest calorific value of lighting, devices in living room, 7:00∼8:00
Devices All day is 0 19:00∼23:00
and devices in kitchen is 5 W/m2 , 9.3 W/m2 , and 48.2 W/m2 , 18:00∼19:00
respectively [21]. Changes of parameters are in Table 2. 7:00∼8:00
People 22:00∼7:00 19:00∼22:00
18:00∼19:00
(2) Air Condition Parameters Settings. Air conditioners and
heating devices would affect the indoor thermal environment
conditions. When room temperature is higher (higher than conditioners when the temperature is higher than the toler-
body’s tolerable temperature), people would turn on air able temperature rather than the desired temperature. It is
conditioners to adjust the room temperature and humidity found in the investigation that requirement of the thermal
in summer. In other words, people would turn on air comfort cannot be satisfied by natural ventilation when room
136.48 124.97
119.42 109.35
Mean age of air (s)

93.728
Mean age of air (s)

102.36
85.304 78.106
68.243 62.485
51.182 46.864
34.121 31.243
17.060 15.621
0.0000 0.0000
Figure 15: The distribution of average air age of the wind angle 𝛼 = 15∘ .
45∘ .
temperature is 16∘ C∼28∘ C [20]. Mechanical ventilation as

an auxiliary is needed. So, the controlling temperature of
indoor air conditioners is 26∘ C. Refrigeration is used in
July and August. The tolerant temperature ceiling is 28∘ C
(to determine whether to turn on air conditioners or not).
127.95
Heating is used from December 1 to March 31. The controlling
111.95
temperature of indoor heating is 18∘ C. The ventilators’ rate is
set from 0.5 times/h to 5 times/h.
Mean age of air (s)
95.960
79.967
63.974 4. Analysis of Effects of Natural Ventilation
47.980
under Different Wind Angles
31.987
15.993 Laws of wind angles affecting natural ventilation are derived
0.0000 through the analysis of the effects of natural ventilation under
different wind angles. And they would provide guidance on
design of residential building orientation.
In the process of natural ventilation, the wind direction
of outdoor environment will change complicatedly. To make
better use of natural ventilation, when designing residential
buildings, the paper keeps an appropriate wind direction
angle of incidence between the local dominant wind direction
in summer and the residential building. The dominant wind
direction in summer in Shenyang is southwest. But the
orientation of conventional residential design is almost south
or north. South orientation is used as the standard in the
process of simulation. The variable factor of the simulation
is wind angle which would be 75∘ , 60∘ , 45∘ , 30∘ , 15∘ , and 0∘ .
The influence of wind speed at human height and air age
Figure 16: The distribution of average air age of the wind angle 𝛼 = distribution on human body is considered in the analysis of
30∘ . indoor ventilation’s effects. So, velocity field at 1.1 m height
The distribution of indoor velocity field under different

102.03 wind angles shows that (a) when the outdoor air flows into
89.272 the interior space, large or small vortex will form. Under the
action of vortex, outdoor fresh air enters into the room, while
Mean age of air (s)

76.519
63.766 the polluted air is exhausted to the outside along with the
51.013 air flow; (b) air enters into the interior through the opening
38.259 at the building’s windward side and flows out of the window
25.506 opening of the leeward side. Air flow is affected by diversion
12.753 of the walls in the process of the interior flow. The direction
0.0000 of part of the air flow will change. The air flow rate is higher
on the main path in the air circulation; (c) wind angle varies
from 75∘ to 60∘ and then changes to a 45∘ angle. Change in
the magnitude of the angle of each interval is not much, but
the distribution of the indoor velocity field has changed a
lot. With the decrease of the wind angle, indoor whirlpool
forms clearly and spreads to most of the interior space. It is
indicated from the phenomenon that, in the case of larger
wind angle, small change in the angle will cause larger effects
on distribution of the indoor flow field; (d) when the wind
angle varies from 0∘ to 30∘ , indoor cross-ventilation can form
obviously. Wind speed is larger in the rooms and there is no
wide range of ventilation blind spot. When the wind angle is
greater than 45∘ , indoor wind speed will decline rapidly. The
range of indoor ventilation blind spot will increase gradually.
0∘ . It is disadvantageous to eliminate polluted indoor air by use
of ventilation and the indoor ventilated effect is poorer.
600 (2) The Distribution of Age of Indoor Air under Different Wind
Average age of indoor air (s)
500 Angles. Figures 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 show the distribution
of the average age of indoor air at 1.1 m height (an average
400
sitting person’s nose height from the ground) in the cases of
300 different wind angles. Color in the picture transfers from the
200 cool tone to the warm tone. The color represents the average
100
age of indoor air. The cool tone means that the age value of
air is small. That means it needs a shorter time to complete
0
75∘ 60 45 30 15 0 the replacement under the condition of natural ventilation
Wind direction angle (∘ ) and fresh air is better; on the contrary, the warm tone means
that the age value of air is large, and it needs a longer time
Maximum value to complete the replacement under the condition of natural
Minimum value ventilation and the fresh air is poorer.
Average age
The distributions of indoor average air age of different
Figure 19: The contrast figures of average age of indoor air under wind angles are shown in Figures 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18,
different working conditions. they show that (a) in the case of larger wind angle, the value
of indoor average air is generally higher. With the decrease
of the wind angle, the average age of indoor air in the same
area will significantly reduce and the degree of fresh air will
[22] (an average sitting person’s nose height from the ground)
increase, which improves the indoor air quality. (b) Because
and average air age field are chosen to be objects of study.
there is no outside window in the small indoor toilet, effective
(1) Wind Velocity Distribution under Different Wind Angles. air convection cannot form. Almost no wind flows into the
When outdoor air enters building through the opening in room and the airflow velocity is small. Thus, the average age
the surface, a velocity field will form in the interior. In of air is relatively bigger here than that in the other rooms.
the case of the same speed and direction of the outdoor The fresh air is bad, so we need to use auxiliary ventilation
wind and different outdoor wind angles, indoor velocity through the mechanical approach in this region. (c) Under
distribution differs. Figures 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 show airflow the predominant wind direction in summer, the ventilation
velocity distribution contours of 75∘ , 60∘ , 45∘ , 30∘ , 15∘ , and 0∘ blind spot will form in the master bedroom and in some
wind angles at 1.1 m height (an average sitting person’s nose areas of the residential study room. With greater wind angles
height from the ground). (except 0∘ ), the range of ventilation blind spot will be larger.
Electricity consumption (kW h) Gas consumption (Btu)

(×000) (×000, 000)
250
4
200
3
150
2
100
1
50
0 0
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jun. Jul. Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jun. Jul. Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec.
Area lighting Exterior usage Water heating Refrigeration

Task lighting Pumps and Aux. Ht pump supp. Heat rejection
Misc. equipment Ventilation fans Space heating Space cooling
Figure 20: The residential energy consumption distribution when the wind angle is 0∘ .

(×000, 000)
(×000)
4 250
200
3
150
2
100
1
50
0 0

Figure 21: The consumption distribution of the residential energy when the wind angle is 15∘ .
By the comparison analysis of average age of indoor air wind speed and the distributions of the air age in the case
under the different wind angles in Figure 19, it can be seen of different wind angles, it can be concluded that the indoor
that wind angle gets greater; the average age of indoor air will ventilation effect is better when the wind angle varies from 0∘
be bigger. When wind angle is 0∘ , the average age of indoor air to 45∘ .
will be the minimum and the fresh air will be the best. When
the range of wind angle varies from 15∘ to 45∘ , the change of
the average age of indoor air will not be much. It is basically 5. Residential Building Energy Simulation
stable within the range and the indoor air quality is relatively Analysis Performed under Different Wind
good.
Angles throughout the Year
In residential space, people mainly focus on the indoor
environment of the bedroom, study, and living room (people According to the predefined lifestyle and air conditioning
stay there for a long time). People (male or female) mainly operation mode, we use EQUEST software to
stay in these residential rooms, so whether indoor environ- perform residential building energy simulation
ment in these rooms is good or bad is directly related to analysis under different wind angles throughout the
the indoor personnel health. When we consider the indoor year. Figures 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25 show the annual

(×000, 000)
(×000)
250
4
200
3
150
2
100
1
50
0 0

Gas consumption (Btu)

Electricity consumption (kW h) (×000, 000)
(×000) 250
4
200
3
150
2
100
1
50
0 0

energy consumption values of the residence under different of each month, they show that (1) consumption in winter
conditions. During the period of residence in the running, and summer is higher than that in transition seasons, and
energy is supplied by electricity and gas. In order to facilitate energy consumption in the hottest month of July and the
uniform comparison, the results are converted into a coldest month of January is higher than that in other months
unified dimension KJ; the specific conversion method is within the same seasons, respectively. (2) In individual energy
1 KWh = 3600 KJ, 1 Btu = 1.06 KJ. consumption, power consumption of devices and energy
Figure 20 shows the residential energy consumption consumption of residential interior lighting are almost the
distribution when the wind angle is 0∘ . Obviously, com- same each month. (3) In the process of annual energy con-
prehensive energy consumption of the residence includes sumption simulation, the energy consumption of residential
the energy consumption of lighting, household appliances, heating mainly occurs during the period from December
air conditioning, and heating. When the wind angle is 0∘ , to February and rarely in November and March. During
residential power consumption throughout the whole year is the period from November to January, it increases with the
27000 KWh (i.e., 97.2 GJ); the gas consumption for heating is decrease of outdoor temperature. During the period from
5.19 × 108 Btu (i.e., 571 GJ). Comparing energy consumption February to March, it reduces along with the rise of outdoor

(×000, 000)
(×000) 250
4
200
3
150
2
100
1
50
0 0

temperature. The energy consumption of air conditioning of residential rooms reduces. In summer, the architectural
mainly occurs in July and August and rises with the decrease sunshine area is small when the building is facing south or
of outdoor temperature. near south. So, the solar radiant heat is relatively low. As a
The accumulation of electricity consumption and the gas result, the yearly comprehensive energy consumption of the
consumption under different angles will be drawn into the building is less when the building is facing south or near
chart months, as shown from Figures 26 to 28. south.
Figures 26 and 27 show the comparison of the residential
energy consumption of each month under different wind 6. Conclusion
angles. The changes in building orientation mainly affect
building heating and energy consumption of air conditioning (1) This paper analyzes the influence of wind direction
and have almost no effect on energy consumption in tran- angle for residential indoor natural ventilation on the
sition seasons. Because the building orientation affects both typical model of a residential district in Shenyang
the solar radiation’s heat gain and the infiltration’s heat loss, through CFD numerical simulation. According to
the heat gained from solar radiation in summer will increase the study of indoor air velocity and air age distri-
the cooling energy consumption of air conditioning, but in bution on different wind direction angles, when the
winter it will reduce the energy consumption of heating. wind direction angle ranges from 0∘ to 45∘ , cross-
Figure 28 shows the effect of the wind direction angle on ventilation will be formed. The wind velocity is large
comprehensive energy consumption of buildings throughout in the room, so the room does not have a wide area
the year. It can be seen that when the building rotates in the of ventilation dead corner basically and the average
positive direction, the comprehensive energy consumption of value of indoor air age is short, which means better
the building throughout the year presents a parabolic trend. freshness of the air. When the wind direction angle
When the wind direction angle is 15∘ , the comprehensive is larger than 45∘ , indoor wind velocity drops rapidly.
energy consumption of building is the minimum, 652.3 GJ. The ventilation dead corner increases gradually; this
As the wind direction angle increases gradually, the yearly is not beneficial for eliminating indoor polluted air
comprehensive energy consumption of the building increases by natural ventilation. Therefore, when the wind
gradually. This shows that the appropriate orientation of direction angle is from 0∘ to 45∘ , the effect of the
building should be south or 15∘ south by west. Being affected indoor natural ventilation is better.
by the changing rule of the solar altitude angle and the (2) This paper has studied the energy consumption of
azimuth angle, the building facing south or near south can the residence with different wind direction angles
make full use of solar energy, and the solar radiant heat is through EQUEST software. The conclusions are as
large, so the heating energy consumption can be reduced follows.
accordingly. While the dominant wind direction of Shenyang (a) In the simulation process of yearly energy
is north or northeast, the building facing south or near south consumption, the energy consumption of res-
can avoid the dominant wind direction in winter and reduce idential heating in Shenyang is mainly con-
the amount of cold air penetrating. As a result, the heat loss centrated from December to February, rarely

(×000) (×000, 000)
4 250
200
3
150
2
100
1
50
0 0

Electricity consumption (kW h) 900

(×000) energy consumption (GJ)
4
Comprehensive
800
3
700
2
1 600
0 500
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jun. Jul. Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec. 0 15 30 45 60 75
Wind direction angle (∘ )
𝛼 = 0∘ 𝛼 = 45∘
𝛼 = 15∘ 𝛼 = 60∘ Figure 28: The comprehensive energy consumption of residence
𝛼 = 30∘ 𝛼 = 75∘ each year under different wind angles.
Figure 26: The comparison of the residential power consumption

of each month under different wind angles.
in November and March; during the period

from November to January, the energy con-
Gas consumption (Btu) sumption increases with the decreasing outdoor
(×000, 000)
250 temperature. The energy consumption of air
conditioning is mainly concentrated in July and
200 August and rises as the outdoor temperature
decreases.
150
100 (b) Changes in the building orientation mainly

influence residential heating and energy con-
50
sumption of air conditioning and have almost
0 no effect on the energy consumption of transi-
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jun. Jul. Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec. tion season.
𝛼 = 0∘ 𝛼 = 45∘
(c) When the wind direction angle of buildings
𝛼 = 15∘ 𝛼 = 60∘
𝛼 = 30∘ 𝛼 = 75∘
is from 0∘ to 45∘ , the comprehensive energy
consumption of buildings is relatively stable,
Figure 27: The comparison of the residential gas consumption of which is a relatively favorable building orien-
each month under different wind angles. tation. Among all the angles, when the wind
direction angle is 15∘ , the comprehensive energy [14] W. Yin, Potential estimation and energy efficient evaluation of
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Natural Ventilation of Residential Building, Tianjin University,
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“Study on the regulation strategies of heat and humidity 104–108, 2008.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/914725
Research Article
Local Fractional Laplace Variational Iteration Method for
Nonhomogeneous Heat Equations Arising in Fractal Heat Flow
Shu Xu,1,2 Xiang Ling,1 Carlo Cattani,3 Gong-Nan Xie,4 Xiao-Jun Yang,5 and Yang Zhao6
1
School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, Nanjing University of Technology, Nanjing 210009, China
2
School of Mechanical Engineering, Huaihai Institute of Technology, Lianyungang 222005, China
3
Department of Mathematics, University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II, Fisciano, 84084 Salerno, Italy
4
School of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710072, China
5
Department of Mathematics and Mechanics, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, Jiangsu 221008, China
6
Electronic and Information Technology Department, Jiangmen Polytechnic, Jiangmen 529090, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Yang Zhao; zhaoyang19781023@gmail.com
Received 29 May 2014; Accepted 1 July 2014; Published 7 August 2014
Copyright © 2014 Shu Xu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
The local fractional Laplace variational iteration method is used for solving the nonhomogeneous heat equations arising in the
fractal heat flow. The approximate solutions are nondifferentiable functions and their plots are also given to show the accuracy and
efficiency to implement the previous method.
1. Introduction heat equation with nonlocal conditions [18]. Atangana and

Kılıçman suggested the Sumudu transform solving certain
Fractional calculus [1–4] was used to deal with the heat con- nonlinear fractional heat-like equations [19].
duction equation in fractal media. Fractional heat conduction Recently, the local fractional calculus [20–22] was used
equation was studied by many researchers [5–17]. For exam- to deal with the discontinuous problem for heat transfer
ple, Povstenko considered the thermoelasticity based on the in fractal media [23–25]. The nonhomogeneous heat equa-
fractional heat conduction equation [7]. Youssef suggested tions arising in fractal heat flow were considered by using the
the generalized theory of fractional-order thermoelasticity local fractional Fourier series method [26]. The local frac-
[8]. Ezzat and El-Karamany presented the fractional-order tional heat conduction equation was investigated by the local
conduction in thermoelastic medium [9]. Ezzat proposed
fractional variation iteration method [27]. The nondifferen-
the fractional-order heat transfer in thermoelectric fluid
tiable solution of one-dimensional heat equations arising in
[10]. Sherief et al. reported the fractional-order generalized
fractal transient conduction was found by the local frac-
thermoelasticity with one relaxation time [11]. Vázquez et
al. used the second law of thermodynamics to fractional tional Adomian decomposition method [28]. Local fractional
heat conduction equation [12]. Hristov considered the inverse Laplace variational iteration method [29, 30] was considered
Stefan problem and nonlinear heat conduction with Jeffrey’s to deal with linear partial differential equations. In this paper,
fading memory by using the heat balance integral method our aim is to investigate the nonhomogeneous heat equations
[13, 14]. Davey and Prosser gave the solutions of the heat arising in heat flow with local fractional derivative. The paper
transfer on fractal and prefractal domains [15]. Ostoja- is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the nonhomo-
Starzewski investigated thermoelasticity of fractal media geneous heat equations arising in heat flow with local frac-
[16]. Qi and Jiang discussed space-time fractional Catta- tional derivative. In Section 3, local fractional Laplace vari-
neo diffusion equation [17]. Bhrawy and Alghamdi applied ational iteration method is presented. In Section 4, the non-
the Legendre tau-spectral method to find time fractional differentiable solutions for nonhomogeneous heat equations
arising in heat flow with local fractional derivative are inves- such that
tigated. Finally, conclusions are shown in Section 5.
∭ {𝑐𝛼 𝜌𝛼 𝑢𝑡(𝛼) (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧, 𝑡) − ∇𝛼
2. The Nonhomogeneous Heat
Equations Arising in Heat Flow with ⋅ [𝑘2𝛼 ∇𝛼 𝑢 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧, 𝑡)] (8)
Local Fractional Derivatives
−𝑔 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧, 𝑡) } 𝑑Ω(𝛾) = 0,
In this section we present the one-dimensional nonhomoge-
neous heat equations arising in heat flow with local fractional which leads to the nonhomogeneous local fractional heat
derivatives. equations [23]:
Let the local fractional volume integral of the function u
be defined as [19] 𝑐𝛼 𝜌𝛼 𝑢𝑡(𝛼) (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧, 𝑡) − ∇𝛼 ⋅ [𝑘2𝛼 ∇𝛼 𝑢 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧, 𝑡)]
𝑁 (9)
∭u (𝑟𝑃 ) 𝑑Ω (𝛾)
=
(𝛾)
lim ∑ u (𝑟𝑃 ) ΔΩ𝑃 , (1) = 𝑔 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧, 𝑡) .
𝑁→∞
𝑃=1
From (9) we obtain the nonhomogeneous heat equations in
(𝛾)
where the elements of the volume ΔΩ𝑃 → 0 as 𝑁 → the dimensionless case:
∞ and the fractal dimension of the volume 𝛾. The equality
𝑢 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧, 𝑡) is the temperature at the point (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧) ∈ Ω, time 𝜙𝑡(𝛼) (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧, 𝑡) − ∇2𝛼 𝜙 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧, 𝑡) = 𝜑 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧, 𝑡) . (10)
𝑡 ∈ 𝑇, and the total amount of heat 𝐻 (𝑡) is described as
The two-dimensional case is [23]
𝐻 (𝑡) = ∭𝑐𝛼 𝜌𝛼 𝑢 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧, 𝑡) 𝑑Ω(𝛾) , (2)
𝜙𝑡(𝛼) (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑡) − ∇2𝛼 𝜙 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑡) = 𝜑 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑡) , (11)
where 𝑐𝛼 is the special heat of the fractal material and 𝜌𝛼 is the
density of the fractal material. and the one-dimensional case is [26]
The local fractional surface integral is defined as [19, 22]
𝜙𝑡(𝛼) (𝑥, 𝑡) − 𝜙𝑥(2𝛼) (𝑥, 𝑡) = 𝜑 (𝑥, 𝑡) . (12)
𝑁
(𝛽)
∬ u (𝑟𝑃 ) ⋅ 𝑑S(𝛽) = lim ∑ u (𝑟𝑃 ) ⋅ n𝑃 Δ𝑆𝑃 , (3)
𝑁→∞ 3. Local Fractional Laplace Variational
𝑃=1
where 𝑁 are elements of area with a unit normal local Iteration Method
(𝛽)
fractional vector n𝑃 , Δ𝑆𝑃 → 0 as 𝑁 → ∞ for 𝛾 = (3/2) 𝛽 = In this section, we give the idea of local fractional Laplace
3𝛼. variational method [29, 30] in order to investigate the one-
From (3) the local fractional Fourier law of the material dimensional nonhomogeneous heat equations arising in frac-
in fractal media [19, 23] was suggested as follows: tal heat flow.
𝑑𝛼 We present the following local fractional differential
𝐻 (𝑡) = ∯ 𝑘2𝛼 ∇𝛼 𝑢 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧, 𝑡) ⋅ 𝑑S(𝛽) , (4) operator as follows:
𝑑𝑡𝛼 𝜕Ω(𝛽)
where 𝑑S(𝛽) is the fractal surface measure over Ω(𝛾) and 𝑘2𝛼 is 𝐿 𝛼 𝑢 − 𝑅𝛼 𝑢 = 0, (13)
the thermal conductivity of the fractal material.
In view of (4), the change in heat reads as follows [19, 23]: where the linear local fractional differential operator denotes
𝐿 𝛼 = 𝑑2𝛼 /𝑑𝑥2𝛼 and 𝑢 (𝑥) is a nondifferential function.
𝑑𝛼
𝐻 (𝑡) = ∭𝑐𝛼 𝜌𝛼 𝑢𝑡(𝛼) (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧, 𝑡) 𝑑Ω(𝛾) , (5) We can write the local fractional functional formula as
𝑑𝑡𝛼
𝑢𝑛+1 (𝑥) = 𝑢𝑛 (𝑥)
where 𝜕Ω(𝛽) is the boundary of Ω(𝛾) .
From (2) we suggest the following source term [23]: 𝜆(𝑥 − 𝑡)𝛼 (14)
+ 0 𝐼(𝛼)
𝑥 { [𝐿 𝑢 (𝑡) − 𝑅𝛼 𝑢𝑛 ]} .
Γ (1 + 𝛼) 𝛼 𝑛
𝐺 (𝑡) = ∭𝑔 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧, 𝑡) 𝑑Ω(𝛾) . (6)
The local fractional Laplace transform is given as [29–32]
Making use of (4), (5), and (6), we have
̃ 𝛼 {𝑓 (𝑥)}
𝐿
∭𝑐𝛼 𝜌𝛼 𝑢𝑡(𝛼) (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧, 𝑡) 𝑑Ω (𝛾)
̃
= 𝑓𝑠𝐿,𝛼 (𝑠)
=∯ 𝑘2𝛼 ∇𝛼 𝑢 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧, 𝑡) ⋅ 𝑑S(𝛽) (7) 1 ∞ (15)
𝜕Ω(𝛽) = ∫ 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑠𝛼 𝑥𝛼 ) 𝑓 (𝑥) (𝑑𝑥)𝛼 ,
Γ (1 + 𝛼) 0
+ ∭𝑔 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧, 𝑡) 𝑑Ω(𝛾) 0 < 𝛼 ≤ 1,
and the inverse formula of local fractional Laplace transform such that
is suggested as [29–32]
𝛼
̃ −1 {𝑓𝐿,𝛼 (𝑠)}
𝑓 (𝑥) = 𝐿 𝛼 𝑠 ̃ 𝛼 { 𝜆(𝑥) } 𝑠2𝛼 = 0.
1+𝐿 (24)
Γ (1 + 𝛼)
𝛽+𝑖∞ (16)
1 ̃
= 𝛼 ∫ 𝐸 (𝑠𝛼 𝑥𝛼 ) 𝑓𝑠𝐿,𝛼 (𝑠) (𝑑𝑠)𝛼 ,
(2𝜋) 𝛽−𝑖∞ 𝛼 From (24) we get
𝛼
where 𝑓 (𝑥) is a local fractional continuous function, 𝑠 =
𝛽𝛼 + 𝑖𝛼 ∞𝛼 , Re (𝑠𝛼 ) = 𝛽𝛼 , and the local fractional integral of 𝛼
̃ 𝛼 { 𝜆(𝑥) } = − 1
𝐿 (25)
𝑓 (𝑥) of order 𝛼 in the interval [𝑎, 𝑏] is given as [23] Γ (1 + 𝛼) 𝑠2𝛼
𝑏
(𝛼) 1
𝑎 𝐼𝑏 𝑓 (𝑥) = ∫ 𝑓 (𝑡) (𝑑𝑡)𝛼
Γ (1 + 𝛼) 𝑎 such that local fractional iteration algorithm reads as
𝑗=𝑁−1
(17)
1 𝛼
= lim ∑ 𝑓 (𝑡𝑗 ) (Δ𝑡𝑗 ) , ̃ 𝛼 {𝑢𝑛+1 (𝑥)} = 𝐿
𝐿 ̃ 𝛼 {𝑢𝑛 (𝑥)}
Γ (1 + 𝛼) Δ𝑡 → 0 𝑗=0
1 ̃ (26)
with the partitions of the interval [𝑎, 𝑏] which is (𝑡𝑗 , 𝑡𝑗+1 ), − 𝐿 {(𝐿 𝛼 𝑢𝑛 (𝑥) − 𝑅𝛼 𝑢𝑛 (𝑥))} ,
𝑠2𝛼 𝛼
for Δ𝑡𝑗 = 𝑡𝑗+1 − 𝑡𝑗 , 𝑡0 = 𝑎, 𝑡𝑁 = 𝑏, and Δ𝑡 = max{Δ𝑡0 ,
Δ𝑡1 , Δ𝑡𝑗 , . . .}, 𝑗 = 0, . . . , 𝑁 − 1.
where the initial value is presented as follows:
From (15) the local fractional convolution of two func-
tions is defined as [29–32]
∞ ̃ 𝛼 {𝑢0 (𝑥)} = 𝑢 (0) .
𝐿 (27)
1
𝑓1 (𝑥) ∗ 𝑓2 (𝑥) = ∫ 𝑓1 (𝑡) 𝑓2 (𝑥 − 𝑡) (𝑑𝑡)𝛼 , (18)
Γ (1 + 𝛼) −∞
and we have Therefore, the local fractional series solution is given as
̃ 𝛼 {𝑓1 (𝑥)} 𝐿
𝐹𝛼 {𝑓1 (𝑥) ∗ 𝑓2 (𝑥)} = 𝐿 ̃ 𝛼 {𝑓2 (𝑥)} . (19)
̃ 𝛼 {𝑢} = lim 𝐿
𝐿 ̃ 𝛼 {𝑢𝑛 } . (28)
From (19) we obtain 𝑛→∞
̃ 𝛼 {𝑢𝑛+1 (𝑥)}
𝐿
From (28) we arrive at
̃ 𝛼 {𝑢𝑛 (𝑥)}
=𝐿 (20)
𝛼
̃ −1 {𝐿
𝑢 = lim 𝐿 ̃ 𝛼 𝑢𝑛 } . (29)
𝛼
̃ 𝛼 { 𝜆(𝑥) } 𝐿
𝑛→∞
+𝐿 ̃ 𝛼 {𝐿 𝛼 𝑢𝑛 (𝑥) − 𝑅𝛼 𝑢𝑛 (𝑥)} .
Γ (1 + 𝛼)
By the local fractional variation [23, 27, 29, 30], we obtain 4. The Nondifferentiable Solutions
̃ 𝛼 {𝑢𝑛+1 (𝑥)}}
𝛿𝛼 {𝐿 In this section, we discuss the one-dimensional nonhomoge-
neous heat equations arising in fractal heat flow.
̃ 𝛼 {𝑢𝑛 (𝑥)}}
= 𝛿𝛼 {𝐿 (21) Example 1. The nonhomogeneous local fractional heat equa-
𝛼
̃ 𝛼 { 𝜆(𝑥) } 𝐿
+ 𝛿𝛼 {𝐿 ̃ 𝛼 {𝐿 𝛼 𝑢𝑛 (𝑥) − 𝑅𝛼 𝑢𝑛 (𝑥)}} , tion with the nondifferentiable sink term is presented as
Γ (1 + 𝛼) follows:
which leads to
𝜕𝛼 𝑇 (𝑥, 𝑡) 𝜕2𝛼 𝑇 (𝑥, 𝑡)
𝛿𝛼 {𝐿̃ 𝛼 {𝑢𝑛+1 (𝑥)}} −
𝜕𝑡𝛼 𝜕𝑥2𝛼
̃ 𝛼 {𝑢𝑛 (𝑥)}}
= 𝛿𝛼 {𝐿 𝑥𝛼 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 )
(22) =− , 0 < 𝑥 < 1, 0 < 𝑡 ≤ 1, 0 < 𝛼 ≤ 1,
𝛼 Γ (1 + 𝛼)
̃𝛼 { 𝜆(𝑥) ̃ 𝛼 {𝐿 𝛼 𝑢𝑛 (𝑥)}}} = 0.
+𝐿 } {𝛿𝛼 {𝐿 (30)
Γ (1 + 𝛼)
From (22) we have subject to the initial-boundary value conditions
̃ 𝛼 {𝐿 𝛼 𝑢𝑛 (𝑥)}}
𝛿𝛼 {𝐿
𝜕𝛼 𝑇 (0, 𝑡)
̃ 𝛼 {𝑢𝑛 (𝑥)} − 𝑠𝛼 𝑢𝑛 (0) − 𝑢(𝛼) (0)}
= 𝛿𝛼 {𝑠2𝛼 𝐿 (23) = 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 ) ,
𝑛 𝜕𝑥𝛼 (31)
2𝛼 𝛼 ̃
= 𝑠 𝛿 𝐿 𝛼 {𝑢𝑛 (𝑥)} 𝑇 (0, 𝑡) = 0.
From (26) we obtain the local fractional iteration algorithm: Making use of (32) and (35), the third approximate term reads
as follows:
𝐿 ̃ 𝛼 {𝑇𝑛 (𝑥, 𝑡)} − 1 𝐿
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇𝑛+1 (𝑥, 𝑡)} = 𝐿 ̃ 𝛼
𝑠2𝛼 𝛼 ̃ 𝛼 {𝑇2 (𝑥, 𝑡)} − 1 𝜕 𝑇2 (𝑠, 𝑡)
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇3 (𝑥, 𝑡)} = 2𝐿
𝐿
𝑠2𝛼 𝜕𝑡𝛼
𝜕𝛼 𝑇𝑛 (𝑥, 𝑡) 𝜕2𝛼 𝑇𝑛 (𝑥, 𝑡)
⋅ {( −
𝜕𝑡𝛼 𝜕𝑥2𝛼 𝑇2(𝛼) (0, 𝑡) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 )
− −
𝑠2𝛼 𝑠4𝛼
𝑥𝛼 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 ) (36)
+ )} 2𝐸 (−𝑡𝛼 ) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 ) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 )
Γ (1 + 𝛼) = 𝛼 2𝛼 − −
𝑠 𝑠4𝛼 𝑠2𝛼
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇𝑛 (𝑥, 𝑡)} − 1
=𝐿 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 ) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 )
𝑠2𝛼 − = .
𝑠4𝛼 𝑠2𝛼
𝜕𝛼 𝑇𝑛 (𝑠, 𝑡) ̃ 𝛼 {𝑇𝑛 (𝑥, 𝑡)}
⋅{ − 𝑠2𝛼 𝐿 (32)
𝜕𝑡𝛼 From (32) and (36), the fourth approximate term can be
written as follows:
+ 𝑠𝛼 𝑇𝑛 (0, 𝑡) + 𝑇𝑛(𝛼) (0, 𝑡)
𝛼
𝐸 (−𝑡𝛼 ) 𝐿 ̃ 𝛼 {𝑇3 (𝑥, 𝑡)} − 1 𝜕 𝑇3 (𝑠, 𝑡)
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇4 (𝑥, 𝑡)} = 2𝐿
+ 𝛼 2𝛼 } 𝑠2𝛼 𝜕𝑡𝛼
𝑠
𝑇3(𝛼) (0, 𝑡) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 )
𝛼 − −
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇𝑛 (𝑥, 𝑡)} − 1 𝜕 𝑇𝑛 (𝑠, 𝑡)
= 2𝐿 𝑠2𝛼 𝑠4𝛼
𝑠2𝛼 𝜕𝑡𝛼 (37)
2𝐸 (−𝑡𝛼 ) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 ) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 )
𝑇𝑛(𝛼) (0, 𝑡) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 ) = 𝛼 2𝛼 − −
− − , 𝑠 𝑠4𝛼 𝑠2𝛼
𝑠2𝛼 𝑠4𝛼
𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 ) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 )
− = .
where the initial value is given as 𝑠4𝛼 𝑠2𝛼
𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 ) Making the best of (32) and (36), we can write the fifth
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇0 (𝑥, 𝑡)} =
𝐿 . (33) approximate term as
𝑠2𝛼
𝛼
Using (32), we have the first approximation: ̃ 𝛼 {𝑇4 (𝑥, 𝑡)} − 1 𝜕 𝑇4 (𝑠, 𝑡)
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇5 (𝑥, 𝑡)} = 2𝐿
𝐿
𝛼
𝐿 ̃ 𝛼 {𝑇0 (𝑥, 𝑡)} − 1 𝜕 𝑇0 (𝑠, 𝑡)
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇1 (𝑥, 𝑡)} = 2𝐿 𝑇4(𝛼) (0, 𝑡) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 )
𝑠2𝛼 𝜕𝑡𝛼 − −
𝑠2𝛼 𝑠4𝛼
𝑇0(𝛼) (0, 𝑡) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 ) (38)
− − 2𝐸 (−𝑡𝛼 ) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 ) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 )
𝑠2𝛼 𝑠4𝛼 = 𝛼 2𝛼 − −
(34) 𝑠 𝑠4𝛼 𝑠2𝛼
2𝐸 (−𝑡𝛼 ) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 ) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 )
= 𝛼 2𝛼 + − 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 ) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 )
𝑠 𝑠4𝛼 𝑠2𝛼 − = .
𝑠4𝛼 𝑠2𝛼
− = . Hence, we obtain the final term given as
𝑠4𝛼 𝑠2𝛼
In view of (32) and (34), we get the second approximation: 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 )

̃ 𝛼 {𝑇𝑛 (𝑥, 𝑡)} =
𝐿 . (39)
𝛼
𝑠2𝛼
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇1 (𝑥, 𝑡)} − 1 𝜕 𝑇1 (𝑠, 𝑡)
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇2 (𝑥, 𝑡)} = 2𝐿
𝐿
𝑠2𝛼 𝜕𝑡𝛼 In view of (28) and (29), we suggest the exact solution of (30)
as
𝑇1(𝛼) (0, 𝑡) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡 )𝛼
− −
𝑠2𝛼 𝑠4𝛼 ̃ −1 {𝐿
𝑇 (𝑥, 𝑡) = lim 𝐿 ̃ 𝛼 {𝑇𝑛 (𝑥, 𝑡)}}
(35) 𝑛→∞ 𝛼
2𝐸 (−𝑡𝛼 ) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 ) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 ) (40)
= 𝛼 2𝛼 − − 𝑥𝛼
𝑠 𝑠4𝛼 𝑠2𝛼 = 𝐸 (−𝑡𝛼 )
Γ (1 + 𝛼) 𝛼
− = .
𝑠4𝛼 𝑠2𝛼 and its plot is shown in Figure 1.
𝛼
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇𝑛 (𝑥, 𝑡)} − 1 𝜕 𝑇𝑛 (𝑠, 𝑡)
= 2𝐿
1.5
𝑇𝑛(𝛼) (0, 𝑡) cos𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 )
− + .
𝑠2𝛼 𝑠4𝛼
1
(43)
T (x, t)
0.5 Appling (43) gives the first approximate term:

𝛼
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇0 (𝑥, 𝑡)} − 1 𝜕 𝑇0 (𝑠, 𝑡)
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇1 (𝑥, 𝑡)} = 2𝐿
𝐿
0 𝑠2𝛼 𝜕𝑡𝛼
1
1 𝑇0(𝛼) (0, 𝑡) cos𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 )
0.8
0.5 0.6 − +
t 0.4 𝑠2𝛼 𝑠4𝛼
0.2 (44)
0 0 x
2sin𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 ) cos𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 )
= −
Figure 1: The nondifferentiable solution of nonhomogeneous local 𝑠2𝛼 𝑠4𝛼
fractional heat equation with nondifferentiable sink term for 𝛼 =
ln 2/ ln 3. sin𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 ) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 ) sin𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 )
− + = .
𝑠2𝛼 𝑠4𝛼 𝑠2𝛼
In view of (43) and (44), the second approximate term reads
Example 2. We now consider the nonhomogeneous local as
fractional heat equation with the nondifferentiable source 𝛼
term: 𝐿 ̃ 𝛼 {𝑇1 (𝑥, 𝑡)} − 1 𝜕 𝑇1 (𝑠, 𝑡)
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇2 (𝑥, 𝑡)} = 2𝐿
𝜕𝛼 𝑇 (𝑥, 𝑡) 𝜕2𝛼 𝑇 (𝑥, 𝑡) 𝑇1(𝛼) (0, 𝑡) cos𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 )
− − +
𝜕𝑡𝛼 𝜕𝑥2𝛼 𝑠2𝛼 𝑠4𝛼
(41) (45)
𝑥𝛼 cos𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 ) 2sin𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 ) cos𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 ) sin𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 )
= , 0 < 𝑥 < 1, 0 < 𝑡 ≤ 1, 0 < 𝛼 ≤ 1, = − −
Γ (1 + 𝛼) 𝑠2𝛼 𝑠4𝛼 𝑠2𝛼
subject to the initial-boundary value conditions 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 ) sin𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 )
+ = .
𝑠4𝛼 𝑠2𝛼
𝜕2𝛼 𝑇 (𝑥, 𝑡)
= sin𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 ) , Making use of (43) and (45), we arrive at the third approxi-
𝜕𝑥2𝛼 (42) mate term:
𝑇 (0, 𝑡) = 0. 𝛼
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇2 (𝑥, 𝑡)} − 1 𝜕 𝑇2 (𝑠, 𝑡)
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇3 (𝑥, 𝑡)} = 2𝐿
𝐿
In view of (26), the local fractional iteration algorithm can be
structured as follows: 𝑇2(𝛼) (0, 𝑡) cos𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 )
− +
𝑠2𝛼 𝑠4𝛼
(46)
𝐿 ̃ 𝛼 {𝑇𝑛 (𝑥, 𝑡)} − 1 𝐿
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇𝑛+1 (𝑥, 𝑡)} = 𝐿 ̃ 2sin𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 ) cos𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 )
𝑠2𝛼 𝛼 = −
𝑠2𝛼 𝑠4𝛼
𝜕𝛼 𝑇𝑛 (𝑥, 𝑡) 𝜕2𝛼 𝑇𝑛 (𝑥, 𝑡)
⋅ {( − sin𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 ) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 ) sin𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 )
𝜕𝑡𝛼 𝜕𝑥2𝛼 − + = .
𝑥𝛼 cos𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 ) From (43) and (46) we give the fourth approximation:
− )}
Γ (1 + 𝛼) 𝛼
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇3 (𝑥, 𝑡)} − 1 𝜕 𝑇3 (𝑠, 𝑡)
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇4 (𝑥, 𝑡)} = 2𝐿
𝐿
̃ 𝛼 {𝑇𝑛 (𝑥, 𝑡)} − 1
=𝐿 𝑠2𝛼 𝜕𝑡𝛼
𝑠2𝛼
𝑇3(𝛼) (0, 𝑡) cos𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 )
𝜕𝛼 𝑇𝑛 (𝑠, 𝑡) ̃ 𝛼 {𝑇𝑛 (𝑥, 𝑡)}
− +
⋅{ − 𝑠2𝛼 𝐿 𝑠2𝛼 𝑠4𝛼
𝜕𝑡𝛼 (47)
2sin𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 ) cos𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 ) sin𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 )
+ 𝑠𝛼 𝑇𝑛 (0, 𝑡) + 𝑇𝑛(𝛼) (0, 𝑡) = − −
cos𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 ) 𝐸𝛼 (−𝑡𝛼 ) sin𝛼 (𝑡𝛼 )
− } + = .
0 The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests in
this paper.
−0.1
−0.2 Acknowledgments
T (x, t)
−0.3
The work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation
−0.4 of Jiangsu Colleges and Universities (no. KK-12058) and
Jiangsu Province R&D Institute of Marine Resource (no.
−0.5
1 JSIUMR 201210).
1
0.5 0.8
0.6 References
t 0.4
0.2 x
0 0
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/373967
Research Article
Numerical Simulation and Experimental Research on
Coal Ash Collecting and Grading System
Yuanhua Xie, Xianjin Li, Liwei Wang, Hong Yu, Bing Bai, Zhizhou Xu, and Tong Zhu
School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Northeastern University, 3-11 Wenhua Road, Heping District,
Shenyang 110004, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Tong Zhu; tongzhu@mail.neu.edu.cn
Received 14 June 2014; Accepted 14 July 2014; Published 6 August 2014
Copyright © 2014 Yuanhua Xie et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
The grading separation of coal ash can not only increase its economic value but also decrease its pollution to environment. Based
on the jet-attracting flow technology and the gas-solid two-phase flow theory, the force and motion of coal ash particles in airflow
were studied firstly. Focused on single coal ash particle, Matlab software was used to simulate the force conditions and separation
parameters of various diameter coal ash particles in airflow. Fluent software was used to simulate the nozzle fluidization domain
shape and to determine optimal jet flux. According to the theoretical results, a coal ash collecting and grading system was developed.
Using the separation efficiency as the evaluation index, the optimal experiment parameters of jet flux, attracting flux, and separation
time were obtained. At last, the calculated results and experimental results of coal ash particles median diameter from the first
grading separation exit under various attracting fluxes were compared. The reasons that could cause the errors were discussed. This
study has significant practical meaning and application value on coal ash collecting and grading separation.
1. Introduction bear its weight. The separated lighter material can be further
separated by cyclone separator [7]. Some problems in the
Coal ash is the solid waste of burning coal. Except for dust present airflow classification process are showed as follows
air pollution, coal ash can result in groundwater pollution [4]. The high fineness requirement to coal ash increases the
and soil pollution due to its compositions of trace amounts design difficulty of coal ash grading device. The performance
of heavy metals and tiny amounts of radioactive substances. and efficiency of separation device are severely affected by the
Coal ash can also cause geological disasters [1]. However, coal seal and abrasion. How can we combine the theory analysis
ash contains many kinds of useful substances, such as glass and experimental test? How can we solve the contradiction
microbead, high-aluminum powder, and carbon powder. between high work capacity and high grading fineness? How
Collecting and separating these substances effectively can can we solve low grading efficiency and low grading accuracy
greatly increase the economic value of coal ash, which can under high work capacity?
turn the waste into treasure and has more important meaning Based on the jet-attracting flow technology [8–11] and
on environment protection [2]. gas-solid two-phase flow theory [12–14], a new coal ash
At present, the coal ash grading separation methods collecting and grading device was developed in this study.
mainly include sieving, airflow classification, froth flotation, The new device could achieve the grading separation of coal
electrostatic separation, and magnetic separation [3, 4]. ash while collecting and transporting. The force and motion
For the separation of high fineness coal ash, the airflow of coal ash particles in airflow were studied in theory. Then
classification is often used [5, 6]. The basic principle of airflow the force and separation condition of various diameter coal
classification is to separate the lighter material out of the ash particles in airflow were simulated by Matlab software.
separation device upward or to take the lighter material to rel- The Fluent software was also used to simulate the shape of
atively distant place along the horizontal direction by airflow. nozzle fluidization domain and to determine the optimal
The heavier material will settle because the airflow cannot jet flux. Finally, the coal ash collecting and grading device
was used for the relevant experiments to study the relations was 1900∼2900 kg/m3 [14]; 𝑉𝑐 was the volume of coal ash
between the separation efficiency and jet flux, attracting flux particles (m3 ); 𝑑𝑐 was the equivalent volume diameter of coal
or separation time. The calculated and experimental values ash particles (m).
of coal ash particle median diameter in the first grading
separation exit under different attracting flux were compared.
2.1.2. Buoyancy. The buoyancy of coal ash particles in airflow
The reasons causing the errors were also discussed.
was shown as follows:
2. Analysis of Force and Motion of 𝜋 3

𝐹𝑓 = 𝜌𝑔 𝑉𝑐 𝑔 = 𝑑 𝜌 𝑔. (2)
Coal Ash Particles in Airflow 6 𝑐 𝑔
Single particle dynamics (SPD) is the simplest method in In this equation, 𝐹𝑓 was buoyancy (N); 𝜌𝑔 was the density of
studying the suspension two-phase flow. In SPD method, the airflow (kg/m3 ).
airflow field is regarded as known field, without considering
the particle fluctuation and the influence of particles on fluid 2.1.3. Pressure Gradient Force. For a single particle (or sus-
flow, but only considering the force and motion of a single pension system with very low concentration), the fluid flow
particle that is uncorrelated with other particles in flow field was not affected by the existing small particles. For the fluid
[15]. phase, the following equation existed:
2.1. Analysis of Force of Coal Ash Particles in Airflow. The 𝑑V𝑔

study of particle force is the core problem of particle motion 𝜌𝑔 = −∇𝑝. (3)
in gas-solid two-phase flow [16]. The exchange of momentum 𝑑𝑡
and energy between fluid and solid particles existed when
In this equation, V𝑔 was the airflow velocity (m/s); 𝑡 was time
coal ash particles move in fluid. The two phases will interact
(s); −∇𝑝 was the pressure gradient (Pa/m).
and interplay with each other. The coupling of the gas phase
Then the pressure gradient force could be expressed with
and the solid phase was achieved by the interacting forces
between them.
𝑑V𝑔 1 𝑑V𝑔
The forces on coal ash particles could be classified into 4 𝐹𝑝 = 𝜌𝑔 𝑉𝑐 = 𝜋𝑑𝑐 3 𝜌𝑔 . (4)
categories based on their different action modes during the 𝑑𝑡 6 𝑑𝑡
motion in fluid [17]: (1) the forces that are uncorrelated with
interaction between the particles and fluid, such as gravity, In this equation, 𝐹𝑝 was the pressure gradient force (N).
buoyancy, and pressure gradient force, (2) the forces that are
depending on the relative motion between the particles and 2.1.4. Traction Resistance. In gas-solid two-phase fluid, the
fluid and are collinear with the relative velocity direction, movement of particles would be hindered by the impact from
such as traction resistance, additional mass force, and Basset airflow. The impact from airflow was called traction resis-
force, (3) the forces that are correlated with the relative tance. The traction resistance of coal ash particles during its
motion between the particles and fluid but are perpendicular upward and settlement process in airflow could be expressed
to the relative velocity direction, such as Magnus lift force by (5) as follows:
and Saffman lift force, and (4) the collision resistance between
particles. 1 2 1 2 𝜋𝑑 2
In the separation process of the coal ash collecting and 𝐹𝑑 = 𝜌𝑔 (V𝑔 − V𝑐 ) 𝐶𝐷𝐴 = 𝜌𝑔 (V𝑔 − V𝑐 ) 𝐶𝐷 𝑐 . (5)
2 2 4
grading device designed in this study, the main direction
of particles movement was vertical. So only the vertical In this equation, 𝐹𝑑 was the traction resistance (N); V𝑐
forces were considered in the force analysis. And the par- was the coal ash particles velocity (m/s); 𝐶𝐷 was the traction
ticle motions were regarded as the simple one-dimensional coefficient; 𝐴 was the windward area of coal ash particle
vertical movement. Besides, considering that the density of equivalent volume (m2 ).
coal ash particle was greater than that of the airflow during Traction coefficient 𝐶𝐷 had very close relation with
the separation process, some forces were ignored. The forces particle Reynolds number Re𝑝 and other factors as particle
mentioned below were the concerned ones in the forces shape, roughness of particle surface, turbulivity of fluid,
analysis process. rotation of particle, and so on. When Reynolds number Re𝑝
was slightly higher (0 ≤ Re ≤ 2 × 105 ), the empirical formula
2.1.1. Gravity. The gravity of coal ash particles in airflow could from experiment data was very useful and the error was about
be obtained from the following equation: ±10%. 𝐶𝐷 could be expressed by
𝜋 3
𝐹𝑔 = 𝑚𝑐 𝑔 = 𝜌𝑐 𝑉𝑐 𝑔 = 𝑑 𝜌 𝑔. (1)
6 𝑐 𝑐 24 6
𝐶𝐷 = + + 0.4. (6)
In this equation, 𝐹𝑔 was gravity (N); 𝑚𝑐 was the mass of coal Re𝑝 1 + √Re
𝑝
ash particles (kg); 𝑔 was gravitational acceleration (9.8 m/s2 );
𝜌𝑐 was the density of coal ash particles (kg/m3 ) and usually In this equation, Re𝑝 was particle Reynolds number.
Because Re𝑝 = (V𝑔 − V𝑐 )𝑑𝑐 /𝜇 and gas viscosity 𝜇 = 1.79 × V

10 Pa⋅s at room temperature (20∘ C), (6) can be converted to
−5
4.296 × 10−4
𝐶𝐷 =
[𝑑𝑐 (V𝑔 − V𝑐 )] Figure 1: Velocity changes in turbulence.
(7)
6
+ + 0.4.
[1 + √(𝑑𝑐 (V𝑔 − V𝑐 )) / (1.79 × 10−5 )] After final transformation, it could be expressed as fol-
lows:
𝑑V𝑐 2
In this equation, V𝑐 was the particle velocity (m/s). =
𝑑𝑡 2𝜌𝑐 + 𝜌𝑔
2.1.5. False Mass Force. When a certain mass of coal ash {

{ 3 𝜌𝑔
particles did the accelerated movement in airflow field, the × { − 𝜌𝑐 𝑔 + 𝜌𝑔 𝑔 +
{ 4 𝑑𝑐
air around it would be accelerated together as well. This was {
equivalent to the fact that the particles had a false mass force.
For the spherical particle with accelerated movement, the −4
[ 4.296 × 10
false mass force was equaled to the product of half mass ×[
of displacing air by particle and air acceleration relative to 𝑑𝑐 (V𝑔 − V𝑐 )
particle. The false mass force of single coal ash particle was [
[18]
6 ]
+ + 0.4]
−5
1 𝑑V𝑔 𝑑V𝑐 1 𝑑V𝑔 𝑑V𝑐 1 + √𝑑𝑐 (V𝑔 − V𝑐 ) / (1.79 × 10 )
𝐹V𝑚 = 𝜌𝑔 𝑉𝑐 ( − ) = 𝜋𝑑𝑐 3 𝜌𝑔 ( − ). ]
2 𝑑𝑡 𝑑𝑡 12 𝑑𝑡 𝑑𝑡
(8) 2 3 𝜕V𝑔 }
}
× (V𝑔 − V𝑐 ) + 𝜌𝑔 .
2 𝜕𝑡 }}
}
In this equation, 𝐹V𝑚 was the false mass force (N). (11)
However, the representation of particle motion in tur-

2.2. Analysis of Motion of Coal Ash Particles in Airflow. Based bulent gas-solid flow by this mathematical model was still
on the simplified force analysis, the motion state of coal ash insufficient. The changes of turbulent flow velocity were
particles in airflow could be judged by its settling velocity, shown in Figure 1.
and the particle kinetic equation could be used to analyze the The airflow velocity fluctuations caused by turbulent
motion process of coal ash particles in airflow. For the gas- flow could also cause pulsation of granular materials. So,
solid two-phase flow, particle kinetics could be considered as the fluctuations of turbulent flow had a very important
the basic phenomena of actual gas-solid two-phase flow. The influence on the separation of coal ash. Due to turbulence’s
particle motion equation could be established according to complexity, irregularity, and occasionality, time function of
the force balance of particle. The track of particle could be the pulsating component could only be studied by statistical
obtained by solving particle motion differential equation [19]: methods [20]. The effects of turbulent pulsation frequency
on the following features of material in the fluid were also
𝐹 = 𝐹𝑔 + 𝐹𝑓 + 𝐹𝑝 + 𝐹𝑑 + 𝐹V𝑚 . (9) very complicated [21, 22]. In this study, turbulent fluctuation
waveform was simplified as sinusoidal and the air separation
theory established by C. Rheet Jackson and Richard Ian
Bringing (1), (2), (4), (5), and (8) to (9), (10) could be Stessel could be extended to turbulence.
obtained: The simplified turbulent pulsating airflow velocity was
expressed as:
𝜋 3 𝑑V𝑐 𝜋 𝜋 V𝑔 = V𝑔𝑝 + V𝑔𝑚 sin (𝜔𝑡) . (12)
𝑑 𝜌 = − 𝑑𝑐 3 𝜌𝑐 𝑔 + 𝑑𝑐 3 𝜌𝑔 𝑔
6 𝑐 𝑐 𝑑𝑡 6 6
In this equation, V𝑔𝑝 was the average airflow velocity (m/s);
𝜋 𝑑V𝑔 𝜋 2 2 V𝑔𝑚 was the pulsating amplitude of airflow velocity (m/s); 𝜔
+ 𝑑𝑐 3 𝜌𝑔 + 𝑑𝑐 𝜌𝑔 𝐶𝐷(V𝑔 − V𝑐 ) (10)
6 𝑑𝑡 8 was the turbulent fluctuation frequency (rad/s).
𝑑V𝑔 Combining (11) and (12), more accurate mathematical
1 𝑑V
− 𝜋𝑑𝑐 3 𝜌𝑔 ( 𝑐 − ). model of coal ash particle motion in turbulent flow could
12 𝑑𝑡 𝑑𝑡 be gained. Due to the complexity of the equation set, the
10−5 10−7
Traction resistance (N)
10−8
False mass force (N)

10−6
10−9
−7
10
10−10
10−8
10−11
10−9 10−12
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.20 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0
Time (s) Time (s)
d = 250 𝜇m d = 250 𝜇m
d = 50 𝜇m d = 50 𝜇m
d = 10 𝜇m d = 10 𝜇m
(a) Traction resistance (b) False mass force
Figure 2: Changes of traction resistance and false mass force with time.
relationship between coal ash particle velocity and time Table 1: Gravity, buoyancy, and pressure gradient force of various
needed to use the numerical analysis computer software. diameter coal ash particles.
Forces (N) Symbol 10 𝜇m 50 𝜇m 250 𝜇m

3. Numerical Simulation of Coal Gravity 𝐹𝑔 1.28 × 10−11
1.6 × 10 −9
7.2 × 10−6
Ash Particle Movement Buoyancy 𝐹𝑓 6.15 × 10 −15
7.7 × 10−13
3.4 × 10−10
−15 −13
Pressure gradient force 𝐹𝑝 6.5 × 10 8.0 × 10 1.0 × 10−10
For solving nonlinear differential equation, numerical solu-
tion commonly uses Matlab software. When solving dif-
ferential equation without analytical solution, the general
logarithmic coordinates, the overall trends of the force were
solution for Matlab is Rung-Kutta middle order method
relatively smooth. Traction resistance showed a slight upward
[23]. When higher accuracy is required, Matlab uses a mul-
trend, and the false mass force showed a slight downward
tistep Adams-Bashforth-Moulton method [24]. Numerical
trend.
difference method is used to solve differential equation that
is difficult to solve. In this study, Rung-Kutta fourth-order
and fifth-order methods were used to solve the nonlinear 3.2. Separation Parameters for Various Diameter Coal Ash
differential equation of the particle motion mathematical Particles. According to the preliminary planning of exper-
model. imental equipment design, three coal ash particle sizes as
10 𝜇m, 50 𝜇m, and 250 𝜇m should be classified. Therefore, the
key design was to calculate the airflow velocities for keeping
3.1. Force Analysis of Various Diameter Coal Ash Particles
the three different particles at steady conditions. Then the
in the Airflow. Take coal ash particle sizes of 10 𝜇m, 50 𝜇m,
diameter of separation equipment could be obtained from the
and 250 𝜇m to calculate and investigate its force conditions.
relevant airflow velocity.
Set airflow as the direct translation flow, the average airflow
Importing (11) and (12) into Matlab programming,
velocity as 20 m/s, the amplitude of pulsating flow velocity
through changing the airflow velocity, the classification
as 5 m/s, the turbulent fluctuation frequency as 1000 rad/s,
conditions of three different particles could be determined
the density of airflow as 1.29 kg/m3 , and the density of coal basically. Figure 3 was partial results of coal ash particles
ash particle as 2400 kg/m3 . The changes of traction resistance under different airflow velocity.
and false mass force with time drawn from (5) and (8) were Figure 4 was parts of numerical simulation results of
shown in Figure 2. Gravity, buoyancy, and pressure gradient three coal ash particles movement velocities when airflow
force were shown in Table 1. velocity changed from 0.06 to 3 m/s. The overall velocity
For the various diameter coal ash particles, the magnitude trends of three particles in airflow field increased with
difference of force was between 102 and 103 when the particle airflow velocity. When the airflow velocity was 0.06 m/s,
size difference was 5 times. For different forces of the same three particles were basically at a static state. When the
kind of particles, taking 50 𝜇m particles as an example, airflow velocity reached 0.3 m/s, 10 𝜇m particles started to
magnitude of traction resistance was the maximum of 10−7 . move and gradually achieved the basically stable suspension.
Obviously, traction resistance had significant impact on The velocity variation range was about 0.2 m/s. When the
the particles. False mass force was 10−7 , gravity was 10−9 , airflow velocity reached 1.38 m/s, 50 𝜇m particles were in a
buoyancy was 10−13 , and pressure gradient force was 10−13 . stable suspension state and fluctuated with a velocity range of
For the force change trends with time, due to the use of 0.2 m/s. But at this time 10 𝜇m particles had already risen at
0.0 0.2
−0.1
−0.2 0.0
−0.3
Velocity (m/s)
−0.2
Velocity (m/s)
−0.4
−0.5 −0.4
−0.6
−0.7 −0.6
−0.8 −0.8
−0.9
−1.0 −1.0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5
Time (s) Time (s)
d = 250 𝜇m d = 250 𝜇m
d = 50 𝜇m d = 50 𝜇m
d = 10 𝜇m d = 10 𝜇m
(a) V𝑔𝑝 = 0.06 m/s (b) V𝑔𝑝 = 0.3 m/s
0.4 0.7
0.6
0.2 0.5
0.4
Velocity (m/s)
0.0 Velocity (m/s) 0.3

0.2
−0.2 0.1
0.0
−0.4 −0.1
−0.2
−0.6 −0.3
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5
Time (s) Time (s)
d = 250 𝜇m d = 250 𝜇m
d = 50 𝜇m d = 50 𝜇m
d = 10 𝜇m d = 10 𝜇m
(c) V𝑔𝑝 = 1.38 m/s (d) V𝑔𝑝 = 1.98 m/s
1.2 2.5
1.0 2.0
0.8
Velocity (m/s)
Velocity (m/s)
1.5
0.6
0.4 1.0
0.2 0.5
0.0
0.0
−0.2
−0.4 −0.5
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5
Time (s) Time (s)
d = 250 𝜇m d = 250 𝜇m
d = 50 𝜇m d = 50 𝜇m
d = 10 𝜇m d = 10 𝜇m
(e) V𝑔𝑝 = 2.46 m/s (f) V𝑔𝑝 = 3.00 m/s
Figure 3: Coal ash particle velocity under different airflow velocity.
the speed of 0.2 m/s. However, 250 𝜇m particles were still in a velocity was 2.46 m/s, 250 𝜇m particles reached a suspending
quiescent state in theory (a small amount of 250 𝜇m particles steady state. And the velocity change range was still about
had already been drawn out by the airflow in the actual 0.2 m/s. However, the other two particles were in completely
situation). When the airflow velocity reached 1.98 m/s, 10 𝜇m unstable state. So, for the three different diameters of coal
particles began to present an erratic state. When the airflow ash particles (10 𝜇m, 50 𝜇m, and 250 𝜇m), the separation
1.0 3.0
Velocity pulsating amplitude (m/s)

Coal ash particle velocity (m/s)
2.5
0.5
2.0
1.5
0.0
1.0
−0.5 0.5
0.0
−1.0 −0.5
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0
Attracting flow velocity (m/s) Attracting flow velocity (m/s)
d = 250 𝜇m d = 250 𝜇m
d = 50 𝜇m d = 50 𝜇m
d = 10 𝜇m d = 10 𝜇m
Figure 4: Relationships between coal ash particle average velocity Figure 5: Relationships between coal ash particle velocity pulsating
and airflow velocity. amplitude and airflow velocity.
airflow velocities (attracting velocity) in theory were 0.3 m/s, vertical direction. But, relatively speaking, it had a better
1.38 m/s, and 2.46 m/s. From Figure 4, it could be found that development in horizontal direction than in vertical direc-
the movement velocity of coal ash particles increased about tion. Though coal ash could be efficiently fractionated under
0.1∼0.5 m/s when the airflow velocity increased 0.5 m/s. The this flux (proved in Section 4.2), the throughput of coal ash
increasing amplitude of coal ash particle velocity increased fractionation was very low.
with the increase in airflow velocity. The increasing amplitude
As shown in Figure 6(b), when jet flux was 1.5 m3 /h, the
of big coal ash particles velocity was slightly larger than that
fluidization domain achieved the best shape. This type of
of the small particles.
fluidization domain developed well in both horizontal and
Figure 5 showed the relationships between the pulsating
vertical direction. The fluidized shape of coal ash was rather
amplitude of coal ash particle velocity and airflow velocity.
clear. On the premise of meeting higher separation efficiency,
The pulsating amplitude of coal ash particle velocity increased
this jet flux could achieve a higher throughput.
with the increase in airflow velocity. When the airflow
As shown in Figure 6(c), when jet flux was 3 m3 /h, the
velocity was less than 2.0 m/s, the pulsating amplitude of
fluidization domain still developed well in both horizontal
coal ash particle velocity was not obvious. When the airflow
and vertical direction. Though the jet flux was large, the
velocity was more than 2.0 m/s, the pulsating amplitude of
fractionation efficiency and the throughput were severely
three coal ash particles increased obviously. In this situation,
reduced. As can be seen in Figure 6(c), particle concentration
smaller particles presented larger pulsating amplitude and
of coal ash near the jet was particularly low under the strong
irregular local velocity. On the contrary, larger particles
jet airflow. Thereby, particles extracted by the attracting flow
showed smaller pulsating amplitude and regular local veloc-
were very little. At the same time, due to the large jet veloc-
ity. When the airflow velocity was more than 2.0 m/s, the
ity, the collision and interference among coal ash particles
average pulsating amplitudes were 2 m/s, 1 m/s, and 0.3 m/s
increased and the separation process was full of randomness.
for the particles of 10 𝜇m, 50 𝜇m, and 250 𝜇m.
As a result, fractionation efficiency and throughput were
reduced.
3.3. Effects of Jet Flux on Coal Ash Reclaiming. The coal The simulation results showed that the fluidization
ash collecting and grading system designed in this study domain of coal ash had a best fluidized state when jet flux
worked as the following principle. The jet airflow firstly was 1.5 m3 /h. So jet flux of 1.5 m3 /h was used as a reference in
stirred coal ash to form a fluidization domain. And then the the following experiments.
attracting pipe would extract coal ash. The coal ash would
be graded and separated in the device. As a result, the state
of fluidization domain played an important role in coal ash 4. Experimental Study of Coal
collecting and grading process. In the study, Fluent software Ash Collecting and Grading
under Eulerian-Eulerian model was used to simulate two-
phase flow. The fluidization domain shape of coal ash under The structure of coal ash collecting and grading system
different jet flux was simulated to determine the quality of designed in this study was shown in Figure 7. The system
fluidization performance and then determine the required jet was composed of air jet pipe, dust cover, suspension cham-
flux. Figure 6 shows the fluidization domain shape of coal ash bers, settling chambers, blinds, triangular storage rooms,
under different jet flux. The colorful coordinate presented the discharging pipes, attracting pipe, and other components.
volume fraction of coal ash. When worked, the airflow went into system from intake pipe
As shown in Figure 6(a), when jet flux was 0.05 m3 /h, 1, erupted from jet pipe 2, and then stirred up the coal ash
the fluidization domain developed in both horizontal and and formed a fluidization domain. Dust cover 12 limited
6.29e − 01 6.25e − 01
5.98e − 01 5.94e − 01
5.67e − 01 5.62e − 01
5.35e − 01 5.31e − 01
5.04e − 01 5.00e − 01
4.72e − 01 4.69e − 01
4.41e − 01 4.37e − 01
4.09e − 01 4.06e − 01
3.78e − 01 3.75e − 01
3.46e − 01 3.44e − 01
3.15e − 01 3.12e − 01
2.83e − 01 2.81e − 01
2.52e − 01 2.50e − 01
2.20e − 01 2.19e − 01
1.89e − 01 1.87e − 01
1.57e − 01 1.56e − 01
1.26e − 01 1.25e − 01
9.44e − 02 9.37e − 02
6.29e − 02 6.25e − 02
3.15e − 02 3.12e − 02
0.00e − 00 0.00e − 00
(a) Jet flux of 0.05 m3 /h (b) Jet flux of 1.5 m3 /h
6.23e − 01
5.92e − 01
5.61e − 01
5.30e − 01
4.99e − 01
4.67e − 01
4.36e − 01
4.05e − 01
3.74e − 01
3.43e − 01
3.12e − 01
2.80e − 01
2.49e − 01
2.18e − 01
1.87e − 01
1.56e − 01
1.25e − 01
9.35e − 02
6.23e − 02
3.12e − 02
0.00e − 00
(c) Jet flux of 3 m3 /h
Figure 6: Fluidization domain shape of coal ash under different jet flux.
the fluidized coal ash to stretch all around. The pressure in from discharge pipes (4, 7, and 10) at the particle size order
dust cover 12 would rise with the continuous entering of jet from big to small. The last remaining coal ash particles with
airflow. At the same time, the attracting pipe 21 showed an small size would be extracted through attracting pipe 21. Coal
attracting effect. The fluidized coal ash would move upwards ash particles extracted from discharge pipes (4, 7, and 10)
and enter into stair-like pipes. With the increasing diameter and attracting pipe 21 were separated into gas and solid by a
of the stair-like pipes, the coal ash flow velocity decreased. cyclone separator. Finally, this system achieved the collecting,
Meanwhile, particles with large density or big size carried grading, and transferring of coal ash simultaneously. Figure 8
by airflow could not move along the pipe any more. They is the schematic diagram of the whole separator system.
would suspend in suspension chambers (14, 16, 18, and 20) The simulation results in Section 3.2 showed that the
or settle along the pipe wall of settling chambers (15, 17, attracting airflow velocities to keep the coal ash particles
and 19). Sediment particles gathered in triangular storage of 10 𝜇m, 50 𝜇m, and 250 𝜇m at steady conditions were
0.3 m/s, 1.38 m/s, and 2.46 m/s, respectively. According to
rooms (5, 8, and 11) through blinds (3, 6, and 9). The
the continuity equation, the airflow in separation unit was
gathered coal ash particles were extracted slowly through
constant and the total airflow through each level was equal.
discharge pipes (4, 7, and 10) under the negative pressure. So the continuity equation was
This process accelerated the settling velocity of particles near
the settling chambers (15, 17, and 19) wall and the moving 𝐷 2
velocity of suspended particles to the pipe wall in suspension 𝑄1 = 𝑄2 = 𝑄3 = V𝜋( ). (13)
2
chambers (14, 16, 18, and 20). Three grading areas with
progressively increased diameter were designed in stair-like In this equation, 𝑄1 was the airflow flux in the first stage
pipe to separate coal ash. The particles would be drawn out (m3 /s); 𝑄2 was the airflow flux in the second stage (m3 /s);
and 𝐴 × (100 − 𝐶) was the number of particles (diameter ≤

21 1 45 𝜇m) in cinder.
20 2
19 3
4.2. Effects of Jet Flux on Separation Efficiency. The selected
18 4
5
coal ash sample was put into the ash bucket. The attracting
17 flux was set to 70 m3 /h. By changing the jet flux (0.3 m3 /h,
16 6
7 0.7 m3 /h, 1.1 m3 /h, 1.5 m3 /h, 1.9 m3 /h, 2.3 m3 /h, and 2.7 m3 /h),
15
8 separation efficiencies at 7 different jet fluxes had been
14
9 studied. Figure 10 showed the particle size distribution of coal
13 10 ash at the exit of different grading stages when jet flux was
12 11
1.5 m3 /h.
As shown in Figure 10, the particle size of coal ash that
was separated during the first stage distributed from 200 𝜇m
to 300 𝜇m. The particle size of coal ash that was separated
during the second stage substantially distributed from 10 𝜇m
to 100 𝜇m. The particle size of coal ash that was separated
during the third stage mainly concentrated nearby 10 𝜇m,
Figure 7: Structure of coal ash separator. 1: intake pipe; 2: jet pipe; 3, but the overall particle size distribution was dispersed. These
6, and 9: blinds; 4, 7, and 10: discharge pipes; 5, 8, and 11: triangular results indicated that the smaller the particle size of coal ash,
storage rooms; 12: dust cover; 13: jet pipe clamp bracket; 14, 16, 18, the worse the grading effect.
and 20: suspension chambers; 15, 17, and 19: settling chambers; 21: Figure 11 showed the particles’ separation efficiency under
attracting pipe. different jet fluxes. When the jet flux was less than 1.5 m3 /h,
with the jet flux increasing, the separation efficiency of coal
ash changed little and remained at about 73%. However, with
𝑄3 was the airflow flux in the third stage (m3 /s); V was the the continuous increasing of jet flux, separation efficiency
airflow velocity (m/s); 𝐷 was the pipe diameter (m). decreased dramatically and reduced to about 45%. This could
In this study, the pipe diameter of the first stage 𝐷1 was be explained as follows. When jet flux was relatively small, it
only had an obvious effect on the fluidization domain shape of
100 mm. So 𝑄1 = 𝑄2 = 𝑄3 = 0.0193 m3 /s, 𝐷2 = 133 mm, and
coal ash but had little effect on the particles’ vertical motion.
𝐷3 = 286 mm according to (13). The study also set the height
When jet flux was too large, coal ash directly entered into the
of each suspension chamber (14, 16, 18, and 20) to 100 mm, set
separator under the high pressure and played an important
the height of each settling chamber (15, 17, and 19) to 50 mm,
role in affecting the attracting flux. As a result, attracting flux
and set the inner diameter of jet pipe to 8 mm.
lost its effect on coal ash, and the classifying effect of coal ash
dramatically deteriorated. Experimental results showed that
4.1. Separation Efficiency Calculation. Separation efficiency a large jet flux also led to coal ash splashing and then resulted
was the efficiency that the separator graded raw coal ash in environmental pollution. From a practical point of view,
with particles size of 45 𝜇m as critical point [25]. Therefore, although separation efficiency was higher at small attracting
evaluation of the separation efficiency mainly depended on flux, total grading throughput of coal ash in unit time was
the percentage of particles (diameter ≤ 45 𝜇m) in cinder and relatively low due to the low coal ash particle concentration.
the percentage of particles (diameter > 45 𝜇m) in fine ash. Taking separation efficiency and grading throughput into
Then, separation efficiency could be calculated. account, the optimal jet flux was 1.5 m3 /h in this study.
The raw coal ash was assumed as 100% (Figure 9). The
percentage of particles (diameter > 45 𝜇m) in raw coal ash
was assumed as 𝐴(%). 4.3. Effect of Attracting Flux on Separation Efficiency. To study
The percentage of particles (diameter > 45 𝜇m) in fine ash the effect of attracting flux to separation efficiency of coal ash,
was assumed as 𝐵(%). The percentage of particles (diameter jet flux was set to 1.5 m3 /h. By changing attracting flux (20,
≤ 45 𝜇m) in cinder was assumed as 𝐶(%). According to the 30, 50, 70, 90, 110, and 120 m3 /h), the separation efficiencies
assumption, 𝐴 was theoretical amount of cinder and 100 − 𝐴 under 7 different attracting fluxes were investigated. Figure 12
was theoretical amount of fine ash. Collection efficiency of the was the separation efficiencies under 7 different attracting
cyclone separator is assumed as 𝜂𝑥 ; thus, separation efficiency fluxes.
could be calculated according to As shown in Figure 12, with the increases in attracting
flux, the separation efficiency of coal ash grading device
(100 − 𝐴) − [(100 − 𝐴) × 𝐵 + 𝐴 × (100 − 𝐶)] /100 increased significantly. When attracting flux increased to
𝜂= × 𝜂𝑥 .
100 − 𝐴 70 m3 /h, separation efficiency reached the maximum of 74%.
(14) When attracting flux continued to increase, the separation
efficiency presented a significant decline. The low separation
In this equation, 𝜂 was separation efficiency (%), (100−𝐴)×𝐵 efficiency under small attracting flux was due to the impact
was the number of particles (diameter > 45 𝜇m) in fine ash, of the airflow velocity of the attracting flow. The coal ash
5 6
8
9
3
10
2
4
11
1
12
Figure 8: Schematic diagram of coal ash separator system. 1: air compressor; 2: airflow control valve; 3, 7, and 11: air flow meters; 4: coal ash
separator; 5 and 9: cyclone separators; 6 and 10: filter units; 8 and 12: water ring vacuum pumps.
100 5.0 Size (𝜇m) Cumu. (%)

90 4.5 0.315 0
80 4.0 0.739 1.53
70 3.5
Cumu. (%)
Diff. (%) 1.734 4.58

60 3.0 4.070 9.81
50 2.5 9.551 18.64
40 2.0 22.410 28.51
30 1.5 52.590 42.23
1.0 123.400 68.71

20
289.600 93.96
10 0.5
679.600 100.00
0 0.0
0.01 0.1 1 10 100 1000
Size (𝜇m)
Figure 9: Particle size distribution of raw coal ash.
particles were affected by several forces and the low airflow jet flux and attracting flux, the coal ash separation efficiency
velocity could not attract large particle. Many small particles gradually increased with separation time. When separation
(≤45 𝜇m) were extracted out in the first grading stage and time reached 10 s, the separation efficiency was about 73% and
resulted in low separation efficiency. With the increase in kept steady. When separation time reached about 25 s, the
attracting flux, the updraft velocity increased. Many big separation efficiency presented another small increase, fol-
particles could be lift up and a clear increase in separation lowed by a sharp dropping to about 60%. This phenomenon
efficiency occurred. When attracting flux exceeded 70 m3 /h, could be explained as follows. With the increase in separation
the overlarge flux resulted in deterioration of particle dis- time, the coal ash concentration gradually increased, and
persibility and serious particle agglomeration. A lot of coal separation efficiency also gradually increased. Because of the
ash particles were pumped directly into the cyclone separa- fixing position of grading device, the fluidization domain of
tors and filter units without grading. Due to the instability coal ash gradually becomes a stable concave shape; therefore,
of particle agglomeration effects and the violent particle the separation efficiency was in a relatively stable value. With
collision, the separation effect of each grading stage dropped, the continuing of grading process, the amount of coal ash
resulting in the decrease of separation efficiency. In this study, reduced and less coal ash could be attracted into grading
the optimal attracting flux was 70 m3 /h. device, resulting in a small increase and a sharp decrease
in separation efficiency. In practical operation, the grading
4.4. Effect of Separation Time on Separation Efficiency. The device would do the horizontal or vertical movement to
attracting flux was set to 70 m3 /h and the jet flux was set achieve the stable separation efficiency and the continuous
to 1.5 m3 /h. The effects of separation time on separation coal ash collecting and grading effect. In this study, the
efficiency were examined, seen in Figure 13. Under a certain optimal separation time was 15 s.
100 10.0
90 9.0 Size (𝜇m) Cumu. (%)
80 8.0 1.179 0
70 7.0 2.389 0.54
Cumu. (%)
Diff. (%)
60 6.0 4.841 1.67
50 5.0 9.812 3.42

19.880 5.87
40 4.0
40.290 8.69
30 3.0
81.650 17.03
20 2.0 165.400 37.46
10 1.0 335.300 85.04
0 0.0 679.600 100.00
0.01 0.1 1 10 100 1000
Size (𝜇m)
(a) In the first stage
100 6.0
90 5.4 Size (𝜇m) Cumu. (%)
80 4.8 0.400 0
70 4.2 0.768 0.89
Cumu. (%)
Diff. (%)
60 3.6 1.477 2.57
3.0 2.838 4.89
50
5.453 12.21
40 2.4
10.480 21.20
30 1.8 20.130 38.81
20 1.2 38.690 64.20
10 0.6 74.360 90.63
0 0.0 142.900 100.00
0.01 0.1 1 10 100 1000
Size (𝜇m)
(b) In the second stage
100 6.0
90 5.4 Size (𝜇m) Cumu. (%)
80 4.8 0.315 0
70 4.2 0.597 1.94
Cumu. (%)
Diff. (%)
60 3.6 1.132 6.44
50 3.0 2.147 12.26
40 2.4 4.070 23.18
30 1.8 7.718 39.42
1.2 14.630 63.15
20
27.740 82.26
10 0.6
52.600 96.41
0 0.0 99.750 100.00
0.01 0.1 1 10 100 1000
Size (𝜇m)
(c) In the third stage
Figure 10: Particle size distribution of coal ash (jet flux = 1.5 m3 /h) in different grading stages.
4.5. Comparison of Experimental and Theoretical Average of theoretical results. When the attracting velocity was less
Separated Particle Size. The median diameter of separated than 1.5 m/s, the experimental results were slightly larger
coal ash (average particle size) was an important indicator for than the theoretical results. When the attracting velocity
evaluating grading perfection in the coal ash grading process. was greater than 1.5 m/s, the experimental values were less
The jet flux was selected as 1.5 m3 /h and the separation time than the theoretical values, and the deviation became larger
was 15 s. The change of the average separated particle size with the attracting velocity increase. This phenomenon was
of the first separation exit was measured under different mainly caused by the different particle concentration in
attracting velocity (controlled by attracting flux) and was the grading device. When the attracting velocity was small,
compared with the theoretical value (in Figure 14). The mutual interference between the particles was not serious
reason to study the first separation exit was that the first and the particles were graded according to their own force.
separation exit was proved to be the smallest affected by tiny But a lot of small particles were in irregular movement and
particles less than 50 𝜇m and to have the most shallow particle were likely to be directly extracted out from the attracting
size distribution. pipe. Therefore, the experimental values were larger than the
As can be seen in Figure 14, under a certain jet flux, theoretical values. When the attracting velocity became large,
separated coal ash particle size gradually increased with particle concentration increased within the grading device.
the increase in attracting velocity. In the change process of Agglomeration and collision between particles enhanced.
attracting velocity from 0 to 3 m/s, the average separated Many small particles were mixed into the first discharged pipe
particle size gradually increased from 20 𝜇m to 260 𝜇m. The and then resulted in the relatively small average experimental
experimental results were consistent with the basic trend separated particle size.
80
Average separated particle size (m/s)

500
Separation efficiency (%)
70 400
300
60
200
50
100
40
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0
Jet flux (m3 /h) Attracting velocity (m/s)
Figure 11: Separation efficiencies under different jet fluxes. Experimental values
Theoretical values
80 Figure 14: Comparison of experimental and theoretical results.

70
(2) The force of various sizes of coal ash particles was
60 obtained through Matlab numerical simulations. By
solving the coal ash particle motion mathematical
50 model using Matlab, the separation conditions of
different sizes of coal ash particles were simulated.
40
And the theoretical airflow velocities of different par-
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 ticle size classification required were also determined.
Attracting flux (m3 /h) For coal ash particles of 10 𝜇m, 50 𝜇m, and 250 𝜇m,
their theoretical classification airflow velocities were
Figure 12: Separation efficiencies under different attracting fluxes. 0.3 m/s, 1.38 m/s, and 2.46 m/s, respectively.
(3) The shape of nozzle fluidization domain under dif-
90
ferent jet flux was simulated using Fluent software.
80
Taking the fluidization domain shape and the sepa-

70 ration efficiency into account, the optimal jet flux was
60 1.5 m3 /h.
50 (4) Under the premise of the theoretical simulation, a
40 coal ash collecting and grading device was estab-
30
lished. The influence of jet flux, attracting flux, and
separation time on separation efficiency was inves-
20 tigated. The optimal parameters were jet flux of
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Separation time (s) 1.5 m3 /h, attracting flux of 70 m3 /h, and separation
time of 15 s.
Figure 13: Separation efficiencies under different separation times.
(5) Theoretical values and experimental values of coal ash
particles medium diameter in the first separation exit
were compared. The reasons generating errors were
5. Conclusions analyzed. The trends of theoretical values and exper-
imental values were basically the same. It proved the
Numerical simulation and experimental research on a new correctness of theoretical simulation and its guiding
coal ash collecting and grading device were carried out. The function to the experiment device design.
following conclusions could be drawn.
(1) In the base of jet-attracting flow technology and gas- Conflict of Interests
solid two-phase flow theory, the force and motion
of coal ash particles in gas flow were analyzed. The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests
The particle motion could be simplified to a one- regarding the publication of this paper.
dimensional vertical movement. The following force
as gravity, buoyancy, pressure gradient force, traction Acknowledgments
resistance, and false mass force had influence on
particle movement. A mathematical model of coal ash This study was jointly supported by National Natural Science
particle motion was established. Foundation of China (nos. 21107011, 51178098, and 31371873)
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/627528
Research Article
Simulation of Microstructure during Laser Rapid Forming
Solidification Based on Cellular Automaton
Zhi-jian Wang,1 Shuai Luo,1 Hong-wu Song,2 Wei-dong Deng,1 and Wen-yi Li1
1
School of Mechatronics Engineering, Shenyang Aerospace University, Shenyang, Liaoning 110136, China
2
Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, Liaoning 110016, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Zhi-jian Wang; wangzhijian1974@sina.com
Received 9 June 2014; Accepted 15 July 2014; Published 5 August 2014
Copyright © 2014 Zhi-jian Wang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
The grain microstructure of molten pool during the solidification of TC4 titanium alloy in the single point laser cladding was
investigated based on the CAFE model which is the cellular automaton (CA) coupled with the finite element (FE) method. The
correct temperature field is the prerequisite for simulating the grain microstructure during the solidification of the molten pool.
The model solves the energy equation by the FE method to simulate the temperature distribution in the molten pool of the single
point laser cladding. Based on the temperature field, the solidification microstructure of the molten pool is also simulated with the
CAFE method. The results show that the maximum temperature in the molten pool increases with the laser power and the scanning
rate. The laser power has a larger influence on the temperature distribution of the molten pool than the scanning rate. During the
solidification of the molten pool, the heat at the bottom of the molten pool transfers faster than that at the top of the molten pool. The
grains rapidly grow into the molten pool, and then the columnar crystals are formed. This study has a very important significance
for improving the quality of the structure parts manufactured through the laser cladding forming.
1. Introduction the molten pool and the material features. With the devel-
opment of the computer science, the numerical simulation
Currently, the laser cladding technology has become the new technology is a good method to analyze the growth of grains
breakthrough of the complex structure parts for aviation in the solidification of molten pool. It contributes to revealing
manufacturing process. In the laser cladding technology, the evolution of microstructures and improving the quality of
the high input heat can make the surface of the substrate the workpiece in the laser cladding forming.
and the laser cladding material melt and then the molten The researches on the microstructure simulation have
pool is formed. It avoids the disadvantages of high machin- achieved many significant accomplishments since the end of
ing allowances in the traditional process, long computer the last century [5, 6]. Several kinds of calculation methods
numerically controlled (CNC) machining time, low material about nucleation and growth of the grains during the solid-
utilization, long production cycles and high manufacturing ification of materials were presented from these researches
cost [1–3]. Figure 1 is the principle of laser cladding forming. including deterministic modeling, stochastic modeling, and
In the process of laser cladding forming, the substrate is phase-field modeling [7]. Because of the determinacy of
heated by laser beam which results in melting the thin layer the deterministic modeling, it cannot simulate the random
of metal on the substrate surface. And then the molten pool growth of grains such as random nucleation and random
is formed with the powders offered by powder feeder [4]. crystal orientation. Phase-field modeling which avoids the
The solidification of the molten pool is a very complex difficulty of tracking the complex solid-liquid interface has
and unbalanced rapid solidification process. It is difficult disadvantages that slow computing speed, inefficiency, and
to observe the growth of grains during the solidification of small simulated area [8, 9].
molten pool experimentally because of the high temperature Cellular automaton (CA) which is a kinetic and stochastic
and the rapid solidification rate affected by the size of model scattered in time, space, and state has been widely
the finite element method was developed to simulate the

Laser
growth of the grain occurring in the molten pool during
Beam Powder feeder the single point laser cladding based on the temperature
Beam distribution.
assembled Mirror
system
2. Model Theory
Workpiece
2.1. Heat Transfer Model. The temperature distribution has a
Control
significant impact on the grain microstructure in the molten
systerm Workbench pool. The heat transfer model [15] used in this paper is shows
as follows:
Figure 1: Principle of the laser cladding forming. 𝜕𝑇 𝜕 𝜕𝑇 𝜕 𝜕𝑇 𝜕 𝜕𝑇
𝜌𝑐 = (𝑘 ) + (𝑘 ) + (𝑘 ) , (1)
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦 𝜕𝑦 𝜕𝑧 𝜕𝑧
where 𝜌 is the density, 𝑐 is the specific heat, 𝑇 is the
used in solidification and recrystallization of the material temperature, 𝑡 is the time, and 𝑥, 𝑦, and 𝑧 are the coordinates
science in recent decades [7]. Based on the solidification of the calculated area, respectively.
thermodynamic, grain nucleation, and growth kinetics, it can The enthalpy is defined in this paper to solve the release
simulate the growth of the grains in the solidification of the of the latent heat during the solidification of the molten pool:
molten pool and determine the locations of the nucleation 𝑇
and crystallization orientation. Cellular automaton has a 𝐻 (𝑇) = ∫ 𝑐𝑑𝑇 + 𝐿 (1 − 𝑓𝑠 ) , (2)
certain physical foundation. The simulated microstructure 0
is not dependent on the meshes of the model and the where 𝐻(𝑇) is the enthalpy, 𝐿 is the latent heat, and 𝑓𝑠 is the
computation speed is faster than other methods and the solid fraction.
computation area is larger.
Shang et al. [10] researched the various defects which 2.2. Nucleation. In terms of the nucleation of the solidi-
may be caused in forming parts on account of technical fication in the molten pool, the paper considers only the
parameters, equipment performance, material characteris- heterogeneous nucleation. For simulating the growth of the
tics, and other factors in the process of metal powder grain, a continuous nucleation model which was proposed
laser rapid forming. The results show that less or over by Rappaz and Gandin [16, 17] was used. The model assumes
accumulation resulting from powder feed delay is the main that the nucleation happens on a range of different nucle-
reason for affecting the dimensional accuracy of cladding ation locations. The continuous and nondiscrete distribution,
and the main reason which affects the appearance of surface 𝑑𝑛/𝑑(Δ𝑇), is used to describe the grain density increased
sticky powder is specific energy. Lin et al. [11] studied the with the increase of the undercooling. The total density of
solidification behavior and morphological evolution of 316L nucleation with a given Δ𝑇 is determined as follows:
stainless steel during laser rapid forming. It is found that
the sample completely consisted of columnar 𝛾 austenitic Δ𝑇
𝑑𝑛
dendrites which grow epitaxially from the base. Zhan et al. 𝑛 (Δ𝑇) = ∫ 𝑑 (Δ𝑇) . (3)
0 𝑑 (Δ𝑇)
[12] established a cellular automaton-finite difference model
and simulated the dendritic grains in the weld pool of Ni-Cr Gaussian distribution of nucleation sites is assumed to
binary alloy. The results reproduce the growth of secondary account for the heterogeneous nucleation in the molten pool:
and tertiary dendrite arms, the competitive growth and the
grain boundary segregation, and so forth. Seo et al. [13] 𝑑𝑛 𝑛max 1 Δ𝑇 − Δ𝑇max 2
= exp [− ( ) ], (4)
predicted the solidification of the grain structures in a Ni-base 𝑑 (Δ𝑇) √2𝜋Δ𝑇𝜎 2 Δ𝑇𝜎
superalloy based on a three-dimensional cellular automaton
model coupled with finite-element heat flow calculation. where 𝑛max is the maximum nucleation density, Δ𝑇𝜎 is the
An empirical relationship between the nucleation density standard deviation of the distribution, and Δ𝑇max is the
at the surface and the initial cooling time of the melt was mean nucleation undercooling. The locations of nucleation
proposed and applied to the input parameter in the model are chosen randomly among all the cellular automaton sites.
for describing the Gaussian distribution of nucleation sites Figure 2 shows the Gaussian distribution for nucleation sites.
at the mold surface. Yin and Felicelli [14] simulated the The parameters of the Gaussian distribution for nucle-
dendritic growth occurring in the molten pool during the ation sites have a deep effect on the growth of the grains. The
laser-engineered net shaping process. Based on the simu- area of the columnar crystal increases with the mean nucle-
lation results and experimental data, empirical expressions ation undercooling. The increase of the standard deviation
describing the relationship between the cooling rate and the undercooling results in the decrease of the grains which have
dendrite arm spacing were proposed. the minimum area but the uniformity of these grains deceases
In this paper, compared with the experimental micro- firstly and then increases. The maximum nucleation density
structures, a model combining the cellular automaton and contributes to the decrease of the grain size.
T i
dn/dT
Φi
ns [m−2 ]
2ΔTs,𝜎 ΔTs,max
Φj
n [m−3 ] j
Φk
2ΔT,𝜎 ΔT,max
Figure 3: CA cell, V, which has three nonzero interpolation

coefficients ΦV𝑖 , ΦV𝑗 , and ΦV𝑘 and finite element which has three
nodes 𝑖, 𝑗, and 𝑘.
Figure 2: Gaussian distribution for nucleation sites.
3. Coupling Principle of CAFE

2.3. Grain Growth. In the present paper, the Kurz-Giovanola-
Trivedi (KGT) model [16, 18] is used to describe the growth The finite element (FE) enmeshments can calculate the heat
kinetics of the grains. The model reasonably considers the flow and the temperature gradients in the laser rapid forming.
influence of the undercooling and the curvature of the grain Based on the result of the macroscopic finite element, the
tip on the growth velocity of grain tip. The model is described cellular automaton (CA) units which are square cells with
as follows: smaller sizes perform the calculations to simulate the growth
of the grains in the laser rapid forming. In order to combine
Δ𝑇 = Δ𝑇𝑐 + Δ𝑇𝑡 + Δ𝑇𝑟 + Δ𝑇𝑘 ,
the CA and FE calculations, three nonzero interpolation
𝑐∗ − 𝑐0 coefficients ΦV𝑖 , ΦV𝑗 , and ΦV𝑘 are defined between nodes of
Ω= , (5) the CA cells and FE meshes. A CA cell, V, has three nonzero
𝑐∗ (1 − 𝑘)
interpolation coefficients ΦV𝑖 , ΦV𝑗 , and ΦV𝑘 , respectively, in
the center of the finite element which has three nodes 𝑖,
𝑅 = 2𝜋VΓ√(𝑚𝐺𝑐 𝜉𝑐 − 𝐺),
𝑗, and 𝑘 in Figure 3. The nonzero interpolation coefficients
where Δ𝑇𝑐 , Δ𝑇𝑡 , Δ𝑇𝑟 , and Δ𝑇𝑘 are the undercoolings which can determine the temperature of the CA cell based on the
are associated to solute diffusion, thermal diffusion, growth surrounding three finite element nodes. The aim of this is to
kinetics, and curvature of the solid-liquid interface, respec- couple the CA and FE calculations and simulate the growth
tively. For most metallic alloys, the last three undercoolings of the grain as a function of the thermal field [19].
can be ignored. Ω is the solute supersaturation, 𝑅 is the radius Obviously, the temperature of the finite element units
of the grain tip, 𝑐0 is the initial concentration of the alloy has a deep effect on the temperature of the CA units. The
elements, 𝑐∗ is the liquidus concentration at the tip of the relationship on temperature between the finite element and
solid-liquid interface, 𝑘 is the partition coefficient, 𝑚 is the the cellular automaton is shown as follows [12]:
slope of the liquidus, Γ is the Gibbs-Thomson coefficient, 𝐺𝑐
is the liquidus solute concentration gradient at the tip of the ∑𝑁 −1
𝑖=1 𝑙𝑖 𝑇𝑖
𝑇𝑃 = , (8)
grain, and 𝐺 is the temperature gradient. ∑𝑁 −1
𝑖=1 𝑙𝑖
The relationship between the undercooling, Δ𝑇, and the
solute supersaturation, Ω, is shown as follows: where 𝑇𝑝 is the temperature of the cellular automaton unit, 𝑇𝑖
1 is the temperature of the finite element unit correlated with
Δ𝑇 = 𝑚𝑐0 [1 − ]. (6) cellular unit, 𝑙𝑖 is a distance from the cellular automaton to the
Ω (1 − 𝑘) finite element node, and 𝑁 is the number of the surrounding
In order to accelerate the calculation, the paper fitted the macroscope finite element nodes.
KGT model in the process of the realistic simulation. And
then the growth velocity of the grain tip can be obtained: 4. Simulation
2 3
V (Δ𝑇) = 𝑎2 Δ𝑇 + 𝑎3 Δ𝑇 , (7)
4.1. Geometry Model. Figure 4 shows the geometry model
where 𝑎2 and 𝑎3 are the coefficients of the polynomial and and mesh of the single point laser cladding. In order to
Δ𝑇 is the total undercooling of the grain. 𝑎2 and 𝑎3 can be improve the calculation precision, the size of the surface mesh
obtained from Table 1. is 0.1 mm in the area of molten pool and the size of the surface
Table 1: Calculation parameters of grain tip growth kinetics coefficients.
Elements Initial concentration Partition Liquidus slope Diffusion coefficient Gibbs-Thomson

𝑐0 (%) coefficient 𝑘 𝑚𝑙 (∘ C/wt%) in liquid 𝐷𝑙 (m2 /s) coefficient (K⋅m)
Al 6.1 0.9 −1190
V 4.2 0.8 −1500 10−9 2 × 10−7
Fe 0.15 0.07 −2000
Y
X
Figure 4: Geometry model and mesh of the single point laser cladding.
mesh on the base is 0.5 mm. And then the volume mesh where ℎ is the heat transfer coefficient, 𝑇𝑓 is the surrounding
can be generated automatically. The total number of nodes temperature, and 𝑇𝐵 is the surface temperature on the
is 32653 and the number of elements is 172478. boundary of the solving area.
4.2. Thermophysical Parameters. In order to ensure the accu-

racy of the results in the simulation of the grain growth, the
5. Results and Discussion
parameter database is created about the material of the solved 5.1. Temperature Field. The correct temperature field is the
model. The material used in this study is TC4 titanium alloy prerequisite for simulating the grains microstructure during
including 6.1 wt% Al, 4.2 wt% V, and few impurity elements. the solidification of the molten pool. Figure 6 shows the
The liquidus temperature is 1718∘ C and the solidus temper- temperature distribution on conditions that the laser power
ature is 1649∘ C. The material physical properties including is 2000 W and the scanning time is 3 s. The molten pool is
conductivity, density, enthalpy, and fraction-solid are shown symmetric because of the constant input laser power. It has
in Figure 5. the larger temperature distribution on the 𝑍 direction.
In order to illustrate the temperature distribution in the
4.3. Boundary Conditions. The energy transfers from the single point laser cladding, the temperature at different posi-
molten pool to the surroundings in single point laser cladding tions on the 𝑍 direction is analyzed in the Figures 7 and 8.
through the base. The temperature field is three-dimensional Figure 7 is the temperature curves at different parts in
erratic heat-transfer model in the solidification of the molten the molten pool during the single point laser cladding. From
pool. The temperature distribution at a time is selected as the 0 to 3 second, the base is heated and the powder is melted
initial condition [16]: with the scanning of the laser beam, and then the molten
󵄨 pool is formed. The highest temperature of the molten pool
𝑇 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧, 𝑡)󵄨󵄨󵄨𝐵 = 𝑇0 = 20, (9) rises to nearly 2150∘ C from 25∘ C. Figure 8 is the temperature
curves at different positions during the solidification of the
where 𝐵 is the boundary of the solving area and 𝑇0 is the initial molten pool. Temperature at positions 1, 2, and 3 drops after
temperature (room temperature). 3.0 second while the temperature at the positions 4 and 5 still
The heat convection between the solving model and the rises because the heat at positions 1, 2, and 3 transferring to
surrounding fluid medium is another boundary condition in positions 4 and 5 makes the temperature at positions 4 and
the heat transfer process [20]. The heat transfer coefficient is 5 increase. At 3.2 second, the temperature drops down to the
10 W/m2 ⋅ ∘ C and the surrounding temperature is 20∘ C: 1718∘ C which illustrates the molten pool beginning to solidify.
The temperature between 3.3 second and 3.6 second is not
𝜕𝑇 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 󵄨
−𝜆 󵄨 = ℎ (𝑇 − 𝑇𝑓 )󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨𝐵 = 10 (𝑇𝐵 − 20) , (10) changed because of the release of the latent heat which makes
𝜕𝑛 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝐵 the energy balance. After 3.6 second, the temperature drops
40 4400
37 4340
34 4280
31 4220
Conductivity (W/(m·k))
Density (kg/m3 )
28 4160
25 4100
22 4040
19 3980
16 3920
13 3860
10 3800
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
Temperature (∘ C) Temperature (∘ C)
(a) (b)
2000 1.0
1700 0.9
1400 0.8
1100 0.7
Enthalpy (KJ/Kg)
800 0.6
Fraction-solid
500 0.5
200 0.4
−100 0.3
−400 0.2
−700 0.1
−1000 0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 1650 1658 1666 1674 1682 1690 1698 1706 1714 1722 1730
Temperature (∘ C) Temperature (∘ C)
(c) (d)
Figure 5: Thermophysical perimeters of TC4 titanium alloy, (a) conductivity, (b) density, (c) enthalpy, and (d) fraction.
2118.4 rapidly. The whole solidification time is about 0.4 s which

1978.8
1839.2 confirms the rapid solidification in the laser cladding.
1699.6
1560.0 Figures 9 and 10 show the temperature distribution curves
1420.4
1280.8 on the 𝑍 direction with different laser powers and laser
1141.1
1001.5 scanning time. The maximum temperature in the molten
861.9
722.3 pool increases with the laser power and the scanning rate.
582.7
Z
443.1 The laser power has a larger influence on the temperature
303.5
X 163.9 distribution of the molten pool than the scanning rate, while
Y 24.3
c the temperature of the heat-affected zone and the base are
little affected by the laser power. On condition of the constant
Figure 6: Temperature distribution on conditions that the laser scanning time, the range of the maximum temperature is
power is 2000 W and the scanning time is 3 s. from 1894∘ C to 2445∘ C.
2500 2500
2000 2000
Temperature (∘ C)
Temperature (∘ C)
1500
1500
1000
1000
500
500
0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 0
Time (s) 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0
1 4 The distance from the center of the molten pool
2 5 on Z direction (mm)
3 6 P = 1600 W P = 2000 W
P = 1800 W P = 2200 W
Figure 7: Temperature curves at different parts in the molten pool
during the single point laser cladding. Figure 9: Temperature distribution curves on the 𝑍 direction with
different laser powers.
2200
2100 2500
2000
1900 2000
Temperature (∘ C)
Temperature (∘ C)
1800
1700 1500
1600
1000
1500
1400
500
1300
1200 0
3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 4.0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0
Time (s)
The distance from the center of the molten pool
1 4 on Z direction (mm)
t = 3s
2 5
t = 5s
3 6
t = 7s
Figure 8: Temperature curves at different positions in the molten
Figure 10: Temperature distribution curves on the 𝑍 direction with
pool during the solidification.
different laser scanning time.
5.2. Microstructure of the Grains. Based on the CAFE model,

the grain microstructure was simulated during the solidifica- the surrounding medium. The cells on the wall of the molten
tion of TC4 titanium alloy in the single point laser cladding. pool grow up to the grains which are random orientation
The laser power is 2000 W and the scanning time is 3 s. in the way of the heterogeneous nucleation. During the
The growth of the grain has a close relationship with the process of the grain growth, the faster growing grains are
temperature distribution of the molten pool in the single perpendicular to the temperature gradients in the molten
point laser cladding. Figure 11 shows the simulation results pool. The grains on the other directions were inhibited to
of the grain microstructure at 3.3 s, 3.4 s, 3.5 s, and 3.6 s, grow. The maximum temperature gradient in the molten pool
respectively. The height of the molten pool is 0.597 mm and is 2500 × 106∘ C/m. So the grains rapidly grow into the molten
the radius of the molten pool is 1.367 mm. Different colors pool and then the columnar crystals are formed. Figure 12 is
represent different grains which grow from the bottom of the fraction solid of the molten pool during the solidification
the molten pool. There are four grains in this section. The at 3.0 s, 3.1 s, 3.3 s, and 3.6 s. It also shows the process of the
simulative mean radius of the grains, 0.138 mm, is close to the solidification of the molten pool.
experimental result, 0.15 mm. Figure 13(a) is the experimental microstructure of the
At the beginning of the solidification, the heat at the global molten pool. Compared with Figure 11(d), it can be
bottom of the molten pool transfers faster than that at the seen that the simulated results are similar to the experi-
top of the molten pool because the bottom contacts with the mental results. As the solidification continues, there are only
microthermal base while the top of the pool is exposed in columnar crystals appearing and growing bigger because of
(a) 𝑡 = 3.3 s (b) 𝑡 = 3.4 s
(c) 𝑡 = 3.5 s (d) 𝑡 = 3.6 s
Figure 11: Simulation results of the grain microstructure at different times, (a) 3.3 s, (b) 3.4 s, (c) 3.5 s, and (d) 3.6 s.
1.0
0.9
0.8
Z Z
0.7
X X
Y Y 0.6
(a) t = 3.0 s (b) t = 3.1 s
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
Z Z
X
Y X
Y
0.0
(c) t = 3.3 s (d) t = 3.6 s
Figure 12: Fraction solid of the molten pool during the solidification at different times, (a) 3.0 s, (b) 3.1 s, (c) 3.3 s, and (d) 3.6 s.
the high cooling rate in the molten pool. Figure 13(b) is the Table 2: Depths of the molten pools on different laser process
experimental microstructure of the local molten pool. parameters (unit: mm).
In the laser cladding forming experiments, the input laser
Laser power
energy varies in different process parameters which have the Scanning time
great influence on the depths of the molten pools. Based on P = 1600 W P = 1800 W P = 2000 W P = 2200 W
the microstructure experiments; Table 2 shows the depths of t = 3s 0.305 0.358 0.579 0.595
the molten pools on different laser process parameters. The t = 5s 0.516 0.411 0.653 0.668
depths of the molten pools increase with the laser power and t = 7s 0.589 0.600 0.726 0.740
the scanning rate. The range of the depths is from 0.305 mm
to 0.740 mm.
On condition of the constant scanning time, the
6. Conclusions range of the maximum temperature is from 1894∘ C
to 2445∘ C with the increase of the laser power. In
(1) The paper established the CAFE model to simulate addition, the laser power has a larger influence on
the grain structure during the solidification of Ti-6Al- the temperature of the molten pool than the scanning
4V alloy in the molten pool of the single point laser rate.
cladding. The model solves the heat transfer equation (3) The growth of the grain has a close relationship with
in the molten pool by FE method to calculate the the temperature distribution of the molten pool in
temperature distribution. And then the growth of the the single point laser cladding. During the process
grains in the molten pool was simulated based on the of the grain growth, the faster growing grains are
temperature field. perpendicular to the temperature gradients in the
(2) The maximum temperature in the molten pool molten pool. As the solidification continues, the
increases with the laser power and the scanning rate. columnar crystals grow bigger and there is little sign
200 𝜇m 100 𝜇m
(a) (b)
Figure 13: (a) Experimental microstructure of the global molten pool; (b) experimental microstructure of the local molten pool.
of the isometric crystals. The mean radius of the method,” Journal of Inner Mongolia University of Science and
grains in the simulation is 0.138 mm. Technology, vol. 27, no. 1, 2003.
(4) This study has very important significance for [6] W. Qi, J. Zhang, B. Wang et al., “Three-dimensional simula-
tion of solidified microstructure of Fe-C alloy with cellular
improving the quality of the structure parts manufac-
automaton-finite element method,” The Chinese Journal of
tured from the laser cladding forming and the future Process Engineering, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 64–67, 2008.
related research work. The CAFE model is a useful [7] S. Bo-wei, W. Lei, L. Xin, and W. Wei-dong, “Progresses in
tool for studying the solidification microstructure numerical simulation of solidification microstructure using
changing in the laser cladding forming. cellular automaton method,” Foundry, vol. 55, no. 5, pp. 439–
443, 2006.
Conflict of Interests [8] B.-C. Liu and T. Xing, Simulation and Quality Control in Casting
Engineering, China Machine Press, 2001.
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests [9] Y. Yu and G. Yang, “Research development of microstructure
regarding the publication of this paper. numerical simulation in the solidification,” vol. 3, pp. 30–33,
2002.
[10] X. F. Shang, Z. J. Wang, D. X. Han, and Z. T. Xie, “Research
Acknowledgments on defects of titanium alloy laser rapid forming,” Advanced
Materials Research, vol. 189–193, pp. 3726–3730, 2011.
This research is supported by the National Natural Science
[11] X. Lin, H.-O. Yang, J. Chen, and W.-D. Huang, “Microstructure
Foundation of China (no. 51205261). The authors appreciate
evolution of 316L stainless steel during laser rapid forming,”
the Key Laboratory of Fundamental Science for National
Acta Metallurgica Sinica, vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 361–368, 2006.
Defense of Aeronautical Digital Manufacturing Process and
[12] X. Zhan, Z. Dong, Y. Wei, and Y. Wang, “Simulation of columnar
Shenyang Aerospace University. dendrite grain growth in weld pool of Ni-Cr binary alloy,” The
Chinese Journal of Nonferrous Metals, vol. 19, no. 8, pp. 1431–
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/502902
Research Article
Application of CFD, Taguchi Method, and
ANOVA Technique to Optimize Combustion and
Emissions in a Light Duty Diesel Engine
Senlin Xiao, Wanchen Sun, Jiakun Du, and Guoliang Li

State Key Laboratory of Automotive Simulation and Control, Jilin University, Changchun 130022, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Wanchen Sun; sunwc@jlu.edu.cn
Received 9 April 2014; Accepted 11 July 2014; Published 24 July 2014
Copyright © 2014 Senlin Xiao et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
Some previous research results have shown that EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) rate, pilot fuel quantity, and main injection timing
closely associated with engine emissions and fuel consumption. In order to understand the combined effect of EGR rate, pilot fuel
quantity, and main injection timing on the NO𝑥 (oxides of nitrogen), soot, and ISFC (indicated specific fuel consumption), in this
study, CFD (computational fluid dynamics) simulation together with the Taguchi method and the ANOVA (analysis of variance)
technique was applied as an effective research tool. At first, simulation model on combustion and emissions of a light duty diesel
engine at original baseline condition was developed and the model was validated by test. At last, a confirmation experiment with
the best combination of factors and levels was implemented. The study results indicated that EGR is the most influencing factor
on NO𝑥 . In case of soot emission and ISFC, the greatest influence parameter is main injection timing. For all objectives, pilot fuel
quantity is an insignificant factor. Furthermore, the engine with optimized combination reduces by at least 70% for NO𝑥 , 20% in
soot formation, and 1% for ISFC, in contrast to original baseline engine.
1. Introduction in controlling the emissions and fuel economy [1–3, 10, 11].
However, the decreased experimental numbers still spend a
Because of robust design and high thermal efficiency, diesel lot of time and money.
engines increasingly and widely are applied to many power On the other hand, current multidimensional CFD tools
equipments, including light duty, medium duty, and heavy have become sufficiently mature to guide the design and
duty vehicles [1, 2]. However, under the pressure of environ- development of more efficient and cleaner internal com-
mental pollution and energy crisis, diesel engine performance bustion engines [4]. Indeed, simulation models can provide
is being continuously enhanced in order to pursue a higher insight into the fundamental processes occurring during
power density, improve fuel economy, and reduce emissions combustion [12]. For example, Mobasheri et al. [13] success-
characteristics to meet more stringent emissions regulations fully used a CFD simulation to explore the combined effects
[1, 3–6]. of pilot, post- and multiple-fuel injection strategies and EGR
There are many factors that will affect the combustion on engine performance and emission formation in a heavy
and emissions of diesel engines, due to the fact that the duty DI-diesel engine. They found that injecting adequate fuel
combustion process and emission formation are a process in postinjection at an appropriate EGR allows significant soot
of complex physical and chemical action. Taguchi method is reduction without a NO𝑥 penalty rate.
one of the efficient and cost-effective methods to parametric In addition, numerous studies have shown that EGR
analysis and optimization performance of objectives with a rate, pilot fuel quantity, and main injection timing associated
remarkable decrease in number of trials and time involved with engine NO𝑥 , soot emissions and fuel consumption [1–
[7–9]. Thus, the combination of test and Taguchi method is 3, 10, 11, 13]. It is necessary to conduct an in-depth study in
an effective way to investigate the effect of different factors order to understand these three factors on the relationship
Flame propagation z
u = unburned gases b = burned gases x
y
A = unmixed air Turbulent mixing
(+EGR) Au Ab
M = mixed air and fuel Mu Mb Burnt gases

Turbulent mixing
F = unmixed fuel Fu Fb
Auto-ignition Premixed flame Diffusion flame

Figure 2: Mesh of the simulation model on the TDC.
(oxidation) (oxidation + pollutant formation)
Figure 1: Principle of the ECFM3Z model.

Table 1: Computational submodels.
Breakup model KH-RT model

Evaporation model Dukowicz model
with emissions and fuel consumption. Hence, in this study, Collision model Nordin model
CFD simulation together with the Taguchi method was Wall interaction model Bai Gosman model
used to investigate the combined effect of EGR rate, pilot
fuel quantity, and main injection timing on the NO𝑥 , soot,
and ISFC in a diesel engine at 2000 r/min, 50% load, with The extended Zeldovich mechanism is widely accepted
minimum number of experimental work. Moreover, for as a successful method for predicting NO concentration.
purpose of determining the effects of influencing factors on Chemical reactions are given by [6, 17]
the objectives, the ANOVA technique was applied to analyze
simulation results. 𝜅1
O + N2 ←→ NO + N (3)
𝜅2
2. Computational Procedure, Model N + O2 ←→ NO + N (4)
Validation, and Methodology 𝜅3
N + OH ←→ NO + H (5)
2.1. Computational Procedure. The multidimensional CFD
calculations were carried out with the commercial CFD where 𝜅1 , 𝜅2 , and 𝜅3 are the rate of reaction; the unit is
package AVL FIRE. The turbulent combustion model is cm3 /mol⋅s.
ECFM-3Z (extended coherent flame model-3 zones), which The Soot emission is calculated using the kinetic model,
includes a description of the local mixture stratification by which contains a reduced number of species and reactions
considering three mixing zones (see Figure 1): the unmixed and has been developed in order to provide a computationally
fuel zone F, the mixed zone M containing fuel and air, and the efficient kinetic overall soot model [16]. Table 1 presents
unmixed air zone A. Each region is separated into two parts: several submodels used in present simulation model [13, 18].
unburned gases region and burned gases region [14, 15]. For Because of the symmetry of the combustion chamber and
turbulent combustion phenomena, the ECFM-3Z model uses the injector at the center of the combustion chamber has 6
a 2-step chemistry mechanism for the fuel conversion like [16] nozzle holes, the simulations were performed on one sixth of
the combustion chamber for reducing calculation time. The
mesh of the simulation model on the top dead center was
𝛽 𝛾 𝛽
C𝛼 H𝛽 O𝛾 + (𝛼 + − ) O2 󳨀→ 𝛼CO2 + H2 O (1) shown in Figure 2.
4 2 2
2.2. Model Validation. The engine used in this study was
𝛼 𝛾 𝛽 a light duty, 4 cylinders, four stroke, turbocharging, water-
C𝛼 H𝛽 O𝛾 + ( − ) O2 󳨀→ 𝛼CO + H2 (2)
2 2 2 cooled diesel engine. Specifications of simulated engine were
listed in Table 2. The experimental system was shown in
Figure 3. The in-cylinder pressure was measured using a
where 𝛼, 𝛽, and 𝛾 are the atomic number of C, H, and O Kistler 6125B quartz crystal pressure sensor and an ONO
elements, respectively. SOKKI DS-9100 Combustion analyzer was used to analyze
The 𝑘-𝜁-𝑓 turbulent model is used for modeling turbulent the in-cylinder pressure. The NO𝑥 emissions were measured
flow in the combustion chamber. Hanjalić et al. developed with a HORIBA MEXA-7100D exhaust gas analyzer. Smoke
this model. They proposed an eddy viscosity model based was measured by smoke meter.
on the concept of Durbin’s elliptic relaxation, which solves The simulated original baseline condition of light duty
a transport equation for the velocity scales ratio 𝜁 = V2 /𝑘 diesel engine was actuated at 2000 r/min, 50% load with
instead of V2 , thus increasing the robustness of the model, a pilot injection included in injection strategy. Table 3 lists
reducing the sensitivity to nonuniform grids [17]. initial conditions and input parameters for simulation.
18 13
14
21
20
19 17
15
12
7
6 16
1 2 5
3
8 9 10 11
Figure 3: Schematic of experimental setup. (1) Dynamometer controller; (2) dynamometer; (3) charge amplifier; (4) PC control; (5) pressure
sensor; (6) engine; (7) encoder; (8) intake cooler; (9) Compressor; (10) gas flow meter; (11) air cleaner; (12) exhaust gas analyzer; (13) smoke
meter; (14) turbine; (15) EGR valve; (16) EGR cooler; (17) ECU; (18) PC control; (19) common rail; (20) fuel flow meter; (21) fuel tank.
Table 2: Engine specifications. was used for the cylinder wall. From Figures 4 and 5, it
can be seen that good agreement was achieved between
Bore (mm) 93 experimental and simulation results. Although there are still
Stroke (mm) 102 some differences between simulation and test, Mobasheri
Compression ratio 17.2 et al. [13] considered that these variances related to testing
Swirl ratio 2 uncertainties in input parameters for the simulations, for
Number of nozzle holes 6 instance, the precise injection duration, start of injection
Number of cylinders 4 timing, and gas temperature at intake valve closure.
Displacement (L) 2.771
Intake valve closure (CAD) 595 2.3. Taguchi Method. Instead of having to test all possible
Exhaust valve opening (CAD) 846 combinations of design parameters, the Taguchi method
tests the special combinations according to arrangements
of orthogonal arrays (OA), in order to obtain the optimal
Table 3: Calculation conditions. combination and save time and expenses [9, 19, 20]. Another
Intake temperature (IVC) (K) 330 important feature of Taguchi method is the signal-to-noise
Intake pressure (IVC) (MPa) 0.151 (𝑆/𝑁) ratio employed as a measure of the impact of noise
Engine speed (r/min) 2000 factors on performance. In this study, EGR rate, pilot fuel
quantity, and main injection timing were considered as the
EGR rate 7%
influencing factors. In addition, NO𝑥 emission, soot emis-
Start of pilot injection (∘ BTDC) 19
sion, and ISFC are the response variables of the influencing
Start of main injection (∘ ATDC) 1 factors. Therefore, the smaller-the-better characteristics of
Fuel injection quantity (mg/cycle) 25 𝑆/𝑁 ratio are used in the present study. 𝑆/𝑁 ratio is calculated
as depicted in the following formula:
TDC (top dead center) on the compression stroke was 1 𝑛 2

𝑆/𝑁 = −10 log (∑ 𝑦 ) , (6)
defined as 720 CAD (crank angle degree). To ensure the 𝑛 𝑖=1 𝑖
intake air mass amount was equal to the actual quantity of
inlet air, the intake air temperature obtained after several where 𝑦𝑖 is the value of the quality characteristic measured
adjustments was set to 330 K at IVC (intake valve closure). from the test and 𝑛 is the number of experiments. The unit of
The well-justified assumptions were applied such that an 𝑆/𝑁 ratio is dB [2, 9, 19, 20].
entire piston surface, cylinder head, and cylinder wall are In present study, a L9 orthogonal array for three factors
at constant temperature. Constant temperature of 500 K was and three levels was chosen and given in Table 4. The details
used for the piston surface and cylinder head, and 400 K of three levels of the chosen factors are given in Table 5.
Table 4: Taguchi’s L9 orthogonal arrays. 9
Column 2 Column 3
Trial Column 1
(pilot fuel (main injection
Pressure (MPa)
number (EGR rate) 6
quantity) timing)
1 1 1 1
2 1 2 2
3
3 1 3 3
4 2 1 2
5 2 2 3 0
690 720 750 780 810
6 2 3 1
Crank angle (CAD)
7 3 1 3
8 3 2 1 Test
Simulation
9 3 3 2
Figure 4: Comparison of calculated and measured on cylinder
pressure.
Table 5: Factors with chosen levels.
90
Levels of factors
Factors
Heat release rate (J/CAD)

1 2 3
EGR rate 7% 17% 27%
60
Pilot fuel quantity 7.2% 17.2% 27.2%
Main injection timing 4∘ CA BTDC 1∘ CA ATDC 6∘ CA ATDC
30
In Table 4 columns 1, 2, and 3 represent the EGR rate, the pilot

0
fuel quantity, and main injection timing, respectively. 690 720 750 780 810
EGR rate used in this work was calculated by the concen- Crank angle (CAD)
tration of carbon dioxide in intake and exhaust gas through
Test
the following equation: Simulation
Figure 5: Comparison of calculated and measured on heat release

[CO2 ]inlet rate.
EGR = × 100%. (7)
[CO2 ]exhaust
be considered to decide the optimized combination and it is
calculated through (11) as follows [2, 9, 19, 20]:
Definition of pilot fuel quantity was the proportion of an
existing fuel quantity in pilot injection, which accounted for 1 9
the total cycle fuel injection quantity. 𝑆/𝑁 = ∑ (𝑆/𝑁)𝑘 , (8)
9 𝑘=1
9
2
2.4. ANOVA Technique. ANOVA is an analytical method SS = ∑ ((𝑆/𝑁)𝑖𝑗 − 𝑆/𝑁) , (9)
that identifies the factor which shows a large dispersion by 𝑖=1
analyzing the dispersion of the characteristic value of each
3
factor [20]. In this study, the data from CFD simulation 2
SS𝑖 = ∑ ((𝑆/𝑁)𝑖𝑗 − 𝑆/𝑁) , (10)
results based on the orthogonal arrays can be analyzed by 𝑗=1
performing analysis of variance to illustrate the degree of
importance of each factor that prominently influenced the SS𝑖
response variables [11, 19, 20]. The corresponding mathemati- Contribution% = × 100%. (11)
SS
cal statements established with ANOVA for present study are
given in (8), (9), (10), and (11). Equation (8) expresses the 3. Results and Discussion
mean value of the overall 𝑆/𝑁, where 𝑘 is the number of the
trials. The sums of squares due to the variations of the overall 3.1. CFD Computational Results. After conducting the CFD
mean (SS) is calculated by (9). The mean of the influencing simulation with the combination of influencing factors from
factors (SS𝑖 ) is expressed as (10). The percentage contribution L9 OA, the computational results of response variables were
of the individual factors on the chosen response variables will shown in Table 1. The results derived from the calculated mass
Table 6: Calculated normalized results of response variables. 7
Trial number NO𝑥 Soot ISFC 4
S/N ratio (dB)

1 1.0876 0.5770 0.9822 1
2 0.6593 0.8876 1.0000
3 0.3268 1.8455 1.0251 −2
4 0.5788 1.0485 1.0042 −5

5 0.3426 1.8547 1.0356
−8
6 0.5966 0.6473 0.9942 1 2 3
7 0.2403 2.2587 1.0592 Levels
8 0.2637 0.7622 0.9906
EGR rate Main injection timing
9 0.1129 1.5820 1.0079 Pilot injection quantity
Figure 7: 𝑆/𝑁 response curves for soot.

16
12 0.15
S/N ratio (dB)
8 0
S/N ratio (dB)

4
−0.15
0
1 2 3 −0.3
Levels
EGR rate Main injection timing −0.45

1 2 3
Pilot injection quantity
Levels
Figure 6: 𝑆/𝑁 response curves for NO𝑥 .
EGR rate Main injection timing
Pilot injection quantity
Figure 8: 𝑆/𝑁 response curves for ISFC.

formation divided by the calculated IMEP (indicated mean
effective pressure), then they were normalized as discussed
by Hajireza et al. [21], in respect to the corresponding value injection timing decreases in-cylinder peak heat release rate
for original baseline case in order to see a comparable result. and peak temperature, which lead to a reduction in NO𝑥 [22].
As for pilot injection, it can shorten the ignition delay and
3.2. Analysis of 𝑆/𝑁 Response Curves. Table 7 shows the raise the in-cylinder temperature before main combustion,
𝑆/𝑁 ratios for each factor computed in the Taguchi process thus avoiding the rapid heat release rate and increasing the
and based on the results of Table 6. From the Table 7, gas temperature too quickly. Accordingly, the NO𝑥 emissions,
the combination which has the maximum 𝑆/𝑁 ratio was which have a close relationship with temperature, can be
considered as the best combination in achieving the optimum reduced [23]. For further analysis and discussion we will draw
objective since as the assessment of quality characteristics, the on ANOVA technique in the following sections.
larger 𝑆/𝑁 value, and the better results of response variables It is observed from Figure 7 that the optimum factors are
[11]. The 𝑆/𝑁 response curves are graphical expressions of at 7% EGR rate, 17.2% pilot fuel quantity and 4∘ CA BTDC
change in response variables with the variation in influencing (Before Top Dead Center) main injection timing. For pilot
factor level. The Figures 6, 7, and 8 show the response curves fuel quantity, the maximum 𝑆/𝑁 ratio in Figures 7 and 8
of Taguchi experiment. In fact, 𝑆/𝑁 ratio in Figures 6, 7, and 8 appears in corresponding point that at level 2. This illustrates
is the value of corresponding (𝑆/𝑁)𝑖𝑗 , which have considered that it is necessary to choose proper pilot fuel quantity
the mean effect of each levels in each factor. 𝑈, 𝑉, and 𝑊 for optimizing combustion process in-cylinder. Since the
in Tables 7 and 8 represent EGR rate, pilot fuel quantity, and change in pilot fuel quantity changes the fuel concentration
main injection timing, respectively. distribution, this may result in two different effects, either
As it can be seen from Figure 6, the peak point of each enhancing or deteriorating fuel-air mixing [24]. In addition,
factor occurs at the EGR rate of 27%, pilot fuel quantity it is found that EGR rate and main injection timing have
of 27.2%, and main injection timing of 6∘ CA ATDC (after the same effect for soot emissions. In other words, with
top dead center), respectively. It is obvious that the 𝑆/𝑁 EGR rate increasing and main injection timing retarding,
ratio of factor EGR rate varies largely and three factors the soot emissions increased. It is also illustrated that EGR
show a consistent trend in affecting the NO𝑥 varying with and main injection timing have a contrary influence for
the level. The reason is that EGR has been proved to be a soot emissions as compared to NO𝑥 emissions. This effect is
very effective NO𝑥 reduction technique and retarded main attributed to the introduced high level EGR in combustion
Table 7: 𝑆/𝑁 ratio results.
Factors Levels Trial number 𝑆/𝑁 ratio (𝑆/𝑁)𝑖𝑗

(𝑖) (𝑗) (𝑘) NO𝑥 Soot ISFC NO𝑥 Soot ISFC
1 −0.7297 4.7766 0.1561 4.2013 0.1633 −0.0199
7% 2 3.6189 1.0356 0.0000
3 9.7148 −5.3225 −0.2157
4 4.7500 −0.4114 −0.0363 6.1800 −0.6665 −0.0967
𝑈 17% 5 9.3041 −5.3657 −0.3040
6 4.4859 3.7776 0.0502
7 12.3834 −7.0773 −0.4995 14.3029 −2.9007 −0.1617
27% 8 11.5794 2.3591 0.0823
9 18.9458 −3.9839 −0.0680
1 −0.7297 4.7766 0.1561 5.4679 −0.9040 −0.1266
7.20% 4 4.7500 −0.4114 −0.0363
7 12.3834 −7.0773 −0.4995
2 3.6189 1.0356 0.0000 8.1674 −0.6570 −0.0739
𝑉 17.20% 5 9.3041 −5.3657 −0.3040
8 11.5794 2.3591 0.0823
3 9.7148 −5.3225 −0.2157 11.0488 −1.8429 −0.0778
27.20% 6 4.4859 3.7776 0.0502
9 18.9458 −3.9839 −0.0680
1 −0.7297 4.7766 0.1561 5.1118 3.6378 0.0962
4∘ CA BTDC 6 4.4859 3.7776 0.0502
8 11.5794 2.3591 0.0823
2 3.6189 1.0356 0.0000 9.1049 −1.1199 −0.0348
𝑊 1∘ CA ATDC 4 4.7500 −0.4114 −0.0363
9 18.9458 −3.9839 −0.0680
3 9.7148 −5.3225 −0.2157 10.4674 −5.9218 −0.3397
4∘ CA ATDC 5 9.3041 −5.3657 −0.3040
7 12.3834 −7.0773 −0.4995
Table 8: Results of ANOVA.

SS𝑖 Contribution %
Factors 𝑆/𝑁 SS
NO𝑥 Soot ISFC NO𝑥 Soot ISFC
𝑈 8.228 274.32 57.3127 5.0226 0.0101 20.9 3.23 2.88
𝑉 −1.1347 155.39 15.5789 0.783 0.0017 5.7 0.5 0.49
𝑊 −0.0928 0.3506 15.4943 45.693 0.1001 5.6 29.41 28.54
chamber giving rise to the reduction in oxygen availability main injection timing) on the NO𝑥 emissions, soot emissions,
for fuel combustion, and the retarded main injection would and ISFC of a light duty diesel engine, the ANOVA was
weaken atomization and vaporization of the injected fuel; carried out and the results were shown in Table 8. Note that
furthermore, those will lead to incomplete combustion and the calculation results of Table 8 depended on the results in
increase in soot emission [25]. Table 7.
Figure 8 shows plots of the 𝑆/𝑁 ratio of ISFC against EGR As shown in the Table 8, percentage contributions of
rate, pilot fuel quantity, and main injection timing. As is seen, EGR rate, pilot fuel quantity, and main injection timing were
the results show the same trend as Figure 7. This means that 20.9%, 5.7%, and 5.6%, respectively, for NO𝑥 emissions. In
the soot emissions and ISFC can be reduced simultaneously the case of soot emissions, the percentage contributions of
by selecting the same factors and levels. EGR rate, pilot fuel quantity, and main injection timing were
3.23%, 0.5%, and 29.41% respectively. In addition, with regard
to ISFC, percentage contributions of EGR rate, pilot fuel
3.3. Application of ANOVA. In order to determine the effects quantity, and main injection timing were 2.88%, 0.49%, and
of influencing factors (pilot fuel quantity, EGR rate, and 28.54%, respectively.
3
2.7
2.4
2.1
1.8
1.5
1.2
0.9
0.6
0.3
0
Equivalence ratio at end of the main Equivalence ratio at end of the main
Specification injection (optimum) injection (original)
0.00025
0.000225
0.0002
0.000175
0.00015
0.000125
0.0001
7.5e − 005
5e − 005
2.5e − 005
0
Specification In-cylinder NOx distributions at 55, ATDC (optimum) In-cylinder NOx distributions at 55, ATDC (original)
0.00035
0.000315
0.00028
0.000245
0.00021
0.000175
0.00014
0.000105
7e − 005
3.5e − 005
0
Specification In-cylinder soot distributions at 55, ATDC (optimum) In-cylinder soot distributions at 55, ATDC (original)
Figure 9: Comparison of equivalence ratio and emission distributions between optimized and original case.
The main objective of percentage contributions is to have approximately the same level of influence on the NO𝑥
analyze engine influencing parameters which significantly emissions, as shown in Table 8.
affect the performance characteristics. The larger value of Based on Table 8, it also can be seen that the greatest
percentage contributions means that the factor has a greater influence of the soot and ISFC is exhibited main injection
influence on the response variable. It can be observed that timing, then EGR rate, and pilot fuel quantity. In view of the
EGR is the most influencing factor on NO𝑥 . When compared fact that the percentage contributions of pilot fuel quantity
with EGR, the other influencing parameters had slight influ- is almost close to zero, it can be considered that pilot fuel
ence for NO𝑥 control, though retarded injection has been quantity is almost insignificant in case of soot and ISFC,
recognized as an effective way to reduce NO𝑥 emissions by compared to main injection timing and EGR. This is because
retarding the combustion phase which reduces the peak tem- the pilot fuel quantity is smaller than the injected fuel in main
perature in-cylinder resulting in suppressing the molecules injection, so the emissions caused by the pilot injection can be
of oxygen and nitrogen combine. Temperature and oxygen ignored in most cases and the total emissions simply relied on
concentration play a crucial role in the formation of oxides the main combustion [27].
of nitrogen. On the other hand, EGR can reduce the peak
flame temperature and oxygen concentration at the same
time. Those factors can further illustrate that, as compared to 3.4. Optimum Combination. Based on the analysis of 𝑆/𝑁
other influencing parameters, EGR is a very effective control response curves and results of ANOVA, it is concluded
technique for decreasing NO𝑥 [1, 26]. In addition, the two that in the case of NO𝑥 , EGR is the most influencing
parameters of pilot fuel quantity and main injection timing factor, the other influencing parameters have slight influence,
and the best level is at level 3. However, main injection timing (3) The optimum combination of factors and levels for
is the greatest effect in regard to soot and ISFC; the peak point the chosen response variables are at 27% EGR rate,
𝑆/𝑁 ratio of this factor occurs at 4∘ CA BTDC. On the other 27.2% pilot fuel quantity, and 4∘ CA BTDC main injec-
hand, pilot fuel quantity is an insignificant influencing factor tion timing. Confirmation experiment was carried
for all response variables, especially in terms of soot and ISFC. out to validate the accuracy of the CFD simulation
Hence, the optimum combination of factors and levels for the results. And the engine with optimized combination
chosen response variables are at 27% EGR rate, 27.2% pilot reduces by at least 70% for NO𝑥 and 20% in soot
fuel quantity, and 4∘ CA BTDC main injection timing. formation. As for ISFC, a slight reduction of 1%
compared to original baseline engine was shown.
3.5. Confirmation Experiment. The last step in Taguchi opti- (4) The combination of the CFD simulation, the Taguchi
mization method is to conduct confirmation experiments method, and the ANOVA technique is found to be a
with the optimum combination of influencing factors for good method, which can significantly save time and
validating the improvement in the response variable by cost, to find optimum combination for low NO𝑥 , soot,
comparing it with the original baseline condition. After and ISFC in a light duty diesel engine.
conducting the confirmation experiment, optimized engine
reduces by at least 70% for NO𝑥 and 20% in soot formation.
As for ISFC, a slight reduction of 1% compared to original Conflict of Interests
baseline engine is shown.
Figure 9 shows in-cylinder equivalence ratio and emis- The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests
sion distributions with respect to optimized and original regarding the publication of this paper.
baseline case by simulations. As is seen, in the optimized
case, after the spray impinges on the top of the piston bowl Acknowledgment
at end of the main injection, equivalence ratio distributions
indicate a more homogeneous mixture in-cylinder than fuel This work is supported by the National Natural Science
concentration distributions in original baseline case. It is also Foundation of China (Grant no. 51176064).
illustrated that the fuel-air mixing was enhanced as a result
of the application of optimum parameter combination. In References
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/156150
Research Article
Mathematical Simulation of Heat and Mass Transfer Processes
at the Ignition of Liquid Fuel by Concentrated Flux of Radiation
Olga V. Vysokomornaya, Genii V. Kuznetsov, and Pavel A. Strizhak

National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University, 30 Lenin Avenue, Tomsk 634050, Russia
Correspondence should be addressed to Olga V. Vysokomornaya; vysokomornaja@tpu.ru
Received 29 April 2014; Accepted 10 July 2014; Published 24 July 2014
Copyright © 2014 Olga V. Vysokomornaya et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The physical and forecasting mathematical models of heat and mass transfer with phase transformations and chemical reactions
under heating and following ignition of typical liquid fuel by using concentrated flow of radiation were developed. The influence
scales of energy absorption process by means of gas-vapor mixture and liquid on ignition characteristics were established. The
ignition delay time dependencies on the concentrated luminous power and radius of its coverage were determined.
1. Introduction To date, the results of theoretical and experimental

investigations concerning ignition processes of liquid fuels
The ever more difficult and important ignition triggering by using such energy sources [4–6] have been published.
problems continuously arise under the conditions of contin- The ignition regularities of liquid condensed substances (e.g.,
uous development and improvement of facilities and tech- typical liquid fuels) were studied less. In particular, the
nologies associated with ignition and combustion processes. ignition problem of liquid fuel under the conditions of energy
Primarily, the problems of designing an energy-efficient igni- absorption using product flow of liquid evaporation was not
tion system arise in the making of diverse power installation solved. This factor may play a great role when heated under
and special-purpose motors [1, 2] using different fuel types conditions of natural convection and heat radiation. Such
as the source of energy. The operational parameters of these factors were not analyzed in the classical theory of ignition
installations and their performance reliability depend on the [7].
ignition system effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is a numerical investigation
There are [3] six energy delivery mechanisms concerning of interrelated physicochemical processes complex during
ignition of the condensed substances: (1) forced convection, heating and subsequent liquid fuel ignition by using focused
(2) heat conduction, (3) heat radiation, (4) diffusion of flow of heat radiation.
metallic vapors subjected to condensation or active radical
sightings of the igniter flame to fuel surface, (5) photochemi-
cal absorption, and (6) heat transfer by using solid and liquid 2. Problem Statement
particles heated to high temperatures; these particles create
local ignition centers, when they hit the surface of condensed In the first approximation in order to solve the ignition
substance. problem (getting sufficiently rough assessed characteristics’
In practice, the ignition processes of condensed sub- values of investigated processes) the known analytical and
stances with radiation energy supply may be implemented experimental approaches for researching ignition processes
using, primarily, the laser. Besides, the concentrated flows of condensed substances by concentrated radiation flux (e.g.,
of light energy can be generated under the conditions of [8, 9]) can be used. However, these approaches do not take
accidental focusing action and reflection of sun rays at glass into account the whole set of heat and mass transfer processes
pieces and metal surfaces. under conditions of intensive endothermic phase change and
insignificant at fast velocities of ignition (ignition delay time

Z
is less than 0.5 s) [12].
Z2 There are three ignition criterions of condensed sub-
1
stances:
(1) zero gradient determination of temperatures on the
“energy source—substance” boundary [13];
(2) the energy released by chemical reaction of fuel
vapors with oxidizing agent that exceeds the energy
Z1 transmitted from the source [7];
2
(3) sharp increase of temperature and burning in any
R point of substance [12].
0 R1 R2
It was assumed that ignition occurs at the moment when
Figure 1: Schematic illustration of problem: 1: gas-vapor mixture, 2: quantity of energy released during fuel vapors oxidation
liquid fuel. reaction exceeds quantity of energy transferred from the
energy source to liquid fuel. This criterion is the most
adequate to being simulated complex of processes.
chemical reaction. It was found [4–7] that heat and mass 3. Mathematical Model
transfer processes are general at the heating and ignition The system of nonlinear nonstationary differential equations
stages of condensed substances. Thus, a full problem state- at 0 < 𝜏 < 𝜏𝑑 includes the following.
ment is reasonable at using mathematical physics equations.
The “laser flow—mixture of liquid fuel vapors with Continuity equation of gas-vapor mixture (0 < 𝑅 <
oxidizing agent” system illustrated in Figure 1 is considered. 𝑅2 , 𝑍1 < 𝑍 < 𝑍2 ):
It is assumed that the beam of focused laser radiation with
p (power) continuously affects the surface of a typical liquid 𝜕2 Ψ 1 𝜕Ψ 𝜕2 Ψ
− + = −𝑅Ω; (1)
fuel—kerosene. The radius of radiation coverage is R1 . The 𝜕𝑅2 𝑅 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍2
surface coats of liquid fuel are heated by means of radiation
energy. Then liquid evaporation takes place. The forming motion equation of gas-vapor mixture (0 < R < 𝑅2 ,
fuel vapors react with oxidizing agent. Part of the energy is 𝑍1 < Z < 𝑍2 ):
absorbed by a gas mixture while passing the laser beams.
Ignition occurs when reaching the gas-vapor mixture critical 𝜕Ω 𝜕Ω 𝜕Ω
+𝑈 +𝑉
temperature and the concentration of its components. 𝜕𝜏 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍
The considered ignition problem has been solved at 2D (2)
statement in cylindrical coordinate system. It was established Pr 𝜕2 Ω 1 𝜕Ω 𝜕2 Ω Ω 𝜕Θ1
=√ 1 [ 2 + + − ]+ ;
[10] that 2D and 3D statements for local condensed sub- Ra1 𝜕𝑅 𝑅 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍2 𝑅2 𝜕𝑅
stances ignition problems allow obtaining close values of
ignition integral characteristics (the deviations are less than
energy equation for gas-vapor mixture in the laser
6–8%). Figure 1 shows the 2D statement with conventional
coverage (0 < R < 𝑅1 , 𝑍1 < Z < 𝑍2 ):
representations of the coverage radiation radius and the
solution area. 𝜕Θ1 𝜕Θ 𝜕Θ
The numerical analysis of investigated process was carried +𝑈 1 +𝑉 1
𝜕𝜏 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍
out under the assumption (imposing no significant restric-
tions on the problem statement) that the one substance with 1 𝜕2 Θ 1 𝜕Θ1 𝜕2 Θ1
known characteristics is formed as a result of flammable = [ 21 + + ] (3)
√Ra1 Pr1 𝜕𝑅 𝑅 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍2
liquid evaporation. The effective activation energy values 𝐸,
preexponential factor k0 , and thermal effect Q𝑜 are usually [11] 𝑧2
+ ;
defined in the experimental determination of kinetic param- 𝐶1 (𝑇) 𝜌1 (𝑇) Δ𝑇𝑉𝑚
eters for oxidation reaction of liquid substances’ vapors. The
one “effective” chemical reaction involving one flammable energy equation for gas-vapor mixture out of the laser
substance was assumed. Accordingly, the theoretical analysis coverage (𝑅1 < R < 𝑅2 , 𝑍1 < Z < 𝑍2 ):
of the investigated process is possible at using kinetic scheme
with known kinetic constants. 𝜕Θ1 𝜕Θ 𝜕Θ
The potential burning of liquid fuel is not taken into +𝑈 1 +𝑉 1
𝜕𝜏 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍
consideration in the course of simulation. It is known [7] that (4)
the burning factor is visible only in the course of prolonged 1 𝜕2 Θ 1 𝜕Θ1 𝜕2 Θ1 𝑄 𝑊𝑧
= [ 21 + + 2
] + 𝑜 𝑜 2;
heating of substance (more than 5 s). Role of this factor is √Ra1 Pr1 𝜕𝑅 𝑅 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍 Δ𝑇𝑉𝑚
diffusion equation of fuel vapors in the air (0 < 𝑅 <

𝑅2 , 𝑍1 < 𝑍 < 𝑍2 ): 𝑍 = 𝑍1 , 𝑅1 < 𝑅 < 𝑅2 :
𝜕𝐶𝑓 𝜕𝐶𝑓 𝜕𝐶𝑓 𝜕Θ2 𝜆 1 (𝑇) 𝜕Θ1 𝑧2
+𝑈 +𝑉 = − 𝑄 𝑊,
𝜕𝜏 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍 𝜕𝑍 𝜆 2 (𝑇) 𝜕𝑍 Δ𝑇𝜆 2 (𝑇) 𝑒 𝑒
1 Pr 𝜕2 𝐶𝑓 1 𝜕𝐶𝑓 𝜕2 𝐶𝑓 𝑧2 𝑊𝑜 𝜕𝐶𝑓 𝑊𝑒 𝑧2
= √ 11 [ + + ]− ; Θ1 = Θ2 , =− ,
Sc11 Ra11 𝜕𝑅2 𝑅 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍2 𝜌11 (𝑇) 𝑉𝑚 𝜕𝑍 𝜌11 (𝑇) 𝐷11 (𝑇)
(5)
𝜕Ψ 𝜕Ψ
= 𝑈, − = 𝑉;
balance equation (0 < 𝑅 < 𝑅2 , 𝑍1 < 𝑍 < 𝑍2 ): 𝜕𝑍 𝜕𝑅
𝐶𝑓 + 𝐶𝑜 = 1; (6) 𝑍 = 𝑍2 , 0 < 𝑅 < 𝑅2 :
energy equation for liquid fuel in the laser coverage (0 𝜕Θ1 𝑧2 𝑟2

= 𝐻 (𝑍2 ) exp (− 2 ) ,
< 𝑅 < 𝑅1 , 0 < 𝑍 < 𝑍1 ): 𝜕𝑍 Δ𝑇𝜆 1 (𝑇) 𝑟1
1 𝜕Θ2 𝜕2 Θ2 1 𝜕Θ2 𝜕2 Θ2 𝑧2 𝜕𝐻 (𝑍) 𝜕𝐶𝑓 𝜕Ψ
= 2
+ + 2
+ ; = 0, = 0, Ψ = 0;
Fo2 𝜕𝜏 𝜕𝑅 𝑅 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍 𝜆 2 (𝑇) Δ𝑇 𝜕𝑍 𝜕𝑍 𝜕𝑍
(7)
𝜕Θ2
𝑅 = 0, 0 < 𝑍 < 𝑍1 : = 0;
energy equation for liquid fuel out of the laser 𝜕𝑅
coverage (𝑅1 < 𝑅 < 𝑅2 , 0 < 𝑍 < 𝑍1 ):
𝑅 = 0, 𝑍1 < 𝑍 < 𝑍2 :
1 𝜕Θ2 𝜕2 Θ2 1 𝜕Θ2 𝜕2 Θ2
= + + . (8) 𝜕Θ1 𝜕𝐶𝑓 𝜕Ψ
Fo2 𝜕𝜏 𝜕𝑅2 𝑅 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍2 = 0, = 0, = 0, Ψ = 0;
𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑅
Equations (1) and (2) describe the pressure and velocity 𝜕Θ2
change in the system. Equations (3) and (4) characterize 𝑅 = 𝑅2 , 0 < 𝑍 < 𝑍1 : = 0;
the temperature change in the mixture of fuel vapors and 𝜕𝑅
air in the zone of concentrated radiation flux coverage and 𝑅 = 𝑅2 , 𝑍1 < 𝑍 < 𝑍2 :
outside this zone. Equation (5) describes the change of fuel
vapor concentration in oxidizer. Equation (6) characterizes 𝜕Θ1 𝜕𝐶𝑓 𝜕Ψ
the ratio between fuel and air content in the vapor-gas = 0, = 0, = 0, Ψ = 0,
𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑅
(binary) mixture. Equations (7) and (8) describe the liquid (10)
fuel temperature change in the zone of concentrated radiation
flux coverage and outside this zone. where Qo is the thermal effect by oxidation reaction of fuel
Initial (𝜏 = 0) conditions are as follows: vapors, J/kg; W o is the mass oxidation velocity of fuel vapors
in the air, kg/(m3 ⋅s); R, Z are the dimensionless analogs r, z
0 < 𝑅 < 𝑅2 , 0 < 𝑍 < 𝑍1 : Θ2 = Θ0 ;
(R = r/z2 , Z = z/z2 ); 𝜌 is the density, kg/m3 ; C is the specific
0 < 𝑅 < 𝑅2 , 𝑍1 < 𝑍 < 𝑍2 : (9) thermal capacity, J/(kg⋅K); Δ𝑇 is the differential temperature
(Δ𝑇 = T m − T 0 ), K; T m is the temperature scale, K; T 0 is
Θ1 = Θ0 , 𝐶𝑓 = 0, Ω = 0, Ψ = 0. the initial temperature of liquid fuel and oxidizer, K; V m is
the convection velocity scale of fuel vapors, m/s; 𝜆 is the
Boundary conditions (0 < 𝜏 < 𝜏𝑑 ) are as follows: heat conduction, W/(m⋅K); 𝜏 is the dimensionless time (𝜏 =
𝜕Θ2 t/t m ); t is the time, s; t m is the time scale, s; 𝜏d is the
𝑍 = 0, 0 < 𝑅 < 𝑅2 : = 0; dimensionless ignition delay time; Ψ is the dimensionless
𝜕𝑍
analog of current function; Ω is the dimensionless analog of
𝑍 = 𝑍1 , 0 < 𝑅 < 𝑅1 : velocity vorticity vector; U, V are the dimensionless velocity
components of fuel vapors in projection onto R, Z axis; Ra
𝜕Θ2 𝜆 1 (𝑇) 𝜕Θ1 𝑧2
= − is the Raleigh number; Θ is the dimensionless temperature
𝜕𝑍 𝜆 2 (𝑇) 𝜕𝑍 Δ𝑇𝜆 2 (𝑇) (Θ = T/T m ); Pr is the Prandtl number; Sc is the Schmidt
number; Cf is the mass concentration of fuel vapors in the
𝑟2
× [𝑄𝑒 𝑊𝑒 − 𝐻 (𝑍1 ) exp (− )] , gas-vapor mixture; Co is the mass concentration of oxidizer in
𝑟12 the gas-vapor mixture; Fo is the Fourier number; H(Z) is the
𝜕𝐶𝑓 heat-flow density of laser radiation, W/m2 ; H(Z2 ) is the heat-
𝑊𝑒 𝑧2
Θ1 = Θ2 , =− , flow density included into the gas-vapor mixture (conditional
𝜕𝑍 𝜌11 (𝑇) 𝐷11 (𝑇) upon Z = Z2 ), W/m2 ; Qe is the thermal effect of liquid fuel
𝜕Ψ 𝜕Ψ evaporation, J/kg; W e is the mass velocity of evaporation,
= 𝑈, − = 𝑉; kg/(m3 ⋅s); D is the diffusion coefficient of fuel vapors in the
𝜕𝑍 𝜕𝑅
air, m2 /s; index numbers: 1 is the gas-vapor mixture, 2 is the 0.3100 1.3
liquid fuel, and 11 is the fuel vapors. 1.2
The expressions for W e , W o , and V m and Ra, Pr, Fo, and 1
0.3075
1.1
Sc (dimensionless groups) are presented in [14–17].
The heat-flow density of laser radiation at the boundary of 1
0.3050
gas-vapor mixture (conditional upon Z = Z2 ) was determined 0.9
from the following formula:
0.3025 0.8
𝑝 0.7
𝐻 (𝑍2 ) = 2 , (11)
𝜋𝑟1 0.3000
0.6
2 0.5
where p is the beam power of laser, W, and r1 is the coverage 0.2975
radius of laser beam, m. 0.4
The change of heat-flow density in the gas-vapor mixture 0.2950 0.3
(conditional upon Z1 < Z < Z2 ) was determined by Bouguer- 0 0.0025 0.0050 0.0075 0.0100 0.0125
Lambert-Beer law:
Figure 2: Isothermal curves of “concentrated flow of light
emission—liquid—air” system at the moment of inflammation
𝐻 (𝑍) = 𝐻 (𝑍2 ) exp [−𝑘𝜆1 (𝑧2 − 𝑧)] , (12) (𝜏𝑑 =1.483) under the conditions of P = 0.4, R1 = 0.08.
where 𝑘𝜆1 is the absorption coefficient of laser radiation using

gas-vapor mixture, m−1 .
The change of heat-flow density of laser radiation in the
liquid fuel (conditional upon 0 < Z < Z1 ) was determined Numerical simulation of ignition process in the system
similarly: represented in Figure 1 was carried out using the following
parameter values [19–23]: T 0 = 300 K, kerosene and air initial
𝐻 (𝑍) = 𝐻 (𝑍1 ) exp [−𝑘𝜆2 (𝑧1 − 𝑧)] , (13) temperature; Qo = 42 MJ/kg, thermal effect by oxidation
reaction of fuel vapors; Qe = 261 kJ/kg, thermal effect of liquid
where 𝑘𝜆2 is the absorption coefficient of laser radiation by fuel evaporation; k0 = 9 ⋅ 108 s−1 , preexponential factor, and
liquid, m−1 . E = 193 kJ/mole, activation energy of oxidation reaction; p =
The transition to dimensionless variables was accom- 30–100 W, radiation power; r1 = 0,006 m, coverage radius of
plished using the following scale sizes: z2 : dimension of radiation; 𝑘𝜆1 = 1–30 m−1 , absorption coefficient of radiation
solution region (z2 = 0,1 m); t m : time scale (t m = 1 s); 𝑇𝑚 : using gas-vapor mixture; 𝑘𝜆2 = 103 –105 m−1 , absorption coef-
temperature scale (T m = 1000 K); V m : scale of convection ficient of radiation using kerosene; z1 = 0,03 m, film thickness
velocity of fuel vapors nearby liquid fuel surface, m/s; pm : of liquid fuel; r2 = 0,05 mm, z2 = 0,1 m, solution region
laser power scale (pm = 100 W); 𝑘𝜆1𝑚 : absorption coefficient dimension. Thermal and physical characteristics of liquid
scale of laser radiation by gas-vapor mixture (𝑘𝜆1𝑚 = 30 m−1 ); kerosene, its vapors, and air depending on the temperature
𝑘𝜆2𝑚 : absorption coefficient scale of laser radiation by liquid were selected in accordance with [19–23].
(𝑘𝜆1𝑚 = 105 m−1 ). It is found that several ignition stages being charac-
The algorithm and the solution methods of (1)–(8) terized by certain ranges of 𝜏𝑑 and localization point of
equation system with initial and boundary conditions are oxidation chemical reaction zone can be implemented for
similar to the one utilized in [14–17]. “single small-sized particle heated up to high temperatures—
The system of nonlinear nonstationary differential equa- liquid—oxidizing agent” systems depending on heat content
tions (1)–(8) with initial and boundary conditions was solved of heating source and its contact relations with the liquid
by the finite difference method [18]. Difference analogues substance. There is only one ignition stage for the presented
of differential equations (1)–(8) were solved by locally one- “concentrated flow of light emission—liquid—air” (Figure 1)
dimensional method [18]. Sweep method using a four-point system. The variation of heating source parameters results
implicit difference scheme [18] was applied for solving one- in a change of ignition characteristics (in particular, 𝜏𝑑 ), but
dimensional difference equations. Simple iteration method the ignition zone is formed under all conditions only nearby
[18] was used for nonlinear equations solving. evaporation boundary at the center of “heating spot” arisen
The reliability of the obtained numerical results was at the surface of liquid fuel. The temperature field and the
estimated by verification of the used difference schemes isothermal curves at the moment of inflammation (𝜏𝑑 = 1.483)
conservatism. The accuracy of the energy conservation law under the conditions of P = 0.4, R1 = 0.08 are represented in
implementation in selected solution area was calculated (the Figure 2 to illustrate these objective laws.
heat supplied to the liquid fuel and gas mixture from radiation Figure 2 shows that the depth of liquid heating is little. It
flux, the energy released by the oxidation reaction, the heat is explained due to the higher coefficient of radiation energy
expended on liquid evaporation, and the energy accumulated adsorption by liquid fuel (𝑘𝜆2 = 0.68). The temperature gra-
in the gas and liquid mediums have been taken into account) dients are maximum nearby the symmetry axes of coverage
[14–17]. for light emission flow in close proximity to liquid phase
0.7
70
0.6
60
0.5
0.4 50
𝜏d
1
0.3 40
𝜏d
0.2 2 30
3
0.1 20
0 10
3 5 10 15 20 25 30
k𝜆1 0
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
Figure 3: The dependence of the ignition delay time on the P
absorption coefficients of radiation using the gas-vapor mixture: 1:
under the condition of P = 0.6; 2: under the condition of P = 0.8; 3: Figure 4: The ignition delay time dependence on the radiation
under the condition of P = 1. power under the condition of R1 = 0.06 in “concentrated flow of light
emission—liquid—air” system.
transition boundary. It is conditional upon the simultaneous

energy absorption during evaporation and the heat supply
into the liquid from the light emission flow. 90
The absorption coefficients of radiation using gas-vapor 80
mixture and liquid fuel were varied on a wide range (𝑘𝜆1 = 70
0.1–1, 𝑘𝜆2 = 10−2 –1) for analyzing impact of energy absorption 60
factors in relation to ignition characteristics during numeri-
50
cal simulation.
𝜏d
Figure 3 shows that the ignition delay time 𝜏𝑑 rises at 40

absorption coefficient increase of radiation energy by gas- 30
vapor mixture 𝑘𝜆1 . This unobvious result is caused by the 20
cooperative behavior of the interrelated quite difficult heat 10
and mass transfer processes. The decrease of radiation energy 0
quantity supplied to the liquid and an increase of energy 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 1.0
required for heating up of the being formed gas-vapor R1
mixture take place at increase of 𝑘𝜆1 . This should seem to
lead to an acceleration of chemical reactions in the gas-vapor Figure 5: The ignition delay time dependence on the coverage
radius of radiation under the condition of P = 0.3 in “concentrated
mixture and thus a decrease of ignition delay time. However,
flow of light emission—liquid—air” system.
the increase of fuel vapors concentration near to the liquid
surface is slowed down under such conditions. Therefore, the
mass velocity of fuel evaporation is decreased. It leads to a
decrease in velocities of chemical reactions and an increase
in ignition delay time. The significant impact scales of 𝑘𝜆1 on
𝜏𝑑 ought to be noted (Figure 3; 1, 2 curves). and to heat it up to limiting temperatures in sufficiently small
The analysis of Figures 4 and 5 shows that the ignition time intervals (delay times are minimal).
delay time significantly (more than fortyfold) increases under Figure 6 shows that the 𝑘𝜆2 parameter has less visible
the conditions of a dimensionless power (P) decrease and an effect on the ignition delay time of liquid fuel than the 𝑘𝜆1 .
action radius (R1 ) increase of laser radiation from 0.06 to 0.1. The delay time is changed by less than 1% at the 𝑘𝜆2 varying
The role of such factors as the absorption of radiation energy in the range from 10−2 to 1. This result shows that the regu-
in the gas and liquid phases is increased under condition of larities resting on the base of the model under consideration
ignition process time growth. Therefore, the impact scales of (Figure 1) for kerosene will pertain for a sufficiently large
𝑘𝜆1 on 𝜏𝑑 are sufficiently important. For instance, the impact group of liquid combustible condensed substances.
scales of 𝑘𝜆1 on 𝜏𝑑 are significantly changed by varying the The ignition delay time 𝜏𝑑 slightly (less than 1%) increases
dimensionless radiation power in a range of P = 0.3–1. with increasing the 𝑘𝜆2 . The obtained dependence (Figure 6)
The liquid heating up and the being formed gas-vapor can be explained by the fact that the depth of warmed-
mixture processes are accelerated at the dimensionless radia- up liquid layer rises slightly with increasing the absorption
tion power P increase. The role of radiation absorption factor coefficient 𝑘𝜆2 . The radiation energy is used for the liquid
by the gas-vapor mixture is sharply decreased (Figure 3, curve heating up and the evaporation from a large surface. As
3) under such conditions. The radiation energy is sufficient to a consequence, the mass velocity from a surface unit is
warm up the liquid substance, to form the gas-vapor mixture, decreased. It leads to a slight increase of the ignition inertia.
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Acknowledgment of liquid condensed substance by a metal particle heated to high
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/798040
Research Article
Heat and Mass Transfer of Droplet Vacuum Freezing Process
Based on Dynamic Mesh
Lili Zhao,1 Yuekai Zhang,2 Zhijun Zhang,2 Xun Li,2 and Wenhui Zhang2
1
School of Mechanical Engineering, Shenyang University, Shenyang 110044, China
2
Correspondence should be addressed to Zhijun Zhang; zhjzhang@mail.neu.edu.cn
Received 14 June 2014; Accepted 10 July 2014; Published 20 July 2014
Copyright © 2014 Lili Zhao et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
A numerical simulation using dynamic mesh method by COMSOL has been developed to model heat and mass transfer during
vacuum freezing by evaporation of a single droplet. The initial droplet diameter, initial droplet temperature, and vacuum chamber
pressure effect are studied. The surface and center temperature curve was predicted to show the effect. The mass transfer rate and
radius displacement were also calculated. The results show the dynamic mesh shows well the freezing process with the radius
reduction of droplet. The initial droplet diameter, initial droplet temperature, and vacuum pressure have obvious effect on freezing
process. The total freezing time is about 200 s, 300 s, and 400 s for droplet diameter 7.5 mm, 10.5 mm, and 12.5 mm, respectively.
The vacuum pressure less than 200 Pa is enough for the less time to freezing the droplet, that is, the key point in freezing time. The
initial droplet temperature has obvious effect on freezing but little effect on freezing temperature.
1. Introduction phenomena in order to estimate the pressure in the evap-

orator [6]. Asaoka et al. [7, 8] also proposed an alternative
Droplet vacuum freezing is fast temperature decrease process vacuum freezing method to make ice slurry by evaporating
with the phase change from liquid to vapor and from solid to ethanol solution instead of water. This system improves the
vapor. It belongs to the evaporative supercooling method for ice forming stability but still needs large amount of energy for
ice production, which is a research hot spot in this field [1–3]. vacuum. The model and simulation above used the analytical
That is the basic principle of the evaporative freezing method: model; the finite element method is also used to examine
the water evaporates under vacuum conditions. If the vapor the process [9]. It is based on the diffusion model with the
pressure of the atmosphere is below 611 Pa (the vapor pressure porous medium; radius decrease by the water evaporating is
is around 611 Pa at 0∘ C), the water will keep on evaporating. not considered.
The heat and mass transfer is a complicated process, In this paper, we developed a model using dynamic mesh
which has been studied by numerical and experiment method to follow the tracks of droplet boundary. The diam-
method. Kim and Satoh et al. have studied the water spray eter, initial temperature, and vacuum chamber pressure effect
evaporation method for ice particle production by theoretical are studied.
and experimental [4, 5]. In their study, the conditions for the
formation of ice particles were investigated theoretically by 2. Model and Validation
the diffusion-controlled evaporation model. The experiment
was with pure water and 7% ethylene glycol. Li et al. have 2.1. Material. A physical two-dimensional axis symmetry
studied the cooling/freezing phenomena of a water droplet model that explains the vacuum freezing process of droplet
due to evaporation in an evacuated chamber by experiment is shown in Figure 1. The property of the water is shown in
and the heat transfer dominating the evaporation-freezing Table 1.
Table 1: Parameters used in the simulation process.
Parameter Value Unit

𝜌 998 Kg m−3
𝑐𝑙 3420 J kg−1 K−1
𝑐𝑖 1720 J kg−1 K−1
𝑘𝑖 0.6 W m−1 K−1
𝑘𝑙 2 W m−1 K−1
𝜆𝑖 2.8 × 106 J kg−1
𝜆𝑙 2.5 × 10 6
J kg−1
a template (Fick Law, Fourier Law), (2) using the coefficient

form (for mildly nonlinear problems), and (3) using the gen-
eral form (for most nonlinear problems). Differential equa-
Figure 1: 2D axis symmetry model of droplet. tions in the coefficient form were written using an unsymmet-
rical-pattern multifrontal method. We used a direct solver
for sparse matrices (UMFPACK), which involves significantly
more complicated algorithms than solvers used for dense
matrices. The main complication is the need to handle the fill-
2.2. Heat Transfer Model. The value of any physical quantity in in factors L and U efficiently.
at a point in space is given by its average value on the averag- A two-dimensional (2D) axis symmetry grid was used to
ing volume centered at this point. solve the equations using COMSOL Multiphysics 3.5a. The
By considering the hypothesis of the local thermal equi- mesh consists of 1068 elements (2D), and time stepping is
librium, the energy conservation is reduced to a unique equa- freely taken by solver. Several grid sensitivity tests were con-
tion: ducted to determine the sufficiency of the mesh scheme and
𝜕𝑇 to ensure that the results are grid independent. A backward
𝜌𝑐 − ∇ (𝑘 ⋅ ∇𝑇) = 0. (1) differentiation formula was used to solve time-dependent
𝜕𝑡
variables. Relative tolerance was set to 1 × 10−4 , whereas
Boundary condition for (1) on the symmetric surface is absolute tolerance was set to 1 × 10−6 . The simulations were
performed using a Tongfang PC with Intel Core 2 Duo proc-
𝑘∇𝑇 = 0. (2) essor with 3.0 GHz processing speed and 4096 MB of RAM
running Windows 7.
Boundary condition for (1) on the outer surface is A deformed mesh can be useful if the boundaries of your
𝜕𝑇 computational domain are moving in time or are a function
𝑘 = −𝜆 ⋅ 𝑚̇𝑠 . (3) of a parameter. The point is that a new mesh needs not be
𝜕𝑛 generated for each configuration of the boundaries—instead,
Initial condition for (1) is the software simply perturbs the mesh nodes so they conform
with the moved boundaries.
𝑇 = 𝑇0 . (4) In COMSOL Multiphysics, the movement of the interior
nodes is in three ways: (1) by propagating the moving bound-
2.3. Mass Transfer Coefficient. The phase change rate of water ary displacement throughout the domain to obtain a smooth
is difficultly decided by experiment method. The rate constant mesh deformation everywhere—this is done by solving PDEs
parameter has the dimension of reciprocal time in which for the mesh displacements (a Laplace or Winslow smoothing
phase change occurs. A large value of signifies that phase PDE) with boundary conditions given by the movement of
change occurs in a small time. The mass transfer could be as, the boundaries; (2) by specifying an explicit formula for the
mesh deformation; (3) by letting the mesh movement be
𝑚̇𝑠 = 𝐾 (𝑃sat (𝑇𝑠 ) − 𝑃V ) . (5) determined by some physical deformation variables, such as
the displacement components of structural mechanics.
2.4. Resolution and Dynamic Mesh. COMSOL Multiphys-
ics 3.5a was used to solve the set of equations. COMSOL is 2.5. Validation. Figures 2, 3, and 4 are the simulation results
advanced software used for modeling and simulating any by the parameters of Table 1. It is compared with the exper-
physical process described by partial derivative equations. iment result from [9]. The simulation results are in good
The set of equations introduced above was solved using the agreement with the experiment results that proved the model
relative initial and boundary conditions of each. COMSOL and method explain well the heat and mass transfer process.
offers three possibilities for writing the equations: (1) using The details of discussion will be given later.
300 300
295 295
290 290
Temperature (K)
Temperature (K)
285 285
280 280
275 275
270 270
265 265
260 260
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Time (s) Time (s)
Experiment results (d = 7.5 mm) [9] Experiment results (d = 12.5 mm) [9]
Simulation results of droplet center Simulation results of droplet center
Simulation results of droplet surface Simulation results of droplet surface
Figure 2: The simulaiton results and experiment results (from [9]) Figure 4: The simulaiton results and experiment results (from [9])
of droplet diameter 7.5 mm (𝑃V = 200 Pa, 𝑇0 = 297.15). of droplet diameter 12.5 mm (𝑃V = 200 Pa, 𝑇0 = 297.15).
300 ×10−6
295
4.0
Total mass transfer rate (kg s−1 )
290
Temperature (K)
285 3.0
280
2.0
275
270
1.0
265
260
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 0.0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Time (s)
Time (s)
Experiment results (d = 10.5 mm) [9] d = 7.5 mm
Simulation results of droplet center d = 10.5 mm
Simulation results of droplet surface d = 12.5 mm
Figure 3: The simulaiton results and experiment results (from [9]) Figure 5: Mass transfer rate of different diameters (𝑑 = 7.5 mm,
of droplet diameter 10.5 mm (𝑃V = 200 Pa, 𝑇0 = 297.15). 10.5 mm, and 12.5 mm, 𝑃V = 200 Pa, and 𝑇0 = 297.15).
3. Results and Discussion It is shown that the diameter has larger effect on freezing time.
Because, most of the time, we want the less time to freeze the
At first, the diameter effect was studied in Figures 2, 3, droplet, the less diameter droplet is needed. The surface time
and 4. The surface temperature and center temperature of temperature of droplet was lower than the center temperature
the droplet were given. Both have the quick temperature of it most of the time because the freezing power is the surface
decrease at the initial stage, called first cooling stage. And vapor and sublimation. Both temperatures are same in the
then it will get the second stable freezing stage, because the end.
phase change and latent of phase changed. And then in the Figure 5 is the surface total mass transfer rate of droplet
third frozen stage, the temperature will be decreased quickly. that is decided by (5). The parameters include mass transfer
The experiment results have some differences that are not coefficent, saturated vapor pressure of droplet surface, and
discussed here because it is a large title. vacuum chamber pressure. The rate is larger at the initial
The diameter of dropelt increases from 7.5 mm to freezing stage, slowly decreased, and then reached zero. It is
12.5 mm, and the freezing time is about 200 s, 300 s, and 400 s. corresponding to the temperature curve of the droplet surface
×10−4 × 10−4
0.0
0.0
Radius displacement (m)

−0.5
−1.0 −0.5
−1.5
−1.0
−2.0
−2.5
−1.5
−3.0
−3.5 −2.0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Time (s) Time (s)
P = 100 Pa P = 400 Pa
d = 7.5 mm
P = 200 Pa P = 500 Pa
d = 10.5 mm
d = 12.5 mm P = 300 Pa
Figure 6: Radius displacement of different diameters (𝑑 = 7.5 mm, Figure 8: Radius displacement of different vacuum chamber pres-
10.5 mm, and 12.5 mm, 𝑃V = 200 Pa, and 𝑇0 = 297.15). sure (𝑇0 = 297.15 K, 𝑑 = 7.5 mm).
300 ×10−6
1.4
290
1.2
Temperature (K)
1.0
280
0.8
270 0.6
0.4
260
0.2
250 0.0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Time (s) Time (s)
P = 100 P = 400 P = 100 Pa P = 400 Pa
P = 200 P = 500 P = 200 Pa P = 500 Pa
P = 300 P = 300 Pa
Figure 7: Center temperature of different vacuum chamber pressure Figure 9: Mass transfer rate of different vacuum chamber pressure
(𝑇0 = 297.15 K, 𝑑 = 7.5 mm). (𝑇0 = 297.15 K, 𝑑 = 7.5 mm).
and center. The radius displacement is calculated with the This is very meaningful for freezing water into ice in order
moving mesh method in Figure 6. The more the diameter for energy storage.
droplet is, the more the radius displacement is. Figures 8 and 9 are radius displacement and total mass
As the important effect factor, the pressure of vacuum transfer rate with different vacuum chamber pressure. The
chamber is changed from 100 to 500 Pa. The results were mass transfer rate has some different characteristic than nor-
shown in Figure 7. The pressure is lower than 300 Pa; the tem- mal. The higher the vacuum chamber pressure is, the higher
perature curve has the obvious three stages discussed above. the initial rate is. But the later stage rate of mass transfer rate
But when pressure is higher than 400 Pa, the temperature just is contrary. The detailed reason should be as follows: because
has the two stages. And compared with the temperature curve the surface freezing is earlier at lower pressure.
of 100 Pa and 200 Pa, the freezing time to the end time is Figures 10, 11, and 12 are the different initial temperature
almost the same. But compared with the temperature curve results. From Figure 10, the initial temperature will obviously
of 200 Pa and 300 Pa, the freezing time is less than 200 Pa. affect the first cooling stage. But little is the third frozen
340 ×10−6
330 5.0

320
4.0
Temperature (K)
310
300 3.0
290
2.0
280
270 1.0
260
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 0.0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
Time (s)
Time (s)
T0 = 297.15 K
T0 = 297.15 K
T0 = 317.15 K
T0 = 317.15 K
T0 = 337.15 K
T0 = 337.15 K
Figure 10: Center temperature of different initial temperature (𝑃V = Figure 12: Mass transfer rate of different initial temperature (𝑃V =
200 Pa, 𝑑 = 7.5 mm). 200 Pa, 𝑑 = 7.5 mm).
×10−4 initial droplet diameter, initial droplet temperature, and vac-

uum pressure have the obviously effect on freezing process.
0.0
Usually droplet vacuum freezing has the quick temperature
decrease at the initial stage, called first cooling stage. And
−0.5
then it will get the second stable freezing stage, because
the phase change and latent of phase changed. And then
−1.0
in the third frozen stage, the temperature will be decreased
−1.5
quickly. The total freezing time is about 200 s, 300 s, and
400 s for droplet diameters 7.5 mm, 10.5 mm, and 12.5 mm,
−2.0 respectively. The vacuum pressure less than 200 Pa is enough
for the less time to freeze the droplet that is the key point in
−2.5 freezing time. The initial droplet temperature has the obvious
effect on freezing but little effect on freezing temperature.
−3.0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
Time (s)
Nomenclature
T0 = 297.15 K
𝑘: Thermal conductivity (W m−1 K−1 )
T0 = 317.15 K 𝑐: Specific heat (J kg−1 K−1 )
T0 = 337.15 K 𝑚𝑠 : Mass transfer coefficient (kg m−2 Pa−1 s−1 )
𝑃sat : Vapor saturation pressure (Pa)
Figure 11: Radius displacement of different initial temperature (𝑃V = 𝑃V : Vapor pressure in vacuum chamber (Pa)
200 Pa, 𝑑 = 7.5 mm).
𝑇: Food temperature (K)
𝑇0 : Initial temperature (K)
𝑇𝑠 : Surface temperature of droplet (K)
𝜆: Latent heat of evaporation (J kg−1 )
stage. The radius displacement and total mass transfer rate
are affected with the temperature increased. 𝜌: Water density (kg m−3 ).
4. Conclusion
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests
The initial droplet diameter, initial droplet temperature, and regarding the publication of this paper.
vacuum chamber pressure effect are studied. The surface and
center temperature curve were predicted to show the effect. Acknowledgments
The mass transfer rate and radius displacement were also
calculated. The results showing the dynamic mesh well show This research was supported by National Natural Sci-
the freezing process with the radius reduction of droplet. The ence Foundation of China (Grant nos. 31000665, 51176027,
31371873, and 31300408) and the Fundamental Research

Funds for the Central Universities of China (Grant no.
N130403001).
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/141795
Research Article
Entropy Generation Analysis of Power-Law Non-Newtonian
Fluid Flow Caused by Micropatterned Moving Surface
M. H. Yazdi,1,2,3 I. Hashim,4,5 A. Fudholi,2 P. Ooshaksaraei,2 and K. Sopian2

1
Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, INTI International University,
71800 Nilai, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia
2
Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Malaysia
3
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University,
Neyshabur 9319313668, Razavi Khorasan, Iran
4
School of Mathematical Sciences, Faculty of Science & Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
5
Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80257, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
Correspondence should be addressed to M. H. Yazdi; mohammadhossein.yazdi@gmail.com
Received 9 March 2014; Accepted 17 June 2014; Published 17 July 2014
Copyright © 2014 M. H. Yazdi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
In the present study, the first and second law analyses of power-law non-Newtonian flow over embedded open parallel
microchannels within micropatterned permeable continuous moving surface are examined at prescribed surface temperature.
A similarity transformation is used to reduce the governing equations to a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations. The
dimensionless entropy generation number is formulated by an integral of the local rate of entropy generation along the width of the
surface based on an equal number of microchannels and no-slip gaps interspersed between those microchannels. The velocity, the
temperature, the velocity gradient, and the temperature gradient adjacent to the wall are substituted into this equation resulting from
the momentum and energy equations obtained numerically by Dormand-Prince pair and shooting method. Finally, the entropy
generation numbers, as well as the Bejan number, are evaluated. It is noted that the presence of the shear thinning (pseudoplastic)
fluids creates entropy along the surface, with an opposite effect resulting from shear thickening (dilatant) fluids.
1. Introduction [10]. Based on the macroscale applications, the problem can

receive considerable attention because of the wide use of non-
The method of thermodynamic optimization or entropy Newtonians in food engineering, power engineering, and
generation minimization is an active field at the interface many industries such as extrusion of polymer fluids, polymer
between heat transfer, engineering thermodynamics, and solutions used in the plastic processing industries, rolling
fluid mechanics. The entropy generation analysis of non- sheet drawn from a die, drying of paper, exotic lubricants,
Newtonian fluid flow over surface has many significant food stuffs, and many others [11] which in most of them a
applications in thermal engineering and industries. Appli- cooling system is required. The analysis of the flow field in
cations of horizontal surfaces can also be found in various boundary layer adjacent to the wall is very important in the
fluid transportation systems. Before considering entropy present problem and is an essential part in the area of fluid
generation analysis, the flow and heat transfer part should dynamics and heat transfer. The partial slip occurs in the
be evaluated first. As explained, non-Newtonian fluid flow most of the microfluidic devices since slip flow happens if
has received considerable attention due to many important the characteristic size of the flow system is small or the flow
applications in both micro- [1–8] and macroscale technolo- pressure is very low [12]. A literature survey indicates that
gies [9]. Examples of non-Newtonian fluids include grease, there has been an extensive research presented regarding the
cosmetic products, blood, body fluids, and many others slip boundary layer flow over surface in various situations.
Regarding external slip flow regimes based on horizontal suction parameter was increased. Moreover, unsteady MHD
surfaces, Yazdi et al. [13] have investigated the slip boundary mixed convective boundary layer slip flow and heat transfer
layer flow past flat surface. They examined the velocity slip with thermal radiation and viscous dissipation investigated
effects on both gas and liquid flows. They also showed that by Ibrahim and Shanker [27]. More recently, slip effects
hydrodynamic slip can enhance heat transfer rate in liquid on MHD flow over an exponentially stretching sheet with
flow case. In a later work, they [14] investigated the effect suction/blowing and thermal radiation were investigated by
of permeability parameter on the slip flow regime. Further, Mukhopadhyay [28] where the viscous dissipation and joule
they [15, 16] investigated the study of slip MHD flow and heating were not considered. Besides, Vajravelu et al. [29]
heat transfer over an accelerating continuous moving surface. investigated MHD flow and heat transfer of an Ostwald-
Besides, Mahmoud and Waheed [17] performed the flow and de Waele fluid over an unsteady stretching surface. It was
heat transfer characteristics of MHD mixed convection fluid found that shear thinning reduces the wall shear stress.
flow past a stretching surface with slip velocity at the surface Regarding entropy generation analysis of external flow and
and heat generation (absorption). Later, Yazdi et al. [18] heat transfer over different surface structures, there are
have evaluated the effects of viscous dissipation on the slip several researches which should be considered here. In a
MHD flow and heat transfer past a permeable surface with comprehensive research study, the second law characteristics
convective boundary conditions. They demonstrated that the of heat transfer and fluid flow due to forced convection of
magnetic lines of force can increase fluid motion inside of the steady-laminar flow of an incompressible fluid inside channel
boundary layer by affected free stream velocity. with circular cross-section and channel made of two parallel
Many of the non-Newtonian fluids seen in chemical engi- plates was analyzed by Mahmud and Fraser [30]. The analysis
neering processes are known to follow the empirical Ostwald- of the second law of thermodynamics due to viscoelastic
de Waele power-law model. This is the simplest and most MHD flow over a continuous moving surface was presented
common type of power-law fluid which has received special by Aı̈boud and Saouli [31]. They indicated that the surface acts
attraction from the researchers in the field. The rheological as a strong source of irreversibility and the entropy generation
equation of the state between the stress components 𝜏𝑖𝑗 and number increases with the increase of magnetic parameter.
strain components 𝑒𝑖𝑗 is defined by Vujanovic et al. [19] Later, the effect of blowing and suction on entropy generation
analysis of laminar boundary layer flow over an isothermal
󵄨󵄨 3 3 󵄨󵄨(𝑛−1)/2
󵄨󵄨 󵄨󵄨 permeable flat plate was studied by Réveillère and Baytaş
𝜏𝑖𝑗 = −𝑝𝛿𝑖𝑗 + 𝑘𝑁󵄨󵄨 ∑ ∑ 𝑒𝑙𝑚 𝑒𝑙𝑚 󵄨󵄨󵄨
󵄨 𝑒𝑖𝑗 , (1) [32]. Recently, Eegunjobi and Makinde [33] examined the
󵄨󵄨𝑚=1 𝑙=1 󵄨󵄨
󵄨 󵄨 effects of the thermodynamic second law on steady flow of
where 𝑝 is the pressure, 𝛿𝑖𝑗 is Kroneckar delta, and 𝑘𝑁 and an incompressible electrically conducting fluid in a channel
𝑛 are, respectively, the consistency coefficient and power-law with permeable walls and convective surface boundary con-
index of the fluid. Such fluids are known as power-law fluid. ditions. In macroscale systems, surface shape optimization
For 𝑛 > 1, fluid is said to be dilatant or shear thickening; has been effectively applied for flow and heat transfer control.
for 𝑛 < 1, the fluid is called shear thinning or pseudoplastic Both square and triangular grooves along the surface have
fluid, and for 𝑛 = 1, the fluid is simply the Newtonian fluid. been investigated for boundary layer flow and heat transfer
Several fluids studied in the literature suggest the range 0 < control. An experimental investigation was carried out to
𝑛 < 2 for the value of power-law index 𝑛 [20]. The theory of examine the effects of axisymmetric grooves of square or
boundary layer was applied to power-law fluids by Schowalter triangular cross-section on the impinging jet-to-wall heat
[21]. Besides, Acrivos et al. [22] investigated the momentum transfer, under constant wall temperature conditions [34].
and heat transfer in laminar boundary layer flow of non- They concluded significant heat transfer enhancements, up
Newtonian fluids over surface. Later, flow and heat transfer in to 81% as compared with the smooth plate reference case.
a power-law fluid over a nonisothermal stretching sheet were Maximum was obtained for square cross-section grooves.
evaluated by Hassanien et al. [23]. In their results, the friction Thus, square grooves have been found to be more efficient,
factor and heat transfer rate exhibit strong dependence on for heat transfer increase, than those with a triangular profile.
the fluid parameters. Later, an analytical solution of MHD The shape optimization is also applicable in microscale
boundary layer flow of a non-Newtonian power-law fluid past systems. As we know, it is frequently desirable to reduce
a continuously moving surface studied by M. A. A. Mahmoud the frictional pressure drop in microchannel flows. Lim and
and M. A.-E. Mahmoud [24]. The effects of the power law- Choit [35] designed optimally curved microchannels due to
index (𝑛) on the velocity profiles and the skin-friction were shape optimization effects on pressure drop. They considered
studied by them. Recently, analytical solutions for a nonlinear two different wall types such as hydrophobic and hydrophilic
problem arising in the boundary layer flow of power-law fluid walls. Reynolds numbers of 0.1, 1, and 10 were studied. It was
over a power-law stretching surface studied by Jalil et al. [25]. observed that microchannel shape optimization could reduce
Their results show that the skin friction coefficient decreases the pressure drop by up to about 20%.
with the increase of rheological properties of non-Newtonian Entropy generation analysis based surface microprofiling
power-law fluids. Furthermore, Mahmoud [26] examined the is called EBSM. As a shape optimization technique, EBSM
effect of partial slip on non-Newtonian power-law fluid over a considers optimal microprofiling of a micropatterned sur-
moving permeable surface with heat generation. The problem face to minimize entropy production. Dissimilar to past
was applied at constant temperature wall. It was found that techniques of modelling surface roughness by an effective
the velocity reduced as either the slip parameter or the friction factor, the new method of EBSM develops analytical
solutions for the embedded microchannels (microgrooves) to y,

give more carefully optimized surface characteristics. EBSM
was developed for the first time by Naterer [36] who pro-
posed surface microprofiling to reduce energy dissipation in x, u
convective heat transfer. This method includes local slip-flow
conditions within the embedded open microchannels and w
thus tends to drag reduction and lower exergy losses along the
surface [36, 37]. In another work, Naterer [38], specifically, (a)
concentrated on open parallel microchannels surface design.
He attempted to optimize the microscale features of the
surface. The optimized number of channels spacing between
L W
microchannels and aspect ratios was modelled to give an Wns
effective compromise between friction and heat transfer
m󳰀 (Ws + Wns ) = W
irreversibilities. His results suggested that embedded sur-
face microchannels can successfully reduce loss of available
energy in external forced convection problems of viscous d
gas flow over a flat surface [38]. In another comprehensive
study, Naterer and Chomokovski [39] developed this tech- Ws
nique to converging surface microchannels for minimized Y
X
friction and thermal irreversibilities. His results suggest that
the embedded converging surface microchannels have the Z
potential to reduce entropy generation in boundary layer
(b)
flow with convective heat transfer. It was noted that the
EBSM technique can be appropriately extended to more Figure 1: (a) Physical model of fluid flow. (b) Schematic diagram of
complex geometries. In a subsequent novel work, Naterer embedded surface microchannels (the subscripts of 𝑛𝑠 and 𝑠 refer to
et al. [40] applied both experimentally and numerically this no-slip and slip conditions, resp.).
method to the special application of aircraft intake deicing.
Thus, a new surface microprofiling technique for reducing
exergy losses and controlling near-wall flow processes, par- hydrophobic open microchannels together with biotechno-
ticularly for anti-icing of a helicopter engine bay surface was logical application areas of open microchannels motivates us
developed. The embedded microchannels were illustrated to consider carefully a practical design for controlling the
to have convinced influences on convective heat transfer. entropy production of various non-Newtonians in microscale
In regard to deicing applications, the motivation was to systems. There have been many theoretical problems devel-
suitably modify the convective heat transfer, or runback flow oped for entropy generation analysis of boundary layer flow.
of unfrozen water, so that ice formation would be delayed However, to the best of our knowledge, no investigation has
or prevented. Later, a study based on liquid flow over open been made yet to evaluate EBSM in a non-Newtonian fluid
microchannels was investigated by Yazdi et al. [6]. In another system. The EBSM technique is recommended here, as a
study, they [8] presented the second law analysis of MHD flow proper surface shape technique due to valuation of entropy
over embedded microchannels in an impermeable surface. production in microscale systems. Such innovations can
Later, Yazdi et al. [7] investigated entropy generation anal- examine energy efficiency of existing microfluidic systems by
ysis of electrically conducting fluid flow over open parallel embedding microchannels within permeable surfaces.
microchannels embedded within a continuous moving sur-
face in the presence of applied magnetic field where the free 2. Mathematical Formulation
stream velocity was stationary and the fluid was moving by an
external surface force. Recently, they [41] have evaluated the 2.1. Flow and Heat Transfer Analysis. The flow configuration
reduction of entropy generation by embedded open parallel is illustrated in Figure 1(a). First, we prepare the flow and
microchannels within the permeable surface in order to reach heat transfer mathematical formulation of steady, 2D, laminar
a liquid transportation design in microscale MHD systems. slip boundary layer flow of a power-law non-Newtonian
A Newtonian fluid has been considered in previous EBSM fluid over continuously permeable moving surface with
researches. constant velocity 𝑈 at prescribed surface temperature in
Recently, the use of open microchannels instead of the the presence of viscous dissipation (see Figure 1(a)). After
usual closed microchannels has been recommended, since that, the utilization of the second law of thermodynamics is
the open microchannels are open to the ambient air on the focused on EBSM which requires simultaneous modeling of
top side, which can offer advantages, such as maintaining the the slip and no-slip boundary condition along the width of
physiological conditions for normal cell growth and intro- the micropatterned surface (see Figure 1(b)). It is assumed
ducing accurate amounts of chemical and biological materials that the width of the surface consists of a specific number
[42–44]. Taking advantages of microfabrication techniques of open microchannels and the base sections (𝑚), each of
due to making appropriate slip boundary condition along which has its own width. Moreover, a no-slip condition
is applied between open microchannels, whereas a slip where 𝑢𝑠 is the partial slip based on power-law non-
condition is applied to the open parallel microchannels. Newtonian fluid adjacent to the wall and 𝑙1 is the slip length
Thus, in the present micropatterned surface design, based on having dimension of length. The equation of continuity is
EBSM techniques [7, 37, 39–41], the slip boundary condition integrated by the introduction of the stream function 𝜓(𝑥, 𝑦).
is applied inside the open microchannels. Experimental The stream function satisfies the continuity equation (4) and
evidence recommends that, for water flowing through a is defined by
microchannel, the surface of which is coated with a 2.3 nm
𝜕𝜓 𝜕𝜓
thick monolayer of hydrophobic octadecyltrichlorosilane, an 𝑢= , V= (8)
apparent hydrodynamic slip is measured just above the solid 𝜕𝑦 𝜕𝑥
surface. This velocity is about 10% of the free-stream velocity Similarity solution method permits transformation of the
[45]. partial differential equations (PDE) associated with the trans-
Based on the assumptions of the problem, non-Newto- fer of momentum and thermal energy to ordinary differential
nian fluid is a continuum and an incompressible fluid. equations (ODE) containing associated parameters of the
The positive 𝑦-coordinate is considered normal to the 𝑥- problem by using nondimensional parameters. Applying sim-
coordinate. The corresponding velocity components in the 𝑥 ilarity method, the fundamental equations of the boundary
and 𝑦 directions are 𝑢 and V, respectively. 𝑥 is the coordinate layer are transformed to ordinary differential ones. The
along the plate measured from the leading edge. The positive stream function, 𝜓, which is a function of 𝑥 and 𝑦, can
𝑦-coordinate is measured perpendicular to the 𝑥-coordinate be expressed as a function of 𝑥 and 𝜂, if the similarity
in the outward direction towards the fluid. The corresponding solution exists. The mathematical analysis of the problem
velocity components in the 𝑥 and 𝑦 directions are denoted as can be simplified by introducing the following dimensionless
𝑢 and V, respectively. A permeable surface is considered here coordinates:
at prescribed surface temperature (PST), 𝑇wall given by [7]
𝑢 𝑈2−𝑛
𝑘󸀠 𝑓󸀠 (𝜂) = 𝜂 = 𝑦( )
𝑦 = 0, 𝑇 = 𝑇wall (= 𝑇∞ + 𝐴𝑥 ) , (2) 𝑈 ]∞ 𝑥
𝑇 − 𝑇∞ 1/(𝑛+1)
where 𝐴 is a constant and 𝑘󸀠 is the surface tempera- 𝜃 (𝜂) = , 𝜓 (𝜂) = (]∞ 𝑥𝑈2𝑛−1 ) 𝑓 (𝜂) ,
𝑇𝑤 − 𝑇∞
ture parameter at the prescribed surface temperature (PST)
(9)
boundary condition. Besides, the volumetric rate of heat
generation is defined as follows [26, 46, 47]: where ]∞ is the non-Newtonian kinematic viscosity, 𝑓(𝜂) is
the dimensionless stream function, 𝜃(𝜂) is the dimensionless
𝑄0 (𝑇 − 𝑇∞ ) , 𝑇 ≥ 𝑇∞ temperature of the fluid in the boundary layer region, and 𝜓
𝑄={ (3)
0 𝑇 < 0, is stream function as a function of 𝑥 and 𝜂. By means of above
similarity variables, non-Newtonian fluid velocity adjacent to
where 𝑄0 is the heat generation/absorption coefficient. The the wall can be defined as follows:
continuity, momentum, and energy equations for power-law 󵄨 󵄨𝑛−1
fluid in Cartesian coordinates 𝑥 and 𝑦 are 𝑓󸀠 (0) = 1 + 𝐾 (𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0)󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 ) , (10)
𝜕𝑢 𝜕V where 𝐾 is the slip coefficient given by

+ = 0, (4)
𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦 𝑙 𝑈3
𝑛/(𝑛+1)
𝐾= 1( ) . (11)
𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑢 𝜇 𝜕 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝑢 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑛−1 𝜕𝑢 𝑈 ]∞ 𝑥
𝑢 +V = (󵄨 󵄨 ), (5)
𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦 𝜌 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝑦 The momentum and energy equations and the associated
boundary conditions reduce to the following system of sim-
𝜕𝑇 𝜕𝑇 𝜕2 𝑇 𝜇 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝑢 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑛+1 𝑄0 (𝑇 − 𝑇∞ ) ilarity equations:
𝑢 +V =𝛼 2 + 󵄨 󵄨 + , (6)
𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦 𝜕𝑦 𝜌𝑐𝑝 󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝜌𝑐𝑝
󵄨 󵄨𝑛−1
𝑛 (𝑛 + 1) 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑓󸀠󸀠 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝑓󸀠󸀠󸀠 + 𝑓𝑓󸀠󸀠 = 0,
where 𝑛, 𝜌, 𝛼, and 𝜇 are the power-law index parameter, the (12)
Pr 󵄨 󵄨𝑛+1
fluid density, the thermal diffusivity, and the consistency 𝜃󸀠󸀠 + 𝑓𝜃󸀠 + PrEc󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑓󸀠󸀠 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 + Pr𝑠𝜃 − Pr𝑘󸀠 𝑓󸀠 𝜃 = 0.
index for non-Newtonian viscosity, respectively. 𝑇 is the 𝑛+1
temperature of the fluid and 𝑐𝑝 is the specific heat at constant The associated boundary conditions are given by
pressure. The associated boundary conditions are given by
󵄨 󵄨𝑛−1
󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝑢 󵄨󵄨𝑛−1 𝜕𝑢 󵄨󵄨󵄨 {
{ 𝑓󸀠 (0) = 1 + 𝐾 (𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0)󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 )
󵄨 󵄨 {
𝑦 = 0 󳨐⇒ 𝑢 = 𝑈 + 𝑢𝑠 = 𝑈 + 𝑙1 (󵄨󵄨󵄨 󵄨󵄨󵄨 )󵄨󵄨 , 𝜂 = 0 󳨐⇒ {𝑓 (0) = 𝑓𝑤
󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑤 {
{
󸀠 (7) {𝜃 (0) = 1 (13)
V = V𝑤 , 𝑇 = 𝑇𝑤 (= 𝑇∞ + 𝐴𝑥𝑘 )
𝑓󸀠 (∞) = 0
𝜂 󳨀→ ∞ 󳨐⇒ {
𝑦 󳨀→ ∞ 󳨐⇒ 𝑢 = 0, 𝑇 = 𝑇∞ , 𝜃 (∞) = 0,
where 𝑠, 𝑓𝑤 , Pr, and Ec show the heat generation/absorption is applied over the local rate of entropy generation adjacent
parameter, the suction/injection parameter, the modified to the wall. The cross-stream (𝑧) dependence arises from
local non-Newtonian Prandtl number, and the Eckert num- interspersed no-slip (subscript 𝑛𝑠) and slip-flow (subscript
ber, respectively. Accordingly, the involved parameters of the 𝑠) solutions of the boundary layer equations. Therefore, the
problem are defined by integration over the width of the surface from 0 ≤ 𝑧 ≤ 𝑊
consists of 𝑚 separate integrations over each microchannel
𝑛/(𝑛+1)
𝑙1 𝑈3 − (𝑛 + 1) 𝑥𝑛/(𝑛+1) V𝑤 surface width, 0 ≤ 𝑧 ≤ 𝑊𝑠 + 2𝑑, as well as the remaining
𝐾= ( ) , 𝑓𝑤 = 1/(𝑛+1) no-slip portion of the plate, which is interspersed between
𝑈 ]∞ 𝑥 (]∞ 𝑈2𝑛−1 ) these microchannels and covers a range of 0 ≤ 𝑧 ≤ 𝑊 − 𝑚𝑊𝑠
−2/(𝑛+1) (see Figure 1(b)). Thus, by performing the integrations and
𝑈 𝑈2−𝑛 𝑈2 𝑄0 𝑥
Pr = ( ) , Ec = , 𝑠= . assuming an equal number of microchannels and no-slip gaps
𝛼𝑥 ]∞ 𝑥 󸀠
𝐴𝑥𝑘 𝑐𝑝 𝑈𝜌𝑐𝑝 interspersed between those microchannels (see Figure 1(b)),
(14) it can be shown that
Suction/injection parameter 𝑓𝑤 determines the transpiration 𝑆𝑔󸀠󸀠 = 𝑆𝑇󸀠󸀠 + 𝑆𝐹󸀠󸀠 , (17)

rate along the surface with 𝑓𝑤 > 0 for suction, 𝑓𝑤 < 0
for injection, and 𝑓𝑤 = 0 corresponding to an impermeable where
surface. The one-way coupled equations (12) are solved 𝑚(𝑊𝑠 +2𝑑) 𝑊−𝑚𝑊𝑠
numerically by using the explicit Runge-Kutta (4, 5) formula, 𝑆𝑇󸀠󸀠 = ∫ 󸀠󸀠󸀠
𝑆𝑇,slip 𝑑𝑧 + ∫ 󸀠󸀠󸀠
𝑆𝑇,no-slip 𝑑𝑧,
0 0
the Dormand-Prince pair, and shooting method, subject to (18)
the boundary conditions (13). Thus, the local skin friction 𝑚(𝑊𝑠 +2𝑑) 𝑊−𝑚𝑊𝑠
coefficient and the local Nusselt number exhibit dependence 𝑆𝐹󸀠󸀠 =∫ 󸀠󸀠󸀠
𝑆𝐹,slip 𝑑𝑧 +∫ 󸀠󸀠󸀠
𝑆𝐹,no-slip 𝑑𝑧.
0 0
on the involved parameters of the problem as follows:
Moreover, the dimensionless local entropy generation rate
2𝜏 󵄨 󵄨𝑛−1
𝐶𝑓𝑥 = − 𝑤2 = −2Re−1/(𝑛+1) 𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0)󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 ,
is defined as a ratio of the present local entropy generation
𝜌𝑈 rate 𝑆𝑔󸀠󸀠 and a characteristic entropy generation rate 𝑆𝑔0 󸀠󸀠
,
󵄨 (15) called entropy generation number 𝑁𝑠 . Here, the characteristic
−𝑥 (𝜕𝑇/𝜕𝑦)󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑦=0 󵄨 󵄨 entropy generation rate, based on the width of the surface, is
𝑁𝑢𝑥 = = Re1/(𝑛+1) 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨𝜃󸀠 (0)󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 ,
𝑇𝑤 − 𝑇∞ defined as
𝑘∞ Δ𝑇2 𝑊
where Re = 𝜌𝑈2−𝑛 𝑥𝑛 /𝜇 refers to the local Reynolds number. 𝑆𝑔󸀠󸀠0 = , (19)
𝐿2 𝑇∞
2
2.2. Entropy Generation Analysis. Entropy generation anal- where 𝐿 is characteristic length scale. In addition, the
ysis concerned with the power-law non-Newtonian fluid nondimensional geometric parameters are defined as (see
flow over open parallel microchannels embedded within a Figure 1(b))
continuously permeable moving surface at prescribed surface
temperature in the presence of viscous dissipation. Thus, heat 𝑊𝑠 + 2𝑑 𝑑
𝜆= , 𝜍= . (20)
transfer (𝑆𝑇󸀠󸀠󸀠 ) and friction irreversibilities (𝑆𝐹󸀠󸀠󸀠 ) are included 𝑊 𝑊
within the local volumetric rate of entropy generation. The Consequently, the entropy generation number is expressed as
rate of entropy generation will be obtained based on the
previous solutions of the boundary layer for fluid velocity 𝑆𝑔󸀠󸀠
and temperature. According to Woods [48], Khan and Gorla 𝑁𝑠 =
[49], and Hung [50], the local volumetric rate of entropy 𝑆𝑔󸀠󸀠0
generation for power-law non-Newtonian flow is given by
𝑘󸀠2 2
= 𝜃 (0) [𝑚𝜆]
𝑘∞ 𝜕𝑇 2 𝜕𝑇 2 𝜇 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝑢 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑛+1 𝑋2 𝑠
𝑆𝑔󸀠󸀠󸀠 = [( ) + ( ) ] + 󵄨 󵄨
2
𝑇∞ 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦 𝑇∞ 󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨󵄨 (16) 𝑘󸀠2 2
+ 𝜃 (0) [1 + 2𝑚𝜍 − 𝑚𝜆]
𝑋2 𝑛𝑠
= 𝑆𝑇󸀠󸀠󸀠 + 𝑆𝐹󸀠󸀠󸀠 ,
Re(2/(𝑛+1)) 󸀠2 (21)
where 𝑘∞ is thermal conductivity. In the present work, the + 𝜃𝑠 (0) [𝑚𝜆]
𝑋2
integration of the above local entropy generation is done
only along the width of the surface (𝑧-direction) due to con- Re(2/(𝑛+1)) 󸀠2
sidering the impact of embedded microchannels within the + 𝜃𝑛𝑠 (0) [1 + 2𝑚𝜍 − 𝑚𝜆]
𝑋2
permeable surface. This type of integration leads to study the
Br Re 󵄨󵄨 󸀠󸀠 󵄨󵄨(𝑛+1)
effects of combined slip/no-slip conditions on local entropy + 󵄨󵄨𝑓 (0)󵄨󵄨 [𝑚𝜆]
generation rates. With the intention of considering the effect Ω 𝑋2 󵄨 𝑠 󵄨
of the embedded open parallel microchannels with-in a Br Re 󵄨󵄨 󸀠󸀠 󵄨󵄨(𝑛+1)
+ 󵄨󵄨𝑓 (0)󵄨󵄨 [1 + 2𝑚𝜍 − 𝑚𝜆] ,
permeable surface, integration over the width of the surface Ω 𝑋2 󵄨 𝑠 󵄨
1 1
0.9 0.9
0.8 0.8
0.7 0.7
0.6 0.6
f󳰀 (𝜂)
𝜃(𝜂)
0.5 0.5
0.4 0.4
0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
0.1 0.1
0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
𝜂 𝜂
K = 0.0 K = 0.5 K = 0.0 K = 0.5

K = 0.2 K=1 K = 0.2 K=1
(a) (b)
Figure 2: (a) Distribution of velocity as function of 𝜂 for various values of 𝐾 when 𝑓𝑤 = 0.2, 𝑛 = 0.8. (b) Distribution of temperature as
function of 𝜂 for various values of 𝐾 when 𝑓𝑤 = 0.2, 𝑛 = 0.8, 𝑠 = 0.1, Ec = 0.1, 𝑘󸀠 = 0.1, and Pr = 5.
where 𝑋, Re, Br, and Ω are, respectively, the nondimensional 3. Results and Discussion
surface length, the Reynolds number, the Brinkman number,
and the dimensionless temperature difference. These param- The nonlinear governing partial differential equations are
eters are given by the following relationships: converted into a set of nonlinear ordinary differential ones
through similarity transformations technique and then
𝜇𝑈𝑛+1 𝑈2−𝑛 𝑥𝑛 solved numerically by the Dormand-Prince pair and shooting
Br = , Re = , method. The computed numerical results are shown graphi-
𝑥𝑛−1 𝑘∞ Δ𝑇 ]∞
(22) cally in Figures 2–14. As a test of the accuracy of the solution,
𝑥 Δ𝑇 a comparison between the present code results and those
𝑋= , Ω= . obtained previously is presented. Although the main focus of
𝐿 𝑇∞
this paper is entropy generation, graphical presentations of
The Bejan number is defined as the ratio of heat transfer irre- local skin friction and local Nusselt number are required in
versibility to total irreversibility due to heat transfer and fluid order to understand the mechanisms of entropy generation
friction for the power-law non-Newtonian boundary layer along micropatterned surface. Therefore, in the first step, the
flow. Bejan number is given by effects of involved parameters of the problem on flow and
heat transfer are displayed. After that, the entropy generation
Heat transfer irreversibility 1 numbers, as well as the Bejan number, for various values of
Be = = , (23)
Entropy generation number 1 + Φ the involved parameters are evaluated.
where Φ is the irreversibility distribution ratio which is given 3.1. Effects on Flow and Heat Transfer. In order to verify
by the accuracy of the present results, our results are compared
for the local skin-friction coefficient and the local Nusselt
Fluid friction irreversibility number to those of previous studies for some special cases.
Φ= . (24) Table 1 proves that the present numerical results agree well
Heat transfer irreversibility
with those obtained by Sakiadis [47], Fox et al. [51], Chen
As the Bejan number ranges from 0 to 1, it approaches zero [52], Jacobi [53], and Mahmoud [26] for special case of 𝑛 = 1,
when the entropy generation due to the combined effects 𝐾 = 0, 𝑀 = 0, 𝑓𝑤 = 0, Pr = 0.7, Ec = 0, 𝑠 = 0, and 𝑘󸀠 = 0.0.
of fluid friction and magnetic field is dominant. Similarly, Moreover, Table 2 indicates another comparison of our work
(𝑛−1)
Be > 0.5 indicates that the irreversibility due to heat transfer for the local skin friction coefficient, −𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0)|𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0)| and
󸀠
dominates, with Be = 1 as the limit at which the irreversibility temperature gradient at the wall |𝜃 (0)|, respectively, with
is solely due to heat transfer. Consequently, 0 ≤ Φ ≤ 1 those obtained by Mahmoud [26] at special case of constant
indicates that the irreversibility is primarily due to the heat surface temperature (𝑘󸀠 = 0). Our results are found to be in
transfer irreversibility, whereas for Φ > 1 it is due to the fluid excellent agreement with previous results as seen from the
friction irreversibility. The entropy generation number, 𝑁𝑠 in tabulated results.
(21) together with Bejan number in (23) will be used for the Figure 2(a) presents the velocity profiles 𝑓󸀠 (𝜂) as function
evaluation of the present study. of 𝜂 for various values of slip coefficient 𝐾 when 𝑓𝑤 = 0.2,
Table 1: Comparison of the |𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0)| and |𝜃󸀠 (0)| between the present results and those obtained previously for special case of 𝑛 = 1, 𝐾 = 0,
𝑓𝑤 = 0.0, Pr = 0.7, Ec = 0.0, 𝑠 = 0.0, and 𝑘󸀠 = 0.0.
|𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0)| |𝜃󸀠 (0)|

Sakiadis [47] Fox et al. [51] Chen [52] Mahmoud [26] Present Jacobi [53] Chen [52] Mahmoud [26] Present
0.44375 0.4437 0.4438 0.44375 0.44375 0.3492 0.34925 0.34925 0.34925
1 1
0.9 0.9
0.8 0.8
0.7 0.7
0.6 0.6
f󳰀 (𝜂)
𝜃(𝜂)
0.5 0.5
0.4 0.4
0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
0.1 0.1
0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
𝜂 𝜂
n = 0.4 n=1 n = 0.4 n=1

n = 0.8 n = 1.2 n = 0.8 n = 1.2
(a) (b)
Figure 3: (a) Distribution of velocity as function of 𝜂 for various values of 𝑛 when 𝑓𝑤 = 0.2, 𝐾 = 0.1. (b) Distribution of temperature as
function of 𝜂 for various values of 𝑛 when 𝑓𝑤 = 0.2, 𝐾 = 0.1, 𝑠 = 0.1, Ec = 0.1, 𝑘󸀠 = 0.1, and Pr = 5.
Table 2: Comparison of the skin friction −𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0)|𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0)| and

𝑛−1
Ec = 0.1, 𝑘󸀠 = 0.1, and Pr = 5. It can be observed that an
|𝜃󸀠 (0)| between the present results and those obtained previously for increase with slip coefficient tends to enhance temperature
special case of 𝑛 = 0.8, 𝐾 = 0.1, Pr = 10, Ec = 0.1, 𝑠 = 0.1, and in the boundary layer. Moreover, decreasing the values of the
𝑘󸀠 = 0.0. slip coefficient leads to thinning of the thermal boundary
layer thickness.
Mahmoud [26] Present results
𝑓𝑤 𝑛−1 𝑛−1 Figures 3(a) and 3(b) illustrate the influence of the power-
−𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0)|𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0)| |𝜃󸀠 (0)| −𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0)|𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0)| |𝜃󸀠 (0)|
law index parameter 𝑛, from shear-thinning fluids (𝑛 = 0.4)
−0.5 0.3619 0.0303 0.3619 0.0303
to shear-thickening fluids (𝑛 = 1.2) on nondimensional
−0.2 0.4339 0.6604 0.4339 0.6604
velocity and temperature profiles, respectively. For non-
0.0 0.4865 1.2914 0.4865 1.2914
Newtonians, the slope of the shear stress versus shear rate
0.2 0.5425 2.0490 0.5425 2.0490 curve will not be constant as we change the shear rate. As
0.5 0.6326 3.3460 0.6326 3.3460 explained, when the viscosity decreases with increasing shear
rate, we call the fluid shear thinning. Having a power-law
index 𝑛 < 1 is referred as a shear-thinning fluid. Thus, a
𝑛 = 0.8. The dominating nature of the slip on the boundary reduction in the shear layer (when compared with Newtonian
layer flow is clear from this figure. When partial slip occurs, fluid flow) is a characteristic feature of non-Newtonian fluids
the flow velocity near the surface is no longer equal to the when 𝑛 < 1. One explanation of shear thinning is that asym-
velocity of moving surface. One can see that in the presence metric particles are progressively aligned with streamlines, an
of slip, as 𝐾 increases, 𝑓󸀠 (𝜂) near to the wall is decreased alignment that responds nearly instantaneously to changes in
and then increases away from it resulting an intersection in the imposed shear; after complete alignment at high shear
the velocity profile. Physically, the presence of velocity slip the apparent viscosity becomes constant [54]. In the opposite
on the moving surface within stationary fluid has tendency case where the viscosity increases as the fluid is subjected
to decrease fluid velocity adjacent to the wall, causing the to a higher shear rate, the fluid is called shear thickening
hydrodynamic boundary layer thickness to increase. In all having an index 𝑛 > 1 [55]. These figures indicate that the
cases the velocity vanishes at some large distance from the velocity profiles decrease with the increase of 𝑛 in velocity
surface. The effect of slip coefficient 𝐾 on temperature profile boundary layer but this consequence is not very noticeable
is illustrated in Figure 2(b) when 𝑓𝑤 = 0.2, 𝑛 = 0.8, 𝑠 = 0.1, adjacent to the wall (see Figure 3(a)). One can see that, in
1 0.65
0.6
0.95
0.55
Cfx /(2Re(−1/(n+1) )
0.9 0.5
f󳰀 (0)
x
0.85 0.45
0.4
0.8
0.35
0.75 0.3
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
K K
fw = −0.3 fw = 0.1 fw = −0.3 fw = 0.1

fw = −0.2 fw = 0.2 fw = −0.2 fw = 0.2
fw = −0.1 fw = 0.3 fw = −0.1 fw = 0.3
fw = 0.0 fw = 0.0
(a) (b)
Figure 4: Variation of the (a) 𝑓󸀠 (0) and (b) skin friction as function of 𝐾 for various values of 𝑓𝑤 when 𝑛 = 0.8.
the presence of velocity slip, as 𝑛 increases, nondimensional coefficient is much larger for shear thinning (pseudoplastic)
velocity 𝑓󸀠 (𝜂) increases near to the wall and then decreases fluids (0 < 𝑛 < 1) than that of shear thickening (dilatant)
away from it resulting an intersection in the velocity profile. fluids (1 < 𝑛 < 2), as clearly seen from Figure 5(b). The gra-
Consequently, an increase of 𝑛 tends to reduce boundary dient of the 𝑓󸀠 (0) versus 𝐾 is much higher in the shear
layer thickness; that is, the thickness is much large for shear thinning fluids. Thus, it is interesting to note that the effect
thinning (pseudoplastic) fluids (0 < 𝑛 < 1) than that of of partial slip on both 𝑓󸀠 (0) and skin friction is significant
Newtonians (𝑛 = 1) and shear thickening (dilatant) fluids in shear thinning fluid (𝑛 < 1) then shear thickening
(1 < 𝑛 < 2). It is noted, the temperature profile enhances fluid (𝑛 > 1). The reason goes back to the power-law
as 𝑛 increases and the power-law index 𝑛 has a tendency to index of non-Newtonian fluids based on the consistency
increase the thickness of the thermal boundary layer. index for non-Newtonian viscosity equation (10). Physically,
Figures 4(a) and 4(b) display variation of the 𝑓󸀠 (0) for pseudoplastic non-Newtonian fluids (𝑛 < 1) viscosity
and local skin friction coefficient respectively, versus 𝐾 for decreases as shear rate increases (shear rate thinning). On
various values of 𝑓𝑤 when 𝑛 = 0.8. It is interesting to the other hand, for dilatant (𝑛 > 1) viscosity increases as
note that the slip coefficient can successfully decrease local shear rate increases (shear rate thickening). Consequently, the
skin friction coefficient along surface. Besides, it is worth effect of increasing values of power-law index parameter 𝑛 is
mentioning to note that the effect of velocity slip on both to increase the fluid velocity adjacent to the wall while leading
𝑓󸀠 (0) and skin friction is more significant in the suction to decrease the skin friction coefficient. The computed value
case (𝑓𝑤 > 0), than injection (𝑓𝑤 < 0), specially at high of Figure 5(b) can be compared here for special case (𝑛 =
suction parameter since gradient of the 𝑓󸀠 (0) versus 𝐾 is 0.8, 𝐾 = 0.1) with that obtained by Mahmoud [26], where
𝑛−1
much higher in the presence of suction. Furthermore, the −𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0)|𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0)| is equal to 0.5425 and it exhibits perfect
suction/injection parameter has been potential to control agreement.
velocity adjacent to the wall in the slip boundary condition The effect of the surface temperature parameter 𝑘󸀠 on
problems, specially, at higher values of 𝐾. An increase of local Nusselt number is shown in Figure 6. It is seen that
suction decreases nondimensional velocity at the wall while local Nusselt number increases with the increase in surface
injection depicts opposite effects. Besides, injection fluid into temperature parameter. It is noted that the heat transfer rate
the hydrodynamic boundary layer decreases the local skin- increases with the increase of Prandtl number for fixed values
friction coefficient, while increasing the suction parameter of 𝐾 and 𝑘󸀠 . It is interesting to note that what we can do to
enhances the local skin-friction coefficient. reach a high heat transfer rate is to use a non-Newtonian fluid
The effect of the power law index parameter 𝑛 and 𝐾 on with low power-law index parameter 𝑛. This is possible and
(a) fluid velocity adjacent to the wall 𝑓󸀠 (0) and (b) the local suitable way to attain a high heat transfer rate (see Figure 7).
skin friction coefficientis illustrated in Figures 5(a) and 5(b), In general the results show a decrease in the Nusselt numbers
respectively. An increase of the index parameter 𝑛 tends to with an increase in the power law index parameter 𝑛 where
increase the fluid velocity adjacent to the wall and thereby the Nusselt number is higher for shear thinning (pseudo
to reduce velocity gradient at the wall. The skin friction plastic) fluids (0 < 𝑛 < 1) than that of shear thickening
1 1
0.95 0.9
0.9 0.8
Cfx /(2Re(−1/(n+1) )
K = 0.1
(n−1)
0.85 0.7 −f󳰀󳰀 (0)|f 󳰀󳰀 (0)| = 0.5425
f󳰀 (0)
x
0.8 0.6
0.75 0.5
0.7 0.4
0.65 0.3
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5
K K
n = 0.4 n=1 n = 0.4 n=1

n = 0.6 n = 1.2 n = 0.6 n = 1.2
n = 0.8 n = 0.8
(a) (b)
Figure 5: Variation of (a) 𝑓󸀠 (0) and (b) skin friction versus 𝐾 for various values of 𝑛 when 𝑓𝑤 = 0.2.
2.8 1.7
1.6
2.6
1.5
2.4
Nu x /(Re(1/(n+1) )
1.4
2.2 1.3
x
Nu x /(Re(1/(n+1) )
2 1.2
K = 0.1
x
1.1
1.8 −𝜃󳰀 (0) = 2.049
1
1.6
0.9
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5
1.4
K
1.2 n = 0.4 n=1

n = 0.6 n = 1.2
1 n = 0.8
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
K Figure 7: Local Nusselt number as function of 𝐾 for various values
of 𝑛 when 𝑓𝑤 = 0.2, 𝑠 = 0.1, 𝑘󸀠 = 0.1, Pr = 5, and Ec = 0.1.
k󳰀 = 0.0 Pr = 5 k󳰀 = 0.0 Pr = 10
k󳰀 = 0.1 k󳰀 = 0.1
k󳰀 = 0.2 k󳰀 = 0.2
k󳰀 = 0.3 k󳰀 = 0.3 to the case of increasing slip coefficient. Figure 9 depicts the
effect of heat generation (𝑠 > 0) or absorption parameter
Figure 6: Local Nusselt number as function of 𝐾 for various values
(𝑠 < 0) on local Nusselt number. The same consequence
of 𝑘󸀠 and Pr when 𝑓𝑤 = 0.2, 𝑠 = 0.1, 𝑛 = 0.8, and Ec = 0.1.
for the slip coefficient is illustrated; as 𝐾 decreases the heat
transfer rate is increased. In addition, it is noted that an
increase in heat generation parameter tends to decrease heat
(dilatant) fluids (1 < 𝑛 < 2). The variation of local Nusselt transfer rate whereas heat absorption acts in the opposite way.
number as function of 𝐾 for various values of 𝑓𝑤 when Physically, the reason is that the heat generation presence will
𝑛 = 0.8, 𝑠 = 0.1, 𝑘󸀠 = 0.1, Pr = 5, and Ec = 0.1 is illustrated enhance the fluid temperature adjacent to the wall and thus
in Figure 8. For a fixed value of 𝐾 increasing suction results temperature gradient at the surface decreases, thus decreasing
in an increase in the Nusselt number. Besides, the impact of the heat transfer at the surface. But as the heat absorption
increasing injection is seen to reduce the heat transfer, similar increases, the local Nusselt number increases. This is because
1.8 increasing the heat absorption generates to layer of cold fluid

near to the heated surface.
1.6
3.2. Effects on Entropy Generation Analysis. The following

1.4 section presents the results for entropy generation analysis
of power-law fluid flow over open parallel microchannels
Nu x /(Re(1/(n+1) )
1.2 embedded within a continuously permeable moving surface

at PST in the presence of heat generation/absorption and
x
viscous dissipation. The entropy generation number as a

1 function of the change in the number of embedded open
parallel microchannels for various values of power-law index
0.8 parameters, 𝑛 = 0.8, 𝑛 = 1, and 𝑛 = 1.2, is illustrated
in Figures 10(a), 10(b), and 10(c), respectively. Here, it is
demonstrated that the design of embedded open parallel
0.6 microchannels yields an interesting result with respect to
reduction of the entropy generation of convective heat trans-
0.4 fer over moving surface. We know that the slip inside the
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 open microchannels is considered, particularly in cases where
K a hydrophobic microchannel surface exists. First of all, it
should be remembered that an increase in the slip coefficient
fw = −0.3 fw = 0.1
fw = −0.2 fw = 0.2
tends to decrease both heat transfer and friction losses along a
fw = −0.1 fw = 0.3 stretching surface within stationary fluid. On the other hand,
fw = 0.0 the entropy generation number 𝑁𝑠 is comprised of friction
and heat transfer irreversibilities. Thus, the entropy genera-
Figure 8: Local Nusselt number as function of 𝐾 for various values tion number decreases by increasing the slip coefficient in all
of 𝑓𝑤 when 𝑛 = 0.8, 𝑠 = 0.1, 𝑘󸀠 = 0.1, Pr = 5, and Ec = 0.1. three cases of shear thinning (pseudoplastic) fluids when 𝑛 =
0.8 (see Figure 10(a)), Newtonian fluid when 𝑛 = 1 (see Fig-
ure 10(b)), and shear thickening (dilatant) fluids when 𝑛 = 1.2
(see Figure 10(c)). The intersection point between the graphs
in all three figures determines different trends resulting
from the larger slip coefficients, as compared to the smaller
0.8 slip coefficients (before the intersection point). There is an
intersection point within the graphs named as “critical point.”
1 Afterward, the influence of the slip coefficient is considerable
on the system and the region is called “effectual region.” As
a greater surface area results in an increased surface friction
1.2 due to a larger number of embedded microchannels, when
the slip coefficient inside the microchannels is not sufficient,
Nu x /(Re(1/(n+1) )
1.4 an increase in the number of microchannels tends to increase

the entropy generation number, due to added surface friction.
x
This phenomenon is much more pronounced when the values

1.6 of slip coefficient are less than critical point. Consequently,
extra effort and cost associated with micromachining the
1.8 surface to achieve a desired embedded microchannel surface
cannot be warranted. However, for high values of the slip
coefficient (after the critical point, inside effectual region),
2 an increase in the number of open parallel microchannels
can effectively decrease the entropy generation number.
2.2 Consequently, it is necessary to consider the projected values
0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 of the slip coefficients inside the microchannels required in
K order to establish an appropriate design of the open parallel
s= 0.0 s = −0.1
microchannels embedded within the moving surface due
s= 0.1 s = −0.2 to a reduction in the exergy losses. This can be effectively
s= 0.2 s = −0.3 achieved by considering hydrophobic open microchannels
s= 0.3 with high slip coefficients. It is interesting to note that
the entropy generation number is lower for higher power-
Figure 9: Local Nusselt number as function of 𝐾 for various values law index parameters, whereby the presence of the shear
of 𝑠 when 𝑛 = 0.8, 𝑓𝑤 = 0.2, 𝑘󸀠 = 0.1, Pr = 5, and Ec = 0.1. thinning (pseudoplastic) fluids creates entropy along the
×104
3.13
3.12
3.11
3.1
3.09
Ns
3.08
3.07
3.06
3.05 K = 0.63
3.04
3.03
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
K
m = 0.0 n = 0.8 m = 500

m = 100 m = 700
m = 200 m = 1000
(a)
×104 ×104
2.11 1.505
1.5
2.1
1.495
2.09 1.49
1.485
Ns
Ns
2.08
1.48
2.07 1.475
1.47
2.06 K = 0.65 1.465 K = 0.66
2.05 1.46
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
K K
m = 0.0 n = 1 m = 500 m = 0.0 n = 1.2 m = 500

m = 100 m = 700 m = 100 m = 700
m = 200 m = 1000 m = 200 m = 1000
(b) (c)
Figure 10: 𝑁𝑠 as a function of 𝐾 for various values of 𝑚 and (a) 𝑛 = 0.8. (b) 𝑛 = 1. (c) 𝑛 = 1.2 when 𝑓𝑤 = 0.2, Pr = 5, Ec = 0.1, 𝑘󸀠 = 0.1,
𝑠 = 0.1, 𝑋 = 0.03, BrΩ−1 = 0.1, Re = 10, 𝜁 = 0.00001, and 𝜆 = 0.0001.
surface, with a noticeable opposite effect resulting from shear high 𝑚, the Bejan number is high due to a small irreversibility
thickening (dilatant) fluids. Another interesting aspect of the distribution ratio Φ where the temperature irreversibilities
problem is that the critical point moves slightly rightward for are prominent. An increase in the number of microchannels
higher index parameters. This means that wider range of slip can verify the desirable circumstances required for our sys-
coefficients can be beneficial for the shear thinning than shear tem in order to reduce entropy generation where it is possible
thickening fluids. to efficiently take advantage of slip flow boundary conditions.
Effects of number of microchannels on Bejan number for As explained before, partial slip decreases both friction and
various values of power-law index parameter at 𝑛 = 0.8, 𝑛 = 1, heat transfer irreversibilities. However it is obvious from the
and 𝑛 = 1.2 are illustrated in Figures 11(a), 11(b), and 11(c), figure that the reduction rate of friction irreversibilities is
respectively. It indicates that an increase in the number of much higher compared with heat transfer irreversibilities
microchannels causes an increase of the Bejan number. At since the Bejan number increases by 𝐾. It is also noted that
0.987
0.9869
0.9897
0.9868
0.9896
0.9867
Be
Be
0.9895 0.9866
0.9865
0.9894
0.9864
0.9893
0.9863
0.9892 0.9862
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
K K
m = 0.0 n = 0.8 m = 500 m = 0.0 n = 1 m = 500

m = 100 m = 700 m = 100 m = 700
m = 200 m = 1000 m = 200 m = 1000
(a) (b)
0.9837
0.9836
0.9835
0.9834
Be
0.9833
0.9832
0.9831
0.983
0.9829
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
K
m = 0.0 n = 1.2 m = 500

m = 100 m = 700
m = 200 m = 1000
(c)
Figure 11: Bejan number versus 𝐾 for various values of 𝑚 and (a) 𝑛 = 0.8. (b) 𝑛 = 1. (c) 𝑛 = 1.2 when 𝑓𝑤 = 0.2, Pr = 5, Ec = 0.1, 𝑘󸀠 = 0.1,
𝑠 = 0.1, 𝑋 = 0.03, BrΩ−1 = 0.1, Re = 10, 𝜁 = 0.00001, and 𝜆 = 0.0001.
an increase in 𝑛 accompanies a slightly reduction in the Bejan the increase in 𝜆. It indicates that an increase in the width
number. This is because of the index parameter influences on of the microchannels decreases the irreversibility distribu-
heat transfer rate which shows a decreasing effect. tion ratio with the increase of heat transfer irreversibilities.
Figure 12(a) shows change of the entropy generation Further, it is also noted that the effect of microchannel depth
number with varying surface nondimensional geometric on Bejan number could be considered insignificant compared
parameters and the slip coefficient. The entropy generation with the microchannel width.
number shows an increase at higher microchannel depths, The influence of the Eckert number on 𝑁𝑠 and Bejan
whereas it decreases at higher microchannel widths. This sug- number is shown in Figures 13(a) and 13(b), respectively,
gests that an increase in the width of the microchannels tends where it can be noted that an increase in the Ec results in
to enhance the slip effects along the width of the surface, a decrease in the both 𝑁𝑠 and Be as the heat transfer irre-
causing the entropy generation number to decrease. The effect versibility decreases. Figures 14(a) and 14(b) display the effect
of the nondimensional geometric parameters on the Bejan of the suction/injection parameter on the entropy generation
number is illustrated in Figure 12(b), which it increases with number and Bejan number, respectively, for various values
×104
3.08
3.075
3.07 0.9893
3.065
3.06
Be
Ns
3.055
0.9892
3.05
3.045
3.04
3.035 0.9891
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
K K
𝜆 = 0.0001 𝜁 = 0.00001 𝜆 = 0.0002 𝜁 = 0.00001 𝜆 = 0.0001 𝜁 = 0.00001 𝜆 = 0.0002 𝜁 = 0.00001

𝜆 = 0.0001 𝜁 = 0.00002 𝜆 = 0.0003 𝜁 = 0.00001 𝜆 = 0.0001 𝜁 = 0.00002 𝜆 = 0.0003 𝜁 = 0.00001
𝜆 = 0.0001 𝜁 = 0.00003 𝜆 = 0.0001 𝜁 = 0.00003
(a) (b)
Figure 12: (a) 𝑁𝑠 as a function of 𝐾 for various values of 𝜁 and 𝜆 when 𝑛 = 0.8, 𝑓𝑤 = 0.2, Pr = 5, Ec = 0.1, 𝑘󸀠 = 0.1, 𝑠 = 0.1, 𝑚 = 100,
𝑋 = 0.03, BrΩ−1 = 0.1, and Re = 10. (b) Bejan number as a function of 𝐾 for various values of 𝜁 and 𝜆 when 𝑛 = 0.8, 𝑓𝑤 = 0.2, Pr = 5,
Ec = 0.1, 𝑘󸀠 = 0.1, 𝑠 = 0.1, 𝑚 = 100, 𝑋 = 0.03, BrΩ−1 = 0.1, and Re = 10.
×104
6 0.994
5.5
0.992
5
4.5 0.99
4
0.988
Be
Ns
3.5
3 0.986
2.5
0.984
2
1.5 0.982
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
K K
Ec = 0.2 n = 1 Ec = 0.0 Ec = 0.2 n = 1 Ec = 0.0

Ec = 0.1 Ec = 0.2 n = 0.6 Ec = 0.1 Ec = 0.2 n = 0.6
Ec = 0.0 Ec = 0.1 Ec = 0.0 Ec = 0.1
Ec = 0.2 n = 0.8 Ec = 0.0 Ec = 0.2 n = 0.8 Ec = 0.0
Ec = 0.1 Ec = 0.1
(a) (b)
Figure 13: (a) 𝑁𝑠 as a function of 𝐾 for various values of Ec and 𝑛 when 𝑓𝑤 = 0.2, Pr = 5, 𝑘󸀠 = 0.1, 𝑠 = 0.1, 𝑋 = 0.03, 𝑚 = 100, BrΩ−1 = 0.1,
Re = 10, 𝜁 = 0.00001, and 𝜆 = 0.0001. (b) Bejan number as a function of 𝐾 for various values of Ec and 𝑛 when 𝑛 = 0.8, 𝑓𝑤 = 0.2, Pr = 5,
𝑘󸀠 = 0.1, 𝑠 = 0.1, 𝑋 = 0.03, 𝑚 = 100, BrΩ−1 = 0.1, Re = 10, 𝜁 = 0.00001, and 𝜆 = 0.0001.
×104
5 0.994
4.5 0.992
4
0.99
3.5
0.988
3
Ns
Be
0.986
2.5
0.984
2
0.982
1.5
1 0.98
0.5 0.978
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
K K
fw = −0.1 n = 1 fw = −0.1 n = 0.6 fw = −0.1 n = 1 fw = −0.1 n = 0.6

fw = 0.0 fw = 0.0 fw = 0.0 fw = 0.0
fw = 0.1 fw = 0.1 fw = 0.1 fw = 0.1
fw = 0.2 fw = 0.2 fw = 0.2 fw = 0.2
(a) (b)
Figure 14: (a) 𝑁𝑠 as a function of 𝐾 for various values of 𝑓𝑤 and 𝑛 when Pr = 5, Ec = 0.1, 𝑘󸀠 = 0.1, 𝑠 = 0.1, 𝑋 = 0.03, 𝑚 = 100, BrΩ−1 = 0.1,
Re = 10, 𝜁 = 0.00001, and 𝜆 = 0.0001. (b) Bejan number as a function of 𝐾 for various values of 𝑓𝑤 and 𝑛 when Pr = 5, Ec = 0.1, 𝑘󸀠 = 0.1,
𝑠 = 0.1, 𝑋 = 0.03, 𝑚 = 100, BrΩ−1 = 0.1, Re = 10, 𝜁 = 0.00001, and 𝜆 = 0.0001.
of power-law index parameters. The presence of the suction interesting to note that for high values of the slip coefficient
creates entropy along the surface, with a noticeable opposite (after the critical point), an increase in the number of open
effect resulting from injection. Moreover, Bejan number parallel microchannels (𝑚) can effectively reduce the entropy
decreases when 𝑓𝑤 is increased for injection. It is also evident production. Thus, the results demonstrate that, in the present
that Bejan number is increased in the case of suction, when surface microprofiling design, the value of slip coefficient 𝐾
compared to the injection. The suction/injection parameters is suggested to be selected more than critical point, reaching
can be more significant on the system for lower index an effective reduction in entropy generation by increasing
parameters since the profiles are closer to each other when number of microchannels. Moreover, 𝑁𝑠 decreases with the
𝑛 = 1. increase of injection, Ec and 𝜆, while it increases with the
increase of suction and 𝜁. It is hoped that the present work can
4. Conclusion be used for understanding more complex surface problems
regarding the manipulation of non-Newtonian fluids in fluid
This study is focused on entropy generation analysis of mechanic systems.
power-law non-Newtonian fluid flow over open parallel
microchannels embedded within a continuously permeable
moving surface at PST in the presence of heat genera-
tion/absorption and viscous dissipation. The heat transfer
results suggest that the Nusselt number is increased with The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests
the surface temperature parameter, Prandtl number, internal regarding the publication of this paper.
heat absorption, and suction, whereas it is decreased with the
slip coefficient, power-law index parameter, heat generation,
and injection. After that, based on EBSM, the entropy
generation number is formulated by an integral of local References
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/436473
Research Article
Numerical Investigation on a Prototype Centrifugal Pump
Subjected to Fluctuating Rotational Speed
Yu-Liang Zhang,1 Jun-Jian Xiao,1 Yan-Jun Zhao,2 and Ying-Yu Ji1

1
College of Mechanical Engineering, Quzhou University, Quzhou 324000, China
2
Quzhou College of Technology, Quzhou 324000, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Yu-Liang Zhang; zhang002@sina.com
Received 26 February 2014; Accepted 30 April 2014; Published 26 June 2014
Academic Editor: Hua-Shu Dou
Copyright © 2014 Yu-Liang Zhang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
The rotational speed of pumps often encounters fluctuation in engineering for some reasons. In this paper, in order to study the
transient response characteristic of a prototype centrifugal pump subjected to fluctuating rotational speed, a closed-loop pipe system
including the pump is built to accomplish unsteady flow calculations in which the boundary conditions at the inlet and the outlet
of the pump are not required to be set. The external performance results show that the head’s responsiveness to the fluctuating
rotational speed is very good, while the flow rate’s responsiveness is slightly delayed. The variation tendencies of the static pressures
at the inlet and the outlet of the pump are almost completely opposite, wherein the variation tendency of the static pressure at the
outlet is identical with that of the rotational speed. The intensity of the turbulence energy in each impeller channel is relatively
uniform in the transient flow calculations, while, in the quasi-steady flow calculation, it becomes weaker in a channel closed to
the volute tongue. The nondimensional flow rate and head coefficients are dependent on the rotational speed, and their variation
tendencies are opposite to that of the fluctuating rotational speed as a whole.
1. Introduction of a mixed-flow pump during startup period [3]. Dazin et al.

thought that the transient effect of turbomachinery depends
As is known to all, vane pumps usually operate at stable not only on the acceleration rate and flow rate but also
working points; namely, the rotational speed, flow rate, on velocity profiles and their evolution during all kinds of
pressure, and so forth are invariable or vary very slowly. In transient operating periods [4]. Zhang et al. first obtained
reality, the instability of the voltage for some reasons would the variation curves of rotational speed, flow rate, and
cause fluctuation of rotational speed. In this process, the head of a low-speed-specific centrifugal pump during start-
flow acceleration effect will play a very important role in ing period by experiment, and then, based on a transient
performance parameters such as flow rate and head, which generalized equation, the additional theoretical heads were
will be subjected to continuous and significant changes in a quantificationally calculated and analyzed [5]. Wu et al. used
very short time. During the past 30 years, some investigations
experiment method to reveal transient effects of a closed-loop
on transient performance of pumps have been carried out.
pipe system during all kinds of stopping periods [6], in which
For example, Tsukamoto and Ohashi first studied transient
three inertia schemes of rotor in each stopping scheme were
characteristics of centrifugal pump during starting period
using performance experiment and theoretical calculation independently implemented to measure the torque, pressure,
[1]. Subsequently, Thanapandi and Prasad used the method rotational speed, and so forth.
of characteristics to originally analyze the dynamic perfor- With the rapid development of computer technology,
mances of a volute pump during normal startup and stopping more and more scholars especially in China gradually used
periods [2]. Based on the internal flow equation of impeller computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to research transient
and the one-dimensional motion equation of pipeline, Wang internal flow in turbomachinery. According to the geometric
et al. numerically solved the external hydraulic performance data of pump model in this existing paper, Li et al. designed
Table 1: Main geometric parameters of pump model.
Suction diameter 𝐷𝑖 /mm 50 Inlet blade angle 𝛽1 /(∘ ) 25

Discharge diameter 𝐷𝑜 /mm 40 Outlet blade angle 𝛽2 /(∘ ) 25
Blade number 𝑍 5 Impeller inlet width 𝑏1 /mm 20
Impeller diameter 𝐷2 /mm 160 Impeller outlet width 𝑏2 /mm 10
a new volute and built a closed-loop system to successfully are not required to be set after the variation of rotational
carry out self-coupling startup simulation by means of given speed is given.
experimental result of rotational speed [7]. Except for the The real pipe system containing valves, tanks, pipelines,
pure water medium, on the condition that the transmission and so forth can be simplified as calculation model. The
medium is solid-liquid two-phase flow, the first author of dimensions of the tank are 500×500×1000 mm in Figure 1(a);
this paper also successfully accomplished the numerical more detailed geometric information about the simplified
simulation of internal flow in centrifugal pump during rapid model can be seen in [8]. Regulating the simplified valve
and slow startup periods [8]. Under the constant rotating diameter can control the resistance of the whole pipe system.
speed, Wu et al. used CFD method to numerically simulate Under a certain rotational speed, reducing the valve diameter
the transient internal flow in a centrifugal pump when the can increase local hydraulic loss and decrease the flow rate.
discharge valve is rapidly opened [9]. In the present study, the valve diameter is 10 mm. Under the
Tsukamoto et al. used experiments and singularity rated rotational speed, the final flow rate is about 4.3337 m3 /h.
method to study the dynamic characteristics of centrifugal The computational grids are generated using the commercial
pumps subjected to fluctuating rotational speed [10]. It was CFD software GAMBIT. The grid generated for the cen-
found that the difference between dynamic and quasi-steady trifugal pump is shown in Figure 1(b) in which the grids in
characteristics becomes more remarkable with the increased impeller and volute are unstructured tetrahedron grids. The
frequency of rotational speed fluctuations. Up to now, this grid dependency study is carried out for the present model; it
paper is the only paper about fluctuating rotational speed is found that the head correlation is less than 1% and there is
of pump that we can find in published reports. Although almost no difference among the flow fields. Consequently, the
Tsukamoto studied the transient behavior of pump by means influence of the grid numbers on the numerical results can
of external performance, he did not reveal the variation be ignored. The final grid number used in the computation
characteristics of internal flow fields. In this paper, CFD is 1,841,410, where the grid numbers in impeller, volute,
method will be employed as an attempt to reveal more flow and tank are 616,018, 383,233, and 496,800, respectively.
details and transient characteristics of a low-specific-speed The value of 𝑦+ is taken as about 30 near the boundary
centrifugal pump when its rotational speed is subjected to wall. The grid number can be used to correctly predict the
sinusoidal changes. external performance and capture the macroscopical basic
flow phenomenon.
2. Pump Model and Numerical Method
2.3. Numerical Method. The commercial code FLUENT is
2.1. Centrifugal Pump. The studied model is a prototype cen- used to calculate the transient flow inside the pump subjected
trifugal pump with specific speed 45. Its design parameters to fluctuating rotational speed. On the top of the tank, the
are as follows: flow rate is 6 m3 /h, head is 8 m, and rotational gage pressure is set as 0 Pa so as to be consistent with the
speed = 1450 r/min. The shape of the blades in impeller is two- real state. The variation rule of fluctuating rotational speed
dimensional (2D) cylindrical profile and the volute is spiral. is written into FLUENT using user defined function (UDF).
Its main geometric parameters can be found in Table 1; more In this paper, the instantaneous rotational speed is given as
detailed information about the pump can be seen in [8]. the following function of time:
𝑛 (𝑡) = 𝑛𝐷 + 𝐴 sin (𝐵𝑡) , (1)

2.2. Computational Domain and Mesh. As known to all, the
instantaneous rotational speed, flow rate, pressure, and so where 𝑛𝐷 is the design rotational speed. 𝐴 is the fluctuation
forth quickly vary with time when pump is subjected to amplitude of rotational speed and is 145 in the present study.
fluctuating rotational speed. Therefore, it is very difficult Angular velocity 𝐵 = 20𝜋.
to accurately specify the boundary conditions at the inlet The dynamic slip region (DSR) method is used to solve
and the outlet of the pump in the absence of experimental the transient flow inside the pump subjected to fluctuating
results. In this paper, a closed-loop pipe system including rotational speed [7, 8]. The RNG k-𝜀 turbulence model
the centrifugal pump is built to accomplish self-coupling including the influence of high strain rate and large curvature
calculations so as to eliminate the difficulty of implementing overflowing has been verified that it is suitable to simulate
boundary conditions in simulation. In this calculation, the the flow inside a pump. No-slip boundary conditions are
boundary conditions at the inlet and the outlet of the pump applied on all walls. The standard wall function is also used
(a) Sketch of closed-loop pipe system (b) Grids in centrifugal pump
Figure 1: Configuration of computational domain and grid generation.
to deal with the flow near the walls. The SIMPLE algorithm is ×102
used to solve the discretized equations, including velocity and 20 8 18
pressure update to enforce mass conservation and eventually Q
to obtain the pressure field. The second order upwind scheme 18 6 16
is used to discretize the convective terms, and the central
16 4 14
difference scheme is applied for the diffusion term. The time
Q (m3·h−1 )
n (r·min−1 )
dependent term is in the first order implicit scheme. The
H (m)
14 n 2 12
residual tolerances are set as 0.0001. The time step is 0.0001 s
and the whole fluctuating time is 1 s.
12 0 10
H
10 −2 8
3. Results and Discussions
3.1. Pump Head and Flow Rate. At the transient operating 8 −4 6
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30
conditions, the total instantaneous head consists of the steady
t (s)
head and the flow inertial head caused by flow acceleration
effect [7]. Figure 2 shows the time histories of the instanta- Figure 2: Time histories of head and flow rate of pump subjected to
neous flow rate and pump head when the rotational speed fluctuating rotational speed.
is fluctuated according to the rule in (1). It is seen that there
generally are similar variation tendencies in the head and the
flow rate as the rotational speed; namely, both of them rise obvious fluctuation in the head, the fluctuation in the flow
with the increasing rotational speed, otherwise down. This rate is very slight for rotor-stator interaction.
phenomenon can be easily understood from the dependence
of them on the rotational speed. But, meanwhile, some slight
3.2. Nondimensional Head and Flow Rate. The fluctuating
differences are also seen from Figure 2. As a whole, the head’s
rotational speed causes every performance parameter of
responsiveness to fluctuating rotational speed is relatively
the pump to vary intensely. Therefore, its effects should be
satisfied, and both of them display very good synchronization
excluded from them so as to have a better understanding on
in time. For example, the head and the rotational speed rise
the transient behavior. As such, the nondimensional flow rate
to their maximums at 0.025 s in the first period. It is found
coefficient and nondimensional head coefficient are defined
that the rotor-stator interaction between dynamic impeller
as follows:
and static casing makes the head show periodic fluctuation
characteristic. Due to flow acceleration effect, the flow rate 𝑄 (𝑡)
slightly lags behind the rotational speed. For instance, the 𝜙 (𝑡) = ,
𝜋𝐷2 𝑏2 𝑢2 (𝑡)
rotational speed rises to the maximum at 0.025 s in the first (2)
period, while the moment when the flow rate rises to its 2g𝐻 (𝑡)
𝜓 (𝑡) = 2 ,
maximum is about 0.035 s. Moreover, compared with the 𝑢2 (𝑡)
×102 Figure 4(b) shows that the dynamic pressures at the inlet
20 0.032 and the outlet of the pump slightly lag behind the rotational
2.0 speed; this phenomenon is consistent with the variation result
𝜙
18 0.030 of the flow rate in Figure 2. This is because the dynamic
1.8 pressure characteristic is directly determined by the flow rate
16 0.028 characteristics. Moreover, it can be seen that the dynamic
n (r·min−1 )
1.6 pressure at the outlet of the pump is higher than that at the
14 n 0.026
𝜓
𝜙
inlet. In the present pump model, the discharge diameter of
1.4
the pump is less than the suction diameter, and the former
12 0.024
𝜓 and the latter are 50 mm and 40 mm, respectively. As such,
1.2
the average velocity at the outlet is higher than that at the
10 0.022
inlet; therefore, the dynamic pressure at the outlet is always
1.0
0.020
higher than that at the inlet theoretically. It is also seen from
8
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 Figure 4(b) that the magnitude of the dynamic pressures is
t (s) very small due to the low flow rate in the present pump model.
Generally speaking, the dynamic pressures’ responsiveness to
Figure 3: Time histories of nondimensional head and nondimen- fluctuating rotational speed is relatively good.
sional flow rate.
As is well known, the total pressure is the sum of the
static pressure and the dynamic pressure. Consequently, the
former should be determined together by the latter two in
where 𝑢2 (𝑡) is the impeller tip speed, 𝑢2 (𝑡) = 𝜋𝐷2 𝑛(𝑡). Clearly, theory. It is seen from Figures 4(a) and 4(b) that, at the outlet
these two coefficients are independent of the rotational speed. of the pump, the static pressure is much higher than the
Figure 3 shows the time histories of the nondimensional dynamic pressure, and both of them have the same variation
flow rate coefficient and nondimensional head coefficient tendency. Therefore, the total pressure profile in Figure 4(c)
when the pump is subjected to fluctuating rotational speed. is almost the same as that of the static pressure. Likewise,
Clearly, the calculation results show that the nondimensional the total pressure profile at the inlet is similar to that of the
flow rate coefficient and nondimensional head coefficient are static pressure because the magnitude of the static pressure is
not constants, while being dependent on rotational speed. relatively high comparing with the dynamic pressure. Note
This result manifests that the similarity law of pumps or that the total pressure at the outlet of the pump is much
quasi-steady assumption is not suitable to assess the transient higher than that at the inlet. As such, the total pressure
flow inside the pump. As a whole, the variation tendencies of characteristics at the outlet of pump would mainly determine
these two coefficients are very similar but are opposite to that the pump head characteristics. It is easy to see that both of
of the fluctuating rotational speed. When the rotational speed them show the same evolution tendencies.
rises to the maximum, the nondimensional head coefficient
decreases to the minimum, but the nondimensional flow rate 3.4. Impeller Shaft Power and Dynamic Reaction Force.
coefficient is not the minimum. For example, the rotational Figure 5 shows the variation characteristics of the impeller
speed rises to the maximum at 0.025 s in the first period, while shaft power and the impeller dynamic reaction force of the
the moment when the nondimensional flow rate coefficient pump model when its rotational speed fluctuates according
reaches to its minimum is not 0.025 s, but 0.015 s. This result to the sinusoidal function, in which the definition of the
indicates that, in the whole process, the nondimensional flow impeller shaft power is written as
rate coefficient is not synchronous with the rotational speed.
2𝜋𝑀 (𝑡) 𝑛 (𝑡)
𝑃 (𝑡) = , (3)
60
3.3. Static, Dynamic, and Total Pressures. In this study, the
variation histories of the instantaneous static pressure, where 𝑀(𝑡) is the instantaneous torque on impeller. In
dynamic pressure, and total pressure at the inlet and the Figure 5, it is seen that the dynamic reaction force and the
outlet of the centrifugal pump are also obtained through impeller shaft power show the same evolution tendencies;
calculation, which can be seen in Figure 4. both of them synchronously increase or decrease with time.
Meanwhile, it is also seen that both of them are ahead of the
It can be clearly seen from Figure 4(a) that the variation
rotational speed; this can be attributed to the flow accelera-
trend of the static pressure at the inlet of the pump is different
from that of the outlet. As a whole, the variation tendency tion inertia. What is more, the rotor-stator interaction causes
of the static pressure at the outlet is the same as that of the the impeller shaft power and the dynamic reaction force to
rotational speed, and both of them increase or decrease to display obvious fluctuation characteristics.
the maximum or the minimum; namely, the responsiveness
to rotational speed is very perfect. However, for the static 3.5. Flow Fields. Turbulence energy stands for the magnitude
pressure at the inlet of the pump, its variation tendency is of turbulence pulsation, and thus its intensity and spatial
almost opposite to that of the rotational speed. Likewise, distribution characteristics also reflect the magnitude of the
the rotor-stator interaction makes the static pressures show viscous dissipation loss to a certain extent. In order to further
periodic fluctuation characteristics to some degree. understand the transient flow characteristics inside the pump
×102 ×102
20 3 210 20 0.6 2.4
Ps(in)
18 0 180 18 0.5 2.1
Pd(in)
16 −3 150 16 0.4 1.8
n (r·min−1 )
n (r·min−1 )
Ps(in ) (kPa)
Ps(out ) (kPa)
Pd(in) (kPa)
Pd(out ) (kPa)
n n
14 −6 120 14 0.3 1.5
Ps(out) Pd(out )
12 −9 90 12 0.2 1.2
10 −12 60 10 0.1 0.9
8 −15 30 8 0.0 0.6

0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30
t (s) t (s)
(a) Static pressure (b) Dynamic pressure
2
×10
20 3 210
Pt(in)
18 0 180
16 −3 150
n (r·min−1 )
Pt(in ) (kPa)
Pt(out ) (kPa)
n 120
14 −6
Pt(out)
12 −9 90
10 −12 60
8 −15 30
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30
t (s)
(c) Total pressure
Figure 4: Variations of pressures at inlet and outlet of pump subjected to fluctuating rotational speed.
×102
20 6 0.6
F
18 3 0.5
16 0 0.4
n (r·min−1 )
P (kW)
F (N)
14 n −3 0.3
12 −6 0.2
P
10 −9 0.1
8 −12 0.0
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30
t (s)
Figure 5: Characteristics of impeller shaft power and dynamic reaction force.
when it is subjected to fluctuating rotational speed, in this in the transient and quasi-steady calculations. And in quasi-
paper, the quasi-steady flow calculations for five rotational steady calculations, the rotational speed is taken from the
speeds are also carried out. Figures 6 and 7 show the evolution corresponding value at the same moment in the transient flow
results of the relative streamlines and the turbulence energy calculation.
0.6 0.6 0.6

0.57 0.57 0.57
0.54 0.54 0.54
0.51 0.51 0.51
0.48 0.48 0.48
0.45 0.45 0.45
0.42 0.42 0.42
0.39 0.39 0.39
0.36 0.36 0.36
0.33 0.33 0.33
0.3 0.3 0.3
0.27 0.27 0.27
0.24 0.24 0.24
0.21 0.21 0.21
0.18 0.18 0.18
0.15 0.15 0.15
0.12 0.12 0.12
0.09 0.09 0.09
0.06 0.06 0.06
0.03 0.03 0.03
0 0 0
(a) 1312.1 r/min (b) 1364.8 r/min (c) 1450 r/min
0.6 0.6
0.57 0.57
0.54 0.54
0.51 0.51
0.48 0.48
0.45 0.45
0.42 0.42
0.39 0.39
0.36 0.36
0.33 0.33
0.3 0.3
0.27 0.27
0.24 0.24
0.21 0.21
0.18 0.18
0.15 0.15
0.12 0.12
0.09 0.09
0.06 0.06
0.03 0.03
0 0
(d) 1535.2 r/min (e) 1587.9 r/min
Figure 6: Evolutions of relative streamlines and turbulence energy (m2 ⋅s−2 ) in transient calculations.
It can be clearly seen that, in the transient flow calculation, 4. Conclusions

the distribution of the turbulence energy is relatively uniform;
namely, the intensity of the turbulence energy in each Based on the given fluctuating rotational speed, a closed-
impeller channel is almost identical. However, in the quasi- loop pipe system including pump model is established to
steady flow calculations, the distribution difference in each accomplish unsteady flow calculations inside a centrifugal
impeller channel is very obvious. It is easy to see that, in pump subjected to fluctuating rotational speed. The calcula-
this impeller channel which is always closed to the volute tion results not only contain the external performance but
tongue, the intensity of the turbulence energy is always the also contain the internal flow fields. The result shows that
minimum compared with that in other channels. That can the head’s responsiveness to fluctuating rotational speed is
be attributed to the fact that the volute tongue structure very good, while the flow rate’s responsiveness is delayed. The
plays a dominant role in the internal flow inside the pump nondimensional flow rate and head coefficients are depen-
especially for the impeller channel closing the volute tongue. dent on the rotational speed, and the variation tendencies
Moreover, it looks like that the intensity of the turbulence of them are opposite to that of the fluctuating rotational
energy in quasi-steady flow calculations is weaker than that in speed as a whole. The similarity law and the quasi-steady
transient flow calculation as a whole. That is because the flow assumption are not suitable to accurately assess the transient
acceleration in the quasi-steady flow calculations is relatively characteristics in transient operation conditions. The varia-
smaller compared with that in the transient flow calculation. tion characteristics of the static pressure at the inlet and the
The smaller flow acceleration will result in the stronger outlet of the pump are almost completely opposite, wherein
turbulence pulsation, and thus the turbulence energy also the static pressure characteristics at the outlet are similar
becomes larger. to those of the rotational speed. In the quasi-steady flow
0.6 0.6 0.6

0.57 0.57 0.57
0.54 0.54 0.54
0.51 0.51 0.51
0.48 0.48 0.48
0.45 0.45 0.45
0.42 0.42 0.42
0.39 0.39 0.39
0.36 0.36 0.36
0.33 0.33 0.33
0.3 0.3 0.3
0.27 0.27 0.27
0.24 0.24 0.24
0.21 0.21 0.21
0.18 0.18 0.18
0.15 0.15 0.15
0.12 0.12 0.12
0.09 0.09 0.09
0.06 0.06 0.06
0.03 0.03 0.03
0 0 0
(a) 1312.1 r/min (b) 1364.8 r/min (c) 1450 r/min
0.6 0.6
0.57 0.57
0.54 0.54
0.51 0.51
0.48 0.48
0.45 0.45
0.42 0.42
0.39 0.39
0.36 0.36
0.33 0.33
0.3 0.3
0.27 0.27
0.24 0.24
0.21 0.21
0.18 0.18
0.15 0.15
0.12 0.12
0.09 0.09
0.06 0.06
0.03 0.03
0 0
(d) 1535.2 r/min (e) 1587.9 r/min
Figure 7: Evolutions of relative streamlines and turbulence energy (m2 ⋅s−2 ) in quasi-steady calculations.
calculation, the intensity of the turbulence energy becomes International Journal of Mechanical Sciences, vol. 37, no. 1, pp.
weaker in this channel that is closed to the volute tongue. 77–89, 1995.
[3] L. Q. Wang, D. Z. Wu, S. Y. Zheng, and Z. Hu, “Study on tran-
sient hydrodynamic performance of mixed-flow-pump during
Conflict of Interests starting period,” Journal of Zhejiang University (Engineering
Science), vol. 38, no. 6, pp. 751–755, 2004.
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turbomachineries: applications to radial flow pump startups,”
Journal of Fluids Engineering—Transactions of the ASME, vol.
Acknowledgments 129, no. 11, pp. 1436–1444, 2007.
[5] Y. L. Zhang, Z. C. Zhu, H. S. Dou et al., “Experimental and
This work was supported by the National Natural Science theoretical study of a prototype centrifugal pump during startup
Foundation of China (no. 51276172) and Zhejiang Provincial period,” International Journal of Turbo & Jet-Engines, vol. 30, no.
Natural Science Foundation of China (no. LY14E090011). 2, pp. 173–177, 2013.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/281527
Research Article
Numerical and Experimental Research of Heat and Mass
Transfer at the Heterogeneous System Ignition by Local Energy
Source with Limited Heat Content
Dmitrii O. Glushkov, Genii V. Kuznetsov, and Pavel A. Strizhak

National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University, 30 Lenin Avenue, Tomsk 634050, Russia
Correspondence should be addressed to Dmitrii O. Glushkov; dmitriyog@tpu.ru
Received 14 March 2014; Accepted 5 June 2014; Published 24 June 2014
Copyright © 2014 Dmitrii O. Glushkov et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited.
Numerical and experimental investigations were executed for determination of macroscopic regularities of heat and mass transfer
processes under the conditions of the phase transformations and chemical reaction at the ignition of vapors coming from fabrics
impregnated by combustible liquid into oxidant area at the local power supply. It was established that initial temperature Θ𝑝 > 1
of local energy source and volume fraction 𝜑 > 30% of combustible liquid vapors in fabric are necessary for realization of ignition
conditions in a system “fabric—combustible liquid—oxidant.”. Thus three ignition modes are possible for such system. The most
widespread mode is an arrangement of ignition zone near the lateral side of local energy source. Also we obtained approximating
expressions of ignition delay time on initial temperature and characteristic size of a local energy source for fabrics impregnated by
some kinds of combustible liquids (gasoline, kerosene, and diesel fuel). Its dependences may be useful at engineering calculations
of fire danger for processes of single hot particles interaction with liquid combustible substances.
1. Introduction regularities for heterogeneous systems (fabrics impregnated

by combustible liquid) ignition by the local energy source
Numerical and experimental investigations of ignition pro- are reduced in [15]. The characteristic fabric thicknesses were
cesses for solid [1–4] and liquid [5–8] condensed substances, chosen essentially bigger than heating source rates. Because
polymer materials [9–11], and gas-vapor mixtures [12–14] by of the established [15] integrated ignition characteristics
the energy source with limited power consumption (metallic (especially ignition delay time 𝑡𝑑 ) can be considered as high
and nonmetallic particles, wires, cores, concentrate radiation values.
flows, etc.) were held in recent years. Investigation results Actually realization of other conditions is possible. More
allowed defining extreme and optimum ignition conditions often local heating sources (particles, wires, cores, shavings
of high-energy materials under the local heating for the most and etc.) have rates equitable or even exceeding the thickness
important practical supplements (special equipment, fire of fabrics impregnated by combustion liquid. Numerical and
and explosion safety of substances and materials, chemical experimental investigations of ignition conditions for such
industry, and others). structures are interesting.
In power engineering and mechanical engineering at The aim of the present work is to research numerically
various technological processes products from fabric rather and experimentally the macroscopic regularities and extreme
and often can be applied to cleaning surfaces, putting ignition conditions of typical liquid combustible substances
greasing, removing surplus of greasing, and so forth. As a (fuels) vapors coming from fabric surfaces impregnated by it
rule, such fabrics after corresponding technological processes (fabric thicknesses equitable with hot particle rates) under the
have high fire danger. The numerical investigation results of local heating.
2. Problem Statement
The problem statement is similar as in the work [15]. The Z ZL
1
system “hot particle—fabric impregnated by combustible
liquid—gas mixture” was considered (Figure 1). Unlike the Rp
problem [15] fabric thickness 𝑍1 in present work is compara-
ble with characteristic rates of energy source (hot particle) 𝑅𝑝 Z2
(𝑅𝑝 = 𝑅1 ) and 𝑍𝑝 (𝑍𝑝 = 𝑍2 – 𝑍1 ). We considered 2D problem 2
Zp
statement for heat and mass transfer processes investigation Z1
3 R
in decision area (Figure 1). Though, it was established that
0 R1 RL
the difference between similar integrated characteristics at 2D
and 3D problem statements makes less than 10% according Figure 1: A scheme of the solution domain of the problem at 0 < 𝜏 <
to analysis of numerical research results [16]. Nevertheless at 𝜏𝑑 : 1—gas mixture, 2—metal particle, and 3—fabric impregnated by
3D statement the mathematical model is more difficult and liquid combustible substance.
calculations are more complex than at 2D statement.
It was shown that at initial moment (𝜏 = 0) fabric is
impregnated by liquid. Its volume fraction (𝜑) was known.
The ignition conditions for the heat and mass transfer
Components of combustible liquid start evaporating inten-
model were the following [18].
sively when near-surface layer was heated up to high tem-
peratures by energy of particle fallen on the fabric surface. (1) The heat released as a result of chemical reaction of
Generated fuel vapors mix with oxidant (air) is heated by the gas oxidation in air exceeds that transferred from the
particle energy. At the critical temperature and concentration particle to the substance and the gas mixture.
of gas mixture ignition happened.
The investigations were held for liquid fuels (gasoline, (2) The gas mixture temperature is higher than the initial
kerosene, and diesel fuel) and widespread fabrics (wool, temperature of the hot steel particle.
silk, and flax). The steel particle in the shape of disk with
At the numerical research the main integrated character-
small rates 𝑅𝑝 and 𝑍𝑝 was chosen as a source of heat.
istic ignition delay time was defined as time period from the
The characteristic rates of domains 𝑅𝐿 and 𝑍𝐿 for ignition
moment of contact between hot particle and fabric surface to
problem solution were taken far more than 𝑅𝑝 and 𝑍𝑝
the moment of formulated ignition conditions performance.
(Figure 1).
Numerical simulation was held with the following
assumptions. 3. Mathematical Model
The mathematical model describes processes of thermal
(1) The substance with known characteristics appeared conduction in hot steel particle and fabric at their inter-
as a result of evaporation. The “effective” values of connection, crystallization of particle material at its cooling,
activation energy 𝐸 and preexponential factor 𝑘0 are evaporation of combustible liquid at heating near-surface
usually [17] determined in experimental research of layer of fabric impregnated by liquid fuel, thermal convection
kinetic parameters for oxidation reaction of liquid and diffusion of evaporation products (combustible gases)
vapors. The realization of one “effective” reaction at their mixing with air, and oxidation of gas mixture at
is supposed, in which one substance participates. its heating. The set of nonlinear nonstationary differential
Appropriately, the theoretical analyses of investigated equations [17, 19–22] at 0 < 𝜏 < 𝜏𝑑 is follows:
process are possible when kinetic scheme, for which
values 𝐸 and 𝑘0 are known, is used. 𝑍1 < 𝑍 < 𝑍2 , 𝑅1 < 𝑅 < 𝑅𝐿 ;
(1)
𝑍2 < 𝑍 < 𝑍𝐿 , 0 < 𝑅 < 𝑅𝐿 ;
(2) The thermophysical characteristics of particle, fabric,
liquid, and air substances are constant. It is established the equation of gas mixture (evaporation products and air)
that for investigating range of temperatures in system movement is
“hot particle—fabric impregnated by combustible
1 𝜕Ω 𝜕Ω 𝜕Ω Ω
liquid—gas mixture” (Figure 1) thermophysical char- +𝑈 +𝑉 −𝑈
acteristics changing depend on interacting substances Sh 𝜕𝜏 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍 𝑅
(2)
temperature insignificantly. 1 𝜕2 Ω 1 𝜕Ω 𝜕2 Ω Ω 𝜕Θ1
= [ 2 + + 2
− 2] + ;
Re 𝜕𝑅 𝑅 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍 𝑅 𝜕𝑅
(3) The contact between the particle and the fabric is per-
fect. Numerical and experimental investigations [3, 4] Poisson’s equation is
showed that the particle and condensed substance
surfaces do not deform at the small rates (less than 𝜕2 Ψ 1 𝜕Ψ 𝜕2 Ψ
− + = −𝑅Ω; (3)
1.5 m/s) of particle movement. 𝜕𝑅2 𝑅 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍2
the thermal conduction equation for gas mixture considering We used boundary perfect thermal contact conditions,
oxidation reaction is taking into account liquid evaporation and condition of
equality to zero gradients of corresponding functions at the
1 𝜕Θ1 𝜕Θ 𝜕Θ
statement of boundary conditions (0 < 𝜏 ≤ 𝜏𝑑 ):
+𝑈 1 +𝑉 1
Sh 𝜕𝜏 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍
(4) (i) 𝑅 = 0, 𝑅 = 𝑅𝐿 , 0 < 𝑍 < 𝑍1 :
1 𝜕2 Θ 1 𝜕Θ1 𝜕2 Θ1 𝑄𝑜 𝑊𝑜 𝑧𝐿
= [ 21 + + ]+ ;
RePr 𝜕𝑅 𝑅 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍2 𝜌1 𝐶1 Δ𝑇𝑉𝑚 𝜕Θ3
= 0; (13)
𝜕𝑅
the thermal diffusion equation for evaporation products is
(ii) 𝑅 = 0, 𝑍1 < 𝑍 < 𝑍2 :
1 𝜕𝐶𝑓 𝜕𝐶𝑓 𝜕𝐶𝑓
+𝑈 +𝑉 𝜕Θ2
Sh 𝜕𝜏 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍 = 0; (14)
2 2 (5) 𝜕𝑅
1 𝜕 𝐶𝑓 1 𝜕𝐶𝑓 𝜕 𝐶𝑓 𝑧 𝑊
= [ 2 + + ] − 𝐿 𝑜;
ReSc 𝜕𝑅 𝑅 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍2 𝜌4 𝑉𝑚 (iii) 𝑅 = 0, 𝑍2 < 𝑍 < 𝑍𝐿 ; 𝑅 = 𝑅𝐿 , 𝑍1 < 𝑍 < 𝑍𝐿 :
the balance equation for mass conservation law is 𝜕Θ1 𝜕𝐶𝑓 𝜕Ψ

= 0, = 0, = 0; (15)
𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑅
𝐶𝑓 + 𝐶𝑜 = 1;
(6) (iv) 𝑅 = 𝑅1 , 𝑍1 < 𝑍 < 𝑍2 :
𝑍1 < 𝑍 < 𝑍2 , 0 < 𝑅 < 𝑅1 ;
𝜕Θ2 𝜆 𝜕Θ
the thermal conduction equation for metallic particle consid- = ( 1)( 1), Θ 2 = Θ1 ,
𝜕𝑅 𝜆2 𝜕𝑅
ering its material crystallization is (16)
𝜕𝐶𝑓 𝜕Ψ
2 2 = 0, = 0, Ψ = 0;
1 𝜕Θ2 𝜕 Θ2 1 𝜕Θ2 𝜕 Θ2 𝑄𝑐 𝑊𝑐 𝑧𝐿
= + + + ; 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑅
Fo2 𝜕𝜏 𝜕𝑅2 𝑅 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍2 𝑧𝑝 Δ𝑇𝜆 2 (7)
(v) 𝑍 = 0, 0 < 𝑅 < 𝑅𝐿 :
0 < 𝑍 < 𝑍1 , 0 < 𝑅 < 𝑅𝐿 ;
𝜕Θ3
the thermal conduction equation for fabric impregnated by = 0; (17)
𝜕𝑍
combustible liquid is
(vi) 𝑍 = 𝑍1 , 0 < 𝑅 < 𝑅1 :
1 𝜕Θ3 𝜕2 Θ3 1 𝜕Θ3 𝜕2 Θ3
= + + . (8)
Fo3 𝜕𝜏 𝜕𝑅2 𝑅 𝜕𝑅 𝜕𝑍2 𝜕Θ3 𝜆 𝜕Θ
= ( 2)( 2), Θ3 = Θ2 ; (18)
𝜕𝑍 𝜆3 𝜕𝑍
Dimensionless complexes are
𝑉𝑚 𝑡𝑚 𝑉𝑚 𝑧𝐿 (vii) 𝑍 = 𝑍1 , 𝑅1 < 𝑅 < 𝑅𝐿 :
Sh = , Re = ,
𝑧𝐿 𝜐 𝜕Θ3 𝜆 𝜕Θ 𝑄 𝑊𝑧
(9) = ( 1)( 1) − 𝑒 𝑒 𝐿,
𝜐𝜌𝐶 𝜐 𝜆𝑡𝑚 𝜕𝑍 𝜆3 𝜕𝑍 Δ𝑇𝜆 3
Pr = , Sc = , Fo = .
𝜆 𝐷 𝜌𝐶𝑧𝐿2
Θ3 = Θ1 , (19)
We set temperatures of hot particle, fabric impregnated 𝜕𝐶𝑓 𝑊𝑒 𝑧𝐿 𝜕Ψ 𝜕Ψ
by combustible liquid and air, fuel vapors concentration in =− , = 𝑈, − = 𝑉;
gas mixture, values of stream function, and vortex velocity 𝜕𝑍 𝜌1 𝐷1 𝜕𝑍 𝜕𝑋
vector as initial conditions (𝜏 = 0):
(viii) 𝑍 = 𝑍2 , 0 < 𝑅 < 𝑅1 :
(i) 0 < 𝑅 < 𝑅𝐿 , 0 < 𝑍 < 𝑍1 :
𝜕Θ2 𝜆 𝜕Θ
Θ3 = Θ0 ; (10) = ( 1)( 1), Θ2 = Θ1 ,
𝜕𝑍 𝜆2 𝜕𝑍
(20)
(ii) 0 < 𝑅 < 𝑅1 , 𝑍1 < 𝑍 < 𝑍2 : 𝜕𝐶𝑓 𝜕Ψ
= 0, = 0, Ψ = 0;
𝜕𝑍 𝜕𝑍
Θ2 = Θ𝑝 ; (11)
(ix) 𝑍 = 𝑍𝐿 , 0 < 𝑅 < 𝑅𝐿 :
(iii) 𝑅1 < 𝑅 < 𝑅𝐿 , 𝑍1 < 𝑍 < 𝑍2 ; 0 < 𝑅 < 𝑅𝐿 , 𝑍2 < 𝑍 < 𝑍𝐿 :
𝜕Θ1 𝜕𝐶𝑓 𝜕Ψ
Θ1 = Θ0 , 𝐶𝑓 = 0, Ψ = 0, Ω = 0. (12) = 0, = 0, = 0. (21)
𝜕𝑍 𝜕𝑍 𝜕𝑍
The transition to the dimensionless variables (𝑅 = 𝑟/𝑧𝐿 ,

𝑍 = 𝑧/𝑧𝐿 , 𝜏 = 𝑡/𝑡𝑚 , 𝑈 = 𝑢/𝑉𝑚 , 𝑉 = V/𝑉𝑚 , 𝑉𝑚 = √𝑔𝛽Δ𝑇𝑧𝐿 , 3 1
Θ = (𝑇 − 𝑇0 )/Δ𝑇, Ψ = 𝜓/𝜓0 , Ω = 𝜔/𝜔0 , 𝜓0 = 𝑉𝑚 𝑧𝐿2 , and 4
𝜔0 = 𝑉𝑚 /𝑧𝐿 ) was performed for the following scale values: 6
characteristic size of solution area 𝑧𝐿 = 0.02 m; time scale 𝑡𝑚 = 13 2 10 11 9 8 2
1 s; temperature scale 𝑇𝑚 = 1000 K; gravitational acceleration
12 5 7
𝑔 = 9.8 m/s2 .
The mass rate of gas mixture oxidation [17] is
𝐸
𝑊𝑜 = 𝜌1 𝑘0 𝐶𝑓 𝐶𝑜 exp [− ]. (22)
𝑅𝑡 𝑇1 Figure 2: Schematic diagram of experimental installation: 1—
heating device, 2—support, 3—thermocouple, 4—ceramic core, 5—
The mass rate of combustible liquid evaporation at heat- temperature sensor, 6—metal particle, 7—basis of experimental
ing near-surface layer of fabric impregnated by it is installation, 8—fire-resistant platform, 9 and 10—flame registration
system (radiation source and detector), 11—fabric impregnated by
𝐴 (𝑃𝑛 − 𝑃) liquid combustible substance, 12—analog to digital converter, and
𝑊𝑒 = . (23)
√2𝜋𝑅𝑡 𝑇dr /𝑀 13—computer.
Accommodation coefficient for process of combustible

liquid evaporation is series of experiments. The values of disk height (𝑍𝑝 ) and
radius (𝑅𝑝 ) were chosen for providing good contact with a
35
𝐴= . (24) fabric surface. The experiments showed that location of too
(𝑃𝑛 )0.56 small particles (𝑅𝑝 = 𝑍𝑝 < 0.1) at the contact moment with
fabric was not stable even when settling rate was conservative
The mass rate of particle material crystallization at its
(up to 1-2 m/s).
cooling is
The metallic particle falling on the fabric surface had solid
𝑊𝑐 = 𝑉𝑐 𝜌2 . (25) structure and did not become deformed because the particle
rate did not exceed 1.5 m/s when it contacted with fabric
The linear rate of particle material crystallization is surface. Fabric shape did not change too. The experiments
were carried out in well-repeatable conditions.
𝛿 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑡 + Δ𝑡) + 𝛿 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑡) The metallic disk is heated to the high temperature
𝑉𝑐 = , (26)
in heating furnace [23] with function of internal volume
Δ𝑡
temperature stabilization (up to Θ𝑝 = 1.473) during a long
where 𝛿(𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑡 + Δ𝑡), 𝛿(𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑡), is distances from the bottom time (Figure 2).
side of a particle to the crystallization front on (𝑡 + Δ𝑡)th and The moment of contact between hot particle and fabric
𝑡th time steps, m. surface was fixed automatically by flame registration system.
The system of (2)–(8) with initial and boundary con- It consists of radiation source and detector. A light beam
ditions was solved by the finite difference method. To between radiation source and detector was blocked at the
solve difference analogs of differential equations the locally particle falling. The first signal via the analog to digital
one-dimensional method was applied. Nonlinear difference converter comes to the personal computer. The moment of
analogs of differential equations were solved by the iteration liquid fuel evaporation products ignition was registered by
method. To solve one-dimensional differential equations the photo cell. It formed a repeated signal at flame appearance.
double sweep method with the implicit four-point scheme The second signal was fixed by the personal computer too.
was applied. We selected no less than 400 knots of the Time period between two signals characterized ignition
difference net for each of the coordinates and used time step delay time (𝑡𝑑 ) in the system “fabric—combustible liquid—
10−6 s. oxidant” (Figure 1).
The reliability of the obtained results was verified by the The error of hot particle temperature measurement esti-
comparison with the experimental data. Besides check of the mated by the methods [24] did not exceed 1-2%. It has been
energy conservation law in the solution field was carried out established that the temperature of a particle decreases less
according to algorithm given in [5, 6, 8]. The error of the than 3-4 K during falling, because the error of temperature
energy conservation law at change of initial temperature and determination was less than ±0.5%. This deviation can be
the rates of a hot particle did not exceed 2.5%. neglected in the analysis because the particle temperature was
more than 900 K at experiments. Systematic inaccuracy of
4. Experimental Method time-keeping was ±0.005% and corresponded to computer
possibilities.
At the experimental investigations we used the plant Variable error of ignition delay time determination was
(Figure 2) and methods described in [23]. The single metallic calculated according to the results of experiment. Eight
disk with different rates of radius 𝑅𝑝 = 0.15–0.25 and height experiments were carried out for each particle rate at the
𝑍𝑝 = 0.15–0.25 (Figure 1) was used as a heat source at various fixed value of Θ𝑝 . The average values of 𝜏𝑑 and mean-square
deviations (𝑆) were determined by the methods [24] for each particle initial temperature Θ𝑝 = 1–1.5; fabric and oxidant
value of Θ𝑝 . The values of 𝑆 were differing (from ±0.01 s initial temperature Θ0 = 0.3; absolute gas constant 𝑅𝑡 =
to ±0.17 s) for each type of studied fabrics and combustible 8.31 J/(mol⋅K).
liquids. Corresponding variation coefficients ranged from Executed earlier numerical investigations results of igni-
±4.5% to ±15%. Calculated mean-square deviations and vari- tion processes in the heterogeneous system “hot particle—
ation coefficients are acceptable for conducted experiments fabric impregnated by combustible liquid—gas mixture” [15]
due to realization of complication mechanism for studied show that volume fraction of combustible liquid vapors in
process. fabric 𝜑 and heat content of ignition source (that depends
Visual observations over the ignition of heterogeneous on the temperature Θ𝑝 and rates 𝑅𝑝 , 𝑍𝑝 ) are the basic
structures were insufficient for adequate description of pro- parameters, which have bigger effect on the necessary and
cess mechanism. So the video recording [23] with frequency sufficient ignition conditions performance. Therefore it is
at 50 frames per second was used for details studied mech- interesting to estimate influence of these parameters on
anisms and allocation rather subtle effects after repeated ignition integrated characteristics.
analysis of video frames. At numerical simulation the volume fraction value 𝜑 was
varied within the range from 5 up to 50% in conditions
of fabric fixed thickness 𝑍1 . The value 𝜑 was controlled by
fabric weighing before and after impregnation. Numerically
The numerical simulation was carried out for the following and experimentally was established that the stable ignition of
values of thermophysical and thermochemical parameters: the heterogeneous system (Figure 1) takes place under fabric
high-porous structure (up to 30–40% of the heterogeneous
gasoline: 𝐶 = 2060 J/(kg⋅K), 𝜌 = 751 kg/m3 , 𝜆 = system mass is the liquid condensed substance). So regardless
0.116 W/(m⋅K), 𝑄𝑒 = 29.4 ⋅ 103 J/kg, and 𝑀 = of the local source temperature Θ𝑝 and rates 𝑅𝑝 , 𝑍𝑝 , it can
100 kg/kmol; be concluded that the requirement 𝜑 > 30% should be
accomplished for ignition realization in the system (Figure 1).
gasoline vapors: 𝐶 = 2280 J/(kg⋅K), 𝜌 = 2.5 kg/m3 , It is significant that the established limit value 𝜑 is less
𝜆 = 0.027 W/(m⋅K), 𝑄𝑜 = 45 ⋅ 106 J/kg, 𝐸 = 130 ⋅ than in [15]. It can be explained by the fact that the local
103 J/mole, 𝑘0 = 7 ⋅ 106 s−1 , 𝛽 = 0.0012 K−1 , and 𝐷 = energy supply from particle to fabric with thickness 𝑍1 >
14.12 ⋅ 10−6 m2 /s; 𝜐 = 1.21 ⋅ 109 m2 /s; 0.25 leads to warming up only and sufficiently thin near-
kerosene: 𝐶 = 2190 J/(kg⋅K), 𝜌 = 885 kg/m3 , surface layer [15]. So small portion of the liquid takes part
𝜆 = 0.117 W/(m⋅K), 𝑄𝑒 = 26.1 ⋅ 103 J/kg, and 𝑀 = in the endothermic phase transition. As a result of the
166.2 kg/kmol; executed numerical investigations it was established that thin
(𝑍1 < 0.15) fabrics can become warm even on all thicknesses
kerosene vapors: 𝐶 = 2370 J/(kg⋅K), 𝜌 = 2.8 kg/m3 , of 𝑍1 . It depends on temperature and the power source
𝜆 = 0.028 W/(m⋅K), 𝑄𝑜 = 43.8 ⋅ 106 J/kg, 𝐸 = 190 ⋅ rates. Therefore blowing vapor from the fabric surface to
103 J/mole, 𝑘0 = 7 ⋅ 107 s−1 , 𝛽 = 0.00096 K−1 , and 𝐷 = oxidizer environment is more intense than it was supposed
8.07 ⋅ 10−6 m2 /s; 𝜐 = 0.66 ⋅ 109 m2 /s; in statements [15]. As a consequence, a few smaller values of
diesel fuel: 𝐶 = 2980 J/(kg⋅K), 𝜌 = 887.7 kg/m3 , combustible liquid concentration in fabric are necessary for
ignition realization in system (Figure 1) in comparison with
𝜆 = 0.1169 W/(m⋅K), 𝑄𝑒 = 25 ⋅ 103 J/kg, and 𝑀 =
results [15].
150 kg/kmol;
The dependencies of ignition integrated characteristics
diesel fuel vapors: 𝐶 = 3230 J/(kg⋅K), 𝜌 = 3.1 kg/m3 , (time 𝜏𝑑 ) on temperature and rate 𝑅𝑝 (with fixed 𝑍𝑝 ) of metal-
𝜆 = 0.029 W/(m⋅K), 𝑄𝑜 = 42 ⋅ 106 J/kg, 𝐸 = 250 ⋅ lic particle for fabrics impregnated by different combustible
103 J/mole, 𝑘0 = 9 ⋅ 108 s−1 , 𝛽 = 0.0009 K−1 , and 𝐷 = liquids (gasoline, kerosene, and diesel fuel) are present on
5.29 ⋅ 10−6 m2 /s; 𝜐 = 1.15 ⋅ 109 m2 /s; Figures 3 and 4. We used mathematical model (2)–(8) for
calculating these characteristics. Earlier it was established [5,
wool: 𝐶 = 1721 J/(kg⋅K), 𝜌 = 1320 kg/m3 , and 𝜆 = 6] that correlation of the square of local power source contact
0.052 W/(m⋅K); with the condensed substance and square of gas medium
silk: 𝐶 = 1386 J/(kg⋅K), 𝜌 = 1560 kg/m3 , and 𝜆 = determined the possibility of ignition conditions realization.
0.06 W/(m⋅K); Therefore the particle crosswise size 𝑅𝑝 that determined its
flax: 𝐶 = 1580 J/(kg⋅K), 𝜌 = 1500 kg/m3 , and 𝜆 = contacting area with fabric was varied.
0.088 W/(m⋅K); Figure 3 shows the experimental values 𝜏𝑑 and approx-
imate curve obtained by the least square method. There is
steel: 𝐶 = 470 J/(kg⋅K), 𝜌 = 7831 kg/m3 , 𝜆 = good correlation of executed numerical and experimental
49 W/(m⋅K), and 𝑄𝑐 = 205 ⋅ 103 J/kg; investigation results. Deviations of experimental values 𝜏𝑑
oxidant (air): 𝐶 = 1006 J/(kg⋅K), 𝜌 = 1.161 kg/m3 , (on the approximate curve) rather corresponding calculated
and 𝜆 = 0.026 W/(m⋅K). values do not exceed 18%. With temperature increasing Θ𝑝
these deviations are reduced to 11% (at Θ𝑝 = 1.45). This
Particle rates 𝑅𝑝 = 0.15–0.25 and 𝑍𝑝 = 0.15–0.25; fabric feature can be explained by the fact that we used known
thicknesses 𝑍1 = 0.15; domain solution rates 𝑅𝐿 = 𝑍𝐿 = 1; [25–27] values of oxidation reactions kinetic parameters
up of oxidizer with fuel vapors mix. It leads to decreasing of

0.20 heat time and oxidation reaction acceleration.
1 Dependences (Figure 4) illustrate that the source rates
0.16 (especially 𝑅𝑝 ) have less impact on integrated ignition
characteristics compared to Θ𝑝 (Figure 3). Therefore even a
0.12
𝜏d
2 relatively small area of particle contact with the impregnated

0.08
fabric is sufficient to achieve the high velocities of the phase
transition and the oxidation reaction acceleration (when
0.04 Θ𝑝 > 1). At the same time the dependences of evaporation
3 velocity 𝑊𝑒 and oxidation velocity 𝑊𝑜 on the temperature are
0 nonlinear. Therefore, even a small (±0.1) change of Θ𝑝 affects
1.25 1.30 1.35 1.40 1.45
𝜏𝑑 significantly.
Θp
For dependencies shown in Figures 3 and 4 the approxi-
Figure 3: Dimensionless ignition delay time versus dimensionless mation expressions were obtained:
initial temperature of the energy source: 1—experimental values,
2—theoretical values, and 3—approximating curve for experimental 𝜏𝑑 = 7.271 − 9.719Θ𝑝 + 3.264Θ2𝑝 at 1.25 < Θ𝑝 < 1.5, 𝑅𝑝
points. = 0.15 and 𝑍𝑝 = 0.25;
𝜏𝑑 = 0.147−0.579𝑅𝑝 +1.116𝑅𝑝2 at 0.15 < 𝑅𝑝 < 0.25, 𝑍𝑝
= 0.25 and Θ𝑝 = 1.35, combustion liquid—gasoline;
𝜏𝑑 = 0.145−0.481𝑅𝑝 +0.976𝑅𝑝2 at 0.15 < 𝑅𝑝 < 0.25, 𝑍𝑝
0.10 = 0.25 and Θ𝑝 = 1.35, combustion liquid—kerosene;
1
𝜏𝑑 = 0.178−0.749𝑅𝑝 +1.541𝑅𝑝2 at 0.15 < 𝑅𝑝 < 0.25, 𝑍𝑝
0.09
= 0.25 and Θ𝑝 = 1.35, combustion liquid—diesel fuel.
𝜏d
0.08
The developed mathematical model allows getting a
3 large group of approximating expressions by varying the
basic parameters of the process over a wide range (0.15 <
0.07 𝑅𝑝 < 0.25, 1 < Θ𝑝 < 1.5). However it is impossible to
0.150 0.175 0.200 0.225
formulate the approximating expressions taking into account
Rp
the dependences of the ignition delay time 𝜏𝑑 on initial
Figure 4: Dimensionless ignition delay time versus rate of a heating source temperature Θ𝑝 and its rates 𝑅𝑝 and 𝑍𝑝 corresponding
source 𝑅𝑝 at 𝑍𝑝 = 0.4 and Θ𝑝 = 1.35: 1—diesel fuel, 2—kerosene, and to experimental and theoretical results. Due to the fact
3—gasoline. that the more parameters or factors that are taken into
account at the approximation expressions making the greater
approximation error it is expedient to get an approximation
expression of the forms 𝜏𝑑 = 𝑓(Θ𝑝 ) and 𝜏𝑑 = 𝑓(𝑅𝑝 ).
(𝑘0 = const and 𝐸 = const) at the simulation. For approximat- The difference between ignition integrated characteris-
ing the theoretical models to real applications it is advisable tics of fabric impregnated by some kinds of combustible
to take into account the dependence of 𝑘0 and 𝐸 on the liquids (gasoline, kerosene, and diesel fuel) was established
temperature according to [28]. It is known [28] that this as a result of numerical and experimental investigations of
feature is important at the local heating of small droplets, ignition processes in system (Figure 1). These characteristics
thin films, and large amounts of liquid condensed substances correspond well to the results of experimental investigations
by sources with limited power consumption. The similar of ignition process in homogeneous system (liquid fuels) [23].
task requires special consideration. Therefore physical and It was determined that the ignition delay time for systems
chemical processes features associated with dependencies 𝑘0 with gasoline vapors is minimal and for systems with diesel
= 𝑓(Θ𝑝 ) and 𝐸 = 𝑓(Θ𝑝 ) are not analyzed in this paper. fuel vapors is maximal (Figure 4) under otherwise equal
Comparison of dependences 𝜏𝑑 = 𝑓(Θ𝑝 ) shown in conditions. Values of 𝜏𝑑 for systems with kerosene vapors
Figures 3 and 4 with results of investigations [15] allows have some intermediate values (Figure 4). It is caused by the
drawing a conclusion that the ignition delay time for fabrics evaporation regularities (the phase transition temperature,
with small thickness 𝑍1 (Figure 1) is less in several times than kinetics, chemical composition, etc.) for different fuels [23].
analog characteristic for fabric with thicknesses essentially In experiments with the fabrics impregnated by gasoline
bigger than heating source rates [15]. It can be explained it was established that the conditions (by concentration
by the intensification of heat fabric process with decreasing 𝐶𝑓 ) sufficient for ignition (in small fabric vicinity) are
𝑍1 . As a consequence the injection of evaporation products carried out even before the particle falling on the surface
increases near the heating source. The smaller quantity of of heterogeneous structure. The particle and fabric contact
energy of a local source is spent for heterogeneous structure leaded to temperature increase in reaction zone. The stable
warming up and more quantity of energy is used on warming ignition of fabrics impregnated by kerosene and diesel fuel
0.9 1.1 0.7

1 1
0.8 1
0.6 0.06
0.7 0.9
0.5 0.05
0.6
0.8
0.5 0.4 0.04
Z 0.7 Z 2
0.4 0.03
2 0.3
0.6
0.3
0.2 0.02
0.2 0.5
0.1 0.4 0.1 0.01

3 3
0 0.3
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
R R
(a) (b)
Figure 5: Isotherms Θ (a) and isolines of fuel concentration 𝐶𝑓 (b) at the system “steel particle—the woolen fabric impregnated by kerosene—
air” at ignition (𝜏𝑑 = 0.314) for Θ𝑝 = 1.15, 𝑅𝑝 = 0.15, 𝑍𝑝 = 0.25, and 𝜑 = 0.35: 1—gas mixture, 2—metal particle, and 3—fabric impregnated by
liquid combustible substance.
took place only under relative long-lived contact with hot

particle (necessary conditions on 𝐶𝑓 and Θ𝑝 were achieved
in great times in comparison with gasoline). At the same
time the experimental results showed that ignition happened 3
consistently for all types of combustible liquids in spite of the 2
integrated characteristics difference. 1
The numerical analysis of ignition modes characterized
by the ignition delay time and location of oxidation reaction
(the relative contact border of ignition source and substance
surface) was accomplished for system (Figure 1) similar as
in [5, 6, 8]. It was established that realization of three igni-
tion modes is possible for the system “fabric—combustible Figure 6: Frame of experiment with ignition (Θ𝑝 = 1.25, 𝑅𝑝 = 0.15,
liquid—oxidant” (Figure 1) during the local heating. However and 𝑍𝑝 = 0.25): 1—woolen fabric impregnated by kerosene, 2—steel
in contrast to the homogeneous liquid fuels [5, 6, 8], the particle, and 3—flame.
mode when zone of exothermal reaction formulates near
the lateral sides of ignition source (Figure 5) is the most
typical at variation of Θ𝑝 , 𝑅𝑝 , 𝑍𝑝 , and 𝜑 in wide ranges.
It can be explained according to the fact that the contact 3
square of the heating source with a substance in the system
“fabric—combustible liquid—oxidant” is less than in the 2
system “combustible liquid—oxidant” (particle immersion 1
happens in liquids and square of heat sink into near-surface
layer increases). Therefore the local energy source cools down
more intensively at interaction with liquid in comparison
with the system (Figure 1). The temperatures (Figure 5(a))
and concentrations (Figure 5(b)) sufficient to ignition are
reached near the lateral sides of hot particle.
Videograms illustrated that realization of ignition con-
ditions and burning absence are shown in Figures 6 and
7 appropriately. It was established that at the particle tem- Figure 7: Frame of experiment without ignition (Θ𝑝 = 1, 𝑅𝑝 = 0.15,
perature Θ𝑝 < 1 the ignition does not take place in sys- and 𝑍𝑝 = 0.25): 1—woolen fabric impregnated by kerosene, 2—steel
tem (Figure 1). The intensive evaporation (Figure 7) without particle, and 3—smoke without flame.
oxidation reaction and subsequent flame appearance are
implemented. The experimental results showed that ignition
happened consistently at Θ𝑝 > 1 (Figure 6). Thus Θ𝑝 = 1 is could be reduced at the fabric thickness 𝑍1 decreasing and
the limit (low) temperature of steel particle (𝑅𝑝 = 0.15 and combustible liquid volume fraction 𝜑 increasing. However,
𝑍𝑝 = 0.25) at which ignition happens. In case of increasing in this case, it is difficult to provide the conditions for the
𝑅𝑝 and 𝑍𝑝 the limit value of Θ𝑝 decreases but does not system output on stationary combustion mode (without the
reach 0.95 under any circumstances. The limit value of Θ𝑝 flares and subsequent extinction).
6. Conclusions 𝑟, 𝑧: Cylindrical coordinates, m

𝑟𝐿 , 𝑧𝐿 : Solution area rates, m
The necessary (𝜑 > 30%) and sufficient (Θ𝑝 > 1) ignition 𝑟𝑝 , 𝑧𝑝 : Particle rates, m
conditions of heterogeneous system, widely used fabrics 𝑅, 𝑍: Dimensionless analogues of 𝑟, 𝑧
(wool, silk, and flax) impregnated by typical combustible 𝑅𝐿 , 𝑍𝐿 : Dimensionless analogue of 𝑟𝐿 , 𝑧𝐿
liquids (gasoline, kerosene, and diesel fuel) under the local 𝑅𝑝 , 𝑍𝑝 : Dimensionless analogue of 𝑟𝑝 , 𝑧𝑝
heating, were established as a result of numerical and experi- 𝑅𝑡 : Absolute gas constant, J/(mol⋅K)
mental investigations. The impact extents of temperature and Re: Reynolds number
rates of local energy source and combustible liquid volume 𝑆: Mean-square deviations
fraction in fabric on the ignition integrated characteristics Sc: Schmidt number
were determined. It was established that the values of Θ𝑝 Sh: Strouhal number
and 𝜑 have dominant role in combustion process. Besides it 𝑡: Time, s
was shown that the main integrated characteristics (ignition 𝑡𝑑 : Ignition delay time, s
delay time) for systems with thin high-porous fabrics can be 𝑡𝑚 : Time scale, s
significantly less than analog characteristic for large thickness 𝑇: Temperature, K
fabrics [15]. Δ𝑇: Temperature differential (Δ𝑇 = 𝑇𝑚 – 𝑇0 ), K
Besides the good correspondence of numerical and 𝑇dr : Fabric surface temperature, K
experimental results (numerical simulation assumptions 𝑇𝑚 : Temperature scale, K
were proved and developed physical and mathematical mod- 𝑇0 : Initial temperature, K
els were confirmed) was illustrated. Deviations of numerical 𝑢, V: Rates of gas mixture in a projection to axes
and experimental values of 𝜏𝑑 did not exceed 18% under 𝑟 and 𝑧, m/s
condition of the main processes parameters variation in wide 𝑈, 𝑉: Dimensionless analogue of 𝑢, V
ranges. The good correlation of investigation results with 𝑉𝑐 : Linear rate of particle material
regularities [23] (about modes and ignition mechanisms) for crystallization, m/s
homogeneous structures (liquid fuels) was established. 𝑉𝑚 : Convection rate scale of fuel vapors, m/s
Investigation results allow making conclusion about the 𝑊𝑐 : Mass rate of particle material
high possibility of ignition conditions realization at cooper- crystallization, kg/(m2 ⋅s)
ation of typical local heat sources with heterogeneous struc-
𝑊𝑒 : Mass rate of liquid evaporation, kg/(m2 ⋅s)
tures, in particular, fabrics impregnated by liquid condensed
𝑊𝑜 : Mass rate of fuel vapors oxidation in air,
substances. In the case of a small fabric thickness and its
kg/(m3 ⋅s).
high porosity the ignition process is characterized by small
(𝜏𝑑 < 0.1) ignition delay time close to similar characteristic
for homogeneous liquid fuels. Greek Symbols
Θ: Dimensionless temperature
Θ0 : Dimensionless initial temperature of air and fabric
Nomenclatures and Units Θ𝑝 : Dimensionless initial temperature of particle
𝐴: Accommodation coefficient Ψ: Dimensionless stream function analogue
𝐶: Specific heat capacity, J/(kg⋅K) Ω: Dimensionless analogue of vortex velocity vector
𝐶𝑓 : Dimensionless mass fuel vapors 𝛽: Coefficient of thermal expansion, K−1
concentration in gas mixture 𝜆: Thermal conductivity, W/(m⋅K)
𝐶𝑜 : Dimensionless mass oxidizer 𝜌: Density, kg/m3
concentration in gas mixture 𝜏: Dimensionless time
𝐷: Coefficient of diffusion, m2 /s 𝜏𝑑 : Dimensionless ignition delay time
𝐸: Activation energy, J/mol 𝜐: Coefficient of kinematic viscosity, m2 /s
Fo: Fourier number 𝜑: Volume fraction
𝑔: Gravitational acceleration, m/s2 𝜓: Stream function, m3 /s
𝑘0 : Preexponential factor, s−1 𝜓0 : Scale of stream function, m3 /s
𝑀: Molecular mass of liquid, kg/kmol 𝜔: Vortex velocity vector, 1/s
𝑃: Pressure of vapors above fabric surface, 𝜔0 : Scale of vortex velocity vector, 1/s.
N/m2
𝑃 : Saturation pressure of vapors, N/m2
𝑛
Subscripts
Pr: Prandtl number
𝑄𝑐 : Heat of particle material crystallization,
J/kg 1: Gas mixture
𝑄𝑒 : Heat of liquid evaporation, J/kg 2: Metallic particle
𝑄𝑜 : Heat of oxidation reaction of fuel vapors 3: Fabric impregnated by combustible liquid
in air, J/kg 4: Fuel vapor.
Conflict of Interests [14] D. K. Srivastava and A. K. Agarwal, “Comparative experimental

evaluation of performance, combustion and emissions of laser
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests ignition with conventional spark plug in a compressed natural
regarding the publication of this paper. gas fuelled single cylinder engine,” Fuel, vol. 123, pp. 113–122,
2014.
[15] G. V. Kuznetsov and P. A. Strizhak, “Heat and mass transfer
Acknowledgments in hot-particle-induced ignition of a liquid-fuel vapor entering
The reported study was partially supported by Grant of the ambient air from the surface of fabric impregnated with the
fuel,” Journal of Engineering Physics and Thermophysics, vol. 82,
the President of the Russian Federation (Project no. MK-
no. 3, pp. 448–455, 2009.
2391.2014.8) and State task “Nauka” (code of the federal target
[16] G. V. Kuznetsov and P. A. Strizhak, “3D problem of heat and
scientific and technical Program no. 2.1321.2014).
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/602063
Research Article
An Improved Dispatch Strategy of a Grid-Connected Hybrid
Energy System with High Penetration Level of Renewable Energy
Yan Zhang,1 Jie Meng,1 Bo Guo,1 and Tao Zhang1,2

1
College of Information System and Management, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, Hunan 410073, China
2
State Key Laboratory of High Performance Computing, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, Hunan 410073, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Yan Zhang; zy331214534@126.com
Received 10 February 2014; Revised 2 April 2014; Accepted 2 April 2014; Published 24 June 2014
Copyright © 2014 Yan Zhang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
As more and more renewable energy sources (RES) integrated into the conventional distribution system, how to make the current
electric grid more reliable and efficient is becoming an important topic the world must face. In order to achieve these goals,
grid-connected hybrid energy systems (HES) which contain battery energy storage systems (BESS) and many other advanced
technologies have been developed and applied. Many benefits of BESS, such as high density of energy and power, have fast
response in energy time-shift, frequency regulation, and so on. This paper focuses on the fluctuation alleviation and power quality
improvement of grid-connected HES with high penetration level of RES. A multistage dispatch strategy of BESS for HES is proposed
in this paper to mitigate the randomness and intermittence of the power flowed in HES because of high penetration level of RES
integration. Four other conventional strategies are also discussed for evaluating the performance of the method proposed in this
paper. Detailed cases and corresponding discussions are implemented, and the results show that the method proposed in this paper
is more effective and robust than the other conventional strategies.
1. Introduction As the penetration level of RES is increasing to an

unprecedented pace, the properties of intermittency and
There is an unprecedented growth in power generation, fluctuation will arose some adverse effects for the operation
delivery, and usage. HES integrated with environmental of the power system, especially in weak power systems of
friendly energy sources (wind, solar, and alike) and energy remote area. If no suitable scheduling and operation strategy
storage system (EES) has drawn more and more attention are implemented in the management of high penetration level
in mitigating global warming effects, reducing fossil fuel of intermittent and stochastic RES, many negative impacts
dependence, and reducing economic impact from the rising would be caused [7, 8].
oil prices [1]. Currently, a lot of researches concern themselves in
Many governments such as Germany, France, USA, and characterization, planning, evaluation, and optimization of
China had recognized the benefits of RES, and much favor- the HES, particularly in isolated HES of remote districts [9–
able legislation had been provided to incent large scale of 11]. However, only a few focused on grid-connected HES
RES installation and utilization [2, 3]. Investigations show of low penetration level of RES integration and mainly
that RES has become the fastest growing source of electricity on cost/worth evaluation or economic analysis [12–14]. As
around the world in the past decade, and this tendency is the penetration level of RES grows, new operation and
expected to continue in the next two decades [4]. In the scheduling methods should be developed for power quality
near future, HES with high penetration level of RES will be improving and RES full utilization. Authors in [7, 14] investi-
emerged in some district power systems. RES penetration gated the operation strategy of EES for distribution system
level of California will reach 33% in 2030 [5]; that of Yancheng and analyzed the benefits of their algorithms. Researchers
city, Jiangsu province, 34% in 2017; and that of some regions in [15–17] presented some supervisory control methods to
of Inner Mongolia and Gansu province, almost 100% [6]. alleviate the fluctuations caused by RES integration; however,
External electric network
Supervisory
controller
PCC
Load, RES generation,

and electricity price forecast
DC/AC
Photovoltaic array
AC load
AC/AC
Wind turbine generator

AC/DC
DC load
DC/AC
Common bus
Battery bank
Power network
Information network
Figure 1: Schematic configuration of grid-connected HES.
their control methods are not flexible enough nor fully all the strategies are presented in Section 3; cases, results, and
reflect the superiority of ESS either. In this paper, two main discussions are shown in Section 4; this paper is concluded in
parts are concerned, namely, exploring one scheduling and Section 5.
operation method of BESS to alleviate fluctuations of the
power flowed in grid-connected HES with high RES penetra- 2. System Description and Modeling
tion level integration automatically, furthermore, analyzing
the relationships among the system performance and BESS Fluctuation smoothing problem of grid-connected HES is
parameters (i.e., power limit, capacity limit), and forecast similar to load shifting problem in bulk power system [12]
uncertainty of RES generation and load demand. For better but more complex than that, because RES power generation
evaluating the performances of the method prosed in this in HES is more random and oscillatory than load demand
paper, four other strategies are discussed and simulated in the in bulk power system, and power generated by RES in grid-
same condition. connected HES with high penetration level of RES could not
In this paper, system description, modeling and con- be considered as negative load any more. Real-time power
straints of grid-connected HES, indexes used for different exchanged between grid-connected HES and the external
strategies evaluation, and detailed mathematical models of grid is operated by a supervisory controller of HES based on
strategies referred in this paper are presented to evaluate specific HES operation strategy.
the performance of them in alleviating fluctuation and
improving power quality of high RES penetration level HES. 2.1. HES Schematic Model. Figure 1 presents the schematic
In order to well and truly depict the importance of BESS and topology of a grid-connected HES analyzed in this paper,
dispatch strategy in HES, some discussions are implemented which is consisted of some PV generators, wind turbine
to analyze the relationships between BESS parameters and generators, EES (BESS considered in this paper), and a few
system performance in different strategies. of local consumers (controllable load/critical load). All the
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 above units are controlled by a supervisory controller, and the
describes the model of HES and constraints and evaluation energy management operation should consider the variation
indexes used in this paper; detailed mathematical models of of local weather, load demand, electricity price, and so on [14].
The model of RES generators presented in Figure 1 of this where 𝑃grid (𝑘) > 0 represents HES exporting excess
paper could be illustrated as follows: energy to external grid in period 𝑘; in the opposite
case, energy is imported from the external grid.
0 if V (𝑘) < Vci Similar to 𝑃grid (𝑘), 𝑃𝑏 (𝑘) > 0 represents BESS charge
{
{
{
{ V (𝑘) − Vci power in period 𝑘, and in the opposite case, BESS
{
{𝑃 max ⋅ , if Vci ≤ V (𝑘) < V𝑟 discharge power to HES.
𝑃wind (𝑘) = { wind V𝑟 − Vci
{
{ (2) BESS limits: the energy and power charging or dis-
{
{ 𝑃 max, if V𝑟 ≤ V (𝑘) < Vco
{ wind charging in each period could not go over the limit:
{0, if Vco ≤ V (𝑘) ,
(1) Vol𝑏 min ≤ Vol𝑏 (𝑘) ≤ Vol𝑏 max
2
{ 𝐺 (𝑘) s.t. Vol𝑏 max = 𝛼 ⋅ Vol𝑏 , Vol𝑏 min = 𝛽 ⋅ Vol𝑏
{
{ 𝑃solar max ( bt ) , if 0 ≤ 𝐺bt (𝑘) < 𝑅𝑐
{
{ 𝐺std 𝑅𝑐
{ − min {(Vol𝑏 (𝑘) − Vol𝑏 min ) , 𝑃𝑏 max Δ𝑡} ≤ 𝑃𝑏 (𝑘) Δ𝑡
𝑃solar (𝑘) = { 𝐺 (𝑘) (5)
{𝑃solar max ( bt
{ ), if 𝑅𝑐 ≤ 𝐺bt (𝑘) < 𝐺std
{
{ 𝐺std ≤ min {(Vol𝑏 max − Vol𝑏 (𝑘)) , 𝑃𝑏 max Δ𝑡}
{
{𝑃solar max, if 𝐺bt (𝑘) ≥ 𝐺std ,
−𝑃𝑏 max ≤ 𝑃𝑏 (𝑘) ≤ 𝑃𝑏 max
(2)
𝑘 = 1, 2, . . . , 𝑇,
where 𝑃solar max is the power output of PV generators in stand
test situation and, at the point of 𝑅𝑐 , the relations between PV where 𝛼 and 𝛽 are factors used to determine the upper
power output and illumination intensity from nonlinearity to and lower available BESS capacity limit, 0 < 𝛽 <
linearity and detailed model of wind and PV generators could 𝛼 < 1, for better understanding this paper, some
be found in [18] and [19], respectively, and the references assumptions are implemented, there is no energy loss
therein. all over the time horizon, the efficiency of charging
and discharging of the energy storage in this paper is
1, namely the BESS operates perfectly, and no ramp
2.2. Modeling Assumptions. In order to depict the system and rate limit of the BESS.
dispatch strategies of this paper sufficiently and exactly, the
following assumptions and requirements should be imple- (3) Other constraints: some upper and lower power
mented. limits of RES generators and power transmission limit
between HES and the external grid should be met:
(i) The HES is in steady state all the time, the frequency
0 ≤ 𝑃wind (𝑘) ≤ 𝑃wind max,
and voltage levels are properly regulated.
0 ≤ 𝑃solar (𝑘) ≤ 𝑃solar max,
(ii) Duration of two consequent periods is 15 min
throughout this paper, namely, Δ𝑡 = 15 min, and −𝑃grid max ≤ 𝑃grid (𝑘) ≤ 𝑃grid max, (6)
the wind speed/solar irradiation/load demands are
assumed to have no variation within one period. 0 ≤ 𝑃load (𝑘) ≤ 𝑃load max
(iii) All actions should be implemented simultaneously if 𝑘 = 1, 2, . . . , 𝑇,
control signals have been accepted.
where we assume that the load in the grid-connected
(iv) Only the active power in HES is considered. HES of this paper is inelastic, and no ramp-up or
(v) Advanced communication network could support ramp-down power of wind and PV generators is
fast and reliable information transmission. considered.
2.4. Evaluation Indicators. Grid-connected HES plays an

2.3. Constraints. To make the HES model perform efficiently, important role in improving power quality, mitigating power
a set of restrictions also should be satisfied; they can be fluctuation, reducing transmission loss, improving power
classified as follows. supply reliability, and integrating more RES. A few indicators
such as standard variance of power transferred at PCC, RES
(1) Energy balance constraint: at each period, load net-use rate, BESS use rate, and peak power at PCC are
demand should be met with RES generation, BESS, constructed to help to effectively evaluate the performance of
or import power from the external grid: strategies referred to in this paper.
𝑃grid (𝑘) = 𝑌 (𝑘) − 𝑃𝑏 (𝑘) (3)
2.4.1. Standard Variance of Power Transferred at PCC. The
𝑌 (𝑘) = 𝑃wind (𝑘) + 𝑃solar (𝑘) − 𝑃load (𝑘) main objective of this paper is to search a method which
(4) could alleviate the fluctuation and improve power quality in
𝑘 = 1, 2, . . . , 𝑇, HES as much as possible. Hence, stand variance of power
transferred at PCC could reflect this purpose appropriately, which has close relation to BESS scheduling and operation
which is formulated as follows: strategy; waste rate represents the level of RES energy stored
2 in BESS but not utilized by local consumers in HES; as a
1 𝑀 𝑁 1 𝑁 whole, this indicator is consisted of four parts. The first term
Var = ∑ ∑ [𝑃grid (𝑗) − ∑𝑃grid (𝑖)] (7)
𝑇 𝑑=1𝑗=1 𝑁 𝑖=1 refers to the energy charged by BESS but purchased from
the external grid; this may happen in maximum charging,
this formula reflects the randomness level of power flowed maximum discharging, and multistage dispatch strategy; the
in HES [17]; if Var = 0, the performance of this method in secondary and third term denotes the energy overcharged
alleviating fluctuation is perfect; otherwise, the greater Var is from external grid when RES generation is enough to support
the more intensive fluctuation of the power flowed in HES. HES’s normal operation; these may occur in maximum
charge and multistage dispatch strategy; the last term reflects
2.4.2. RES Net-Use Rate. This indicator represents the level the energy overcharged from external electric network when
of excess energy generated by RES generators and stored net-generation is negative, which may occur in maximum
by BESS and then used by HES when RES generation is discharge dispatch strategy.
insufficient, which is used to evaluate the availability of BESS The indicator of net use rate is particularly needed in
in improving the utilization rate of RES generator for local situations where maximum RES utilization is requested,
use (i.e., increasing the consumer independence from the situations where excess energy generated by RES should be
external grid). The detailed formula is shown as follows: curtailed if not stored by ESS, situations where real-time
electricity price market is implemented and situations where
net use rate = use rate − wasted rate, the HES is isolated in remote areas.
𝑇
max (𝑃𝑏 (𝑘) , 0)
use rate = ( ∑ max ( , 0) 2.4.3. BESS Use Rate. This indicator could reflect the use
𝑘=1
max (𝑌 (𝑘) , 0) + 𝜀 rate of BESS in different operation strategies, which is just a
reference index. Used to evaluate the utilization rate of the
⋅ (𝑌 (𝑘) + 𝜀) ) BESS and only used for a reference evaluation indicator:
∑𝑇𝑘=1 Vol𝑏 (𝑘)

𝑇 −1 Vol rate = . (9)
𝑇 ⋅ Vol𝑏
× ( ∑ max (𝑌 (𝑘) , 0))
𝑘=1
The closer Vol rate to 0.5 is, the higher utilization efficiency
wasted rate of the BESS is.
∑𝑇𝑘=1 max ((− min (𝑃𝑏 (𝑘) , 0) + min (𝑌 (𝑘) , 0)) , 0) 2.4.4. Peak Power at PCC. This indicator could reflect the
=
∑𝑇𝑘=1 max (𝑌 (𝑘) , 0) ability of each control strategy in peak power shifting, which
is an important reference index in deploying and upgrading
𝑇 transformer and other economic analysis situations:
min (𝑃𝑏 (𝑘) , 0)
+ ( ∑ min ( , 0) ⋅ (𝑌 (𝑘) + 𝜀))
max (𝑌 (𝑘) , 0) + 𝜀 󵄨 󵄨
𝑘=1 𝑃peak = max (󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑃grid (𝑘)󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 , 0) 𝑘 = 1, 2, . . . , 𝑇. (10)
𝑇 −1
× ( ∑ max (𝑌 (𝑘) , 0)) 3. Mathematical Model of Strategies

𝑘=1
3.1. Normal Dispatch Strategy. This strategy describes the
∑𝑇𝑘=1 max (max (𝑃𝑏 (𝑘) , 0) − max (𝑌 (𝑘) , 0) , 0) operation of HES with no EES, the operation of grid-
+
∑𝑇𝑘=1 max (𝑌 (𝑘) , 0) connected HES just decided by current state of load demand,
and RES generation. When HES has no ESS, the operation
𝑇
max (𝑃𝑏 (𝑘) , 0) of it is very limited. Surplus energy should be delivered to
+ (∑ ( , 0) the external grid when 𝑌(𝑘) > 0; in the opposite case,
𝑘=1
min (𝑌 (𝑘) , 0) + 𝜀
insufficient energy will be purchased from the external grid
when RES generation could not support local consumer.
⋅ (𝑌 (𝑘) + 𝜀) ) The performance of HES in this strategy is regarded as a
benchmark for the other strategies:
𝑇 −1
𝑃grid (𝑘) = 𝑌 (𝑘) 𝑘 = 1, 2, . . . , 𝑇
× ( ∑ max (𝑌 (𝑘) , 0)) , (11)
𝑘=1 Subjected to: (3)–(4), (8).
(8)
where use rate reflects the level of energy generated by 3.2. Load following Dispatch Strategy. In this strategy, BESS
RES and charged by BESS in the whole simulation horizon, will charge as much as possible unless reaching the BESS
operation limits if BESS is not fully charged and 𝑌(𝑘) is operation limits if there is enough energy stored in BESS;
positive and then deliver surplus energy which could not be the additional insufficient energy will be purchased from the
used locally into the external grid [9, 10]. In the opposite case, external grid. Detailed mathematical model can be described
BESS will discharge as much as possible unless reaching the as follows:
{
{ 𝑌 (𝑘) − 𝑃𝑏 max , 𝑃𝑏 max ≤ 𝑌 (𝑘) , Vol𝑏 (𝑘) ≤ Vol𝑏 max
{
{
{
{ 𝑌 (𝑘) , 0 ≤ 𝑌 (𝑘) , Volmax ≤ Vol𝑏 (𝑘)
{
𝑃grid (𝑘) = {𝑌 (𝑘) + 𝑃𝑏 max , 𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ −𝑃𝑏 max , Volmin ≤ Vol𝑏 (𝑘) (12)
{
{
{
{ 𝑌 (𝑘) , 𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ 0, Vol𝑏 (𝑘) ≤ Volmin
{
{
{0, otherwise,
{
{ 𝑃𝑏 max , 𝑃𝑏 max ≤ 𝑌 (𝑘) , Vol𝑏 (𝑘) ≤ Vol𝑏 max
{
{
{
{𝑌 (𝑡) , 0 ≤ 𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ 𝑃𝑏 max , Vol𝑏 (𝑘) ≤ Volmax
{
𝑃𝑏 (𝑘) = {𝑌 (𝑡) , −𝑃𝑏 max ≤ 𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ 0, Volmin ≤ Vol𝑏 (𝑘)
{
{
{
{ −𝑃 , 𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ −𝑃𝑏 max, Volmin ≤ Vol𝑏 (𝑘) (13)
{
{ 𝑏 max
{ 0, otherwise
𝑘 = 1, 2, . . . , 𝑇
Subjected to: (3)–(8).
3.3. Maximum Charging Dispatch Strategy. Similar to the The surplus energy must be delivered to the external grid or
cycle charging strategy in [9], this strategy is suitable for curtailed when 𝑌(𝑘) > 0, in the opposite case, the insufficient
situations where the frequency of 𝑌(𝑘) > 0 is low [20]; energy has to be purchased from the external grid when
namely, the penetration level of RES is not very high. If a 𝑌(𝑘) < 0. Detailed mathematical model can be described as
HES has no ESS, the operation of it should be very limited. follows:
{ −𝑃𝑏 max + 𝑌 (𝑘) , 𝑃𝑏 max ≤ 𝑌 (𝑘) , Vol𝑏 (𝑘) ≤ Vol𝑏 max

{
{
{
{
{−𝑃grid max,
{ 𝑃grid max +𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ 𝑃𝑏 max , 0 ≤ 𝑌 (𝑘) , Vol𝑏 (𝑘) ≤ Volmax
{
{
{
{
{
{𝑌 (𝑘) , 0 ≤ 𝑌 (𝑘) , Volmax ≤ Vol𝑏 (𝑘)
𝑃grid (𝑘) = {
{
{ 0, −𝑃𝑏 max ≤ 𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ 0, Volmin ≤ Vol𝑏 (𝑘)
{
{
{
{
{
{ 𝑌 (𝑘) + 𝑃𝑏 max 𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ −𝑃𝑏 max , Volmin ≤ Vol𝑏 (𝑘)
{
{
{
{
{𝑌 (𝑘) Vol𝑏 (𝑘) ≤ Volmin
{ 𝑃𝑏 max , 𝑃𝑏 max ≤ 𝑃grid max + 𝑌 (𝑘) , Vol𝑏 (𝑘) ≤ Volmax (14)

{
{
{
{
{
{ 𝑃grid max +𝑌 (𝑘) , 0 ≤ 𝑃grid max + 𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ 𝑃𝑏 max , Vol𝑏 (𝑘) ≤ Volmax
{
{
{
𝑃𝑏 (𝑘) = {𝑌 (𝑘) , −𝑃𝑏 max ≤ 𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ 0, Volmin ≤ Vol𝑏 (𝑘)
{
{
{
{
{
{−𝑃𝑏 max , 𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ −𝑃𝑏 max , Volmin ≤ Vol𝑏 (𝑘)
{
{
{
{0, otherwise
𝑘 = 1, 2, . . . , 𝑇
3.4. Maximum Discharging Dispatch Strategy. This strategy strategy when 𝑌(𝑘) > 0; in the opposite case, if BESS could
is suitable for situations where the frequency of 𝑌(𝑘) > 0 is meet the demand of insufficient power of RES, BESS will
lower than that of maximum charging dispatch strategy; thus discharge as much as needed; otherwise, the external grid will
the penetration level of RES is lower than maximum charging export power to HES, meet the insufficient power of RES,
strategy, which is similar to the strategy of peak shaving of [9]. and charge the BESS at the same time, if not exceeding the
The operation of BESS is the same as load following dispatch constraints described in Section 2.3:
{ 𝑌 (𝑘) − 𝐸𝑏 max , 𝑃𝑏 max ≤ 𝑌 (𝑘) , Vol𝑏 (𝑘) ≤ Vol𝑏 max

{
{
{
{𝑌 (𝑘) ,
{
{
0 ≤ 𝑌 (𝑘) , Volmax ≤ Vol𝑏 (𝑘)
{
{ 𝑃grid max, 𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ − (𝑃grid max +𝑃𝑏 max ) ≤ 0, Volmin ≤ Vol𝑏 (𝑘)
{
{
{
𝑃
𝑃grid (𝑘) = { grid max, (Vol𝑏 (𝑘) ≤ Vol𝑏 max , 𝑃grid max +𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ 𝑃𝑏 max − (𝑃grid max +𝑃𝑏 max ) ≤ 𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ 0)
{
{
{
{ −𝑌 (𝑘) + 𝑃𝑏 max , (Vol𝑏 (𝑘) ≤ Vol𝑏 max , 𝑃𝑏 max ≤ 𝑃grid max +𝑌 (𝑘) − (𝑃grid max +𝑃𝑏 max ) ≤ 𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ 0)
{
{
{
{ 𝑌 (𝑘) , 𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ 0, Vol𝑏 (𝑘) ≤ Volmin
{
{
{
{0, otherwise,
{ 𝑃𝑏 max , 𝑃𝑏 max ≤ 𝑌 (𝑘) , Vol𝑏 (𝑘) ≤ Vol𝑏 max (15)

{
{
{
{ 𝑌 (𝑘) , 0 ≤ 𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ 𝑃𝑏 max , Vol𝑏 (𝑘) ≤ Volmax
{
{
{
{ 𝑌 (𝑘) , −𝑃𝑏 max ≤ 𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ 0, Volmin ≤ Vol𝑏 (𝑘)
{
{
𝑃𝑏 (𝑘) = {−𝑃grid max, 𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ − (𝑃grid max +𝑃𝑏 max ) ≤ 0, Volmin ≤ Vol𝑏 (𝑘)
{
{
{
{ 𝑃grid max +𝑌 (𝑘) , (Vol𝑏 (𝑘) ≤ Vol𝑏 max , 𝑃grid max +𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ 𝑃𝑏 max − (𝑃grid max +𝑃𝑏 max ) ≤ 𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ 0)
{
{
{
{
{𝑃𝑏 max ,
{ (Vol𝑏 (𝑘) ≤ Vol𝑏 max , 𝑃𝑏 max ≤ 𝑃grid max +𝑌 (𝑘) − (𝑃grid max +𝑃𝑏 max ) ≤ 𝑌 (𝑘) ≤ 0)
{0, otherwise
𝑘 = 1, 2, . . . , 𝑇
3.5. Multistage Dispatch Strategy. Many new infrastructures and real-time data of the HES. Detailed multistage dispatch
and technologies are put into power system from electricity strategy could be described as follows.
generation, transmission, and distribution to consuming, for
integrating more RES and making grid system smarter. By Stage 1: Preoptimize the Operation of BESS with Day-Ahead
taking advantage of the advanced communication network, Forecast Data Using Modified Dynamic Programming Algo-
rich data and information could be sent to and received from rithm
each component of the HES in a timely fashion. Researches
results showed that short time RES generation output, load (1) Obtain the day-ahead predicted data of load demand,
demand, and electricity price could be modeled effectively RES generation (wind and PV).
by autoregressive (AR) [21] processes, machine learning (2) Compute the whole day net-generation of HES by
[22], or other methods [23]. These technology progress and formula (17).
researches are worthy for alleviating fluctuation and fully
using RES in HES when the penetration level of RES is high. (3) Solve the preoptimization problem with modified
However, communication network and forecasting methods dynamic programming algorithm, which can be for-
are not the focus of this paper; relational information could mulated as follows.
be found in [24] and the references therein.
Objective. Minimize the standard variance of power flowed at
As the literal meaning, the multistage dispatch strategy
PCC (net-generation) with predicted data:
proposed in this paper consists of two main stages. First,
preoptimize the BESS charge and discharge plan with consid- 2
ering the forecast data of RES generation and load demand 1 𝑁 1 𝑁
min ⋅ ∑ [𝑌pre (𝑘) − 𝑃𝑏pre (𝑘) − ∑ (𝑌pre (𝑘)− 𝑃𝑏pre (𝑘))]
day-ahead by modified dynamic programming algorithm 𝑁 𝑘=1 𝑁 𝑖=1
[25]. The objective is to mitigate the fluctuation of the forecast (16)
power flowed in HES as much as possible. Then, refer to
hysteresis control method in [15] and heuristic dispatch 𝑌pre (𝑘) = 𝑃prewind (𝑘) + 𝑃presolar (𝑘) − 𝑃preload (𝑘)
algorithm in [26]; a dynamic robust adjust control method (17)
is implemented based on scheduled BESS operation routine Subjected to: (3)–(8),
where the formula of (16) is a mix-integer nonlinear pro- of hysteresis band in this paper was computed with a modified
gramming problem; conventional algorithm could not search method from [15, 27]:
the optimal solution easily; however, modified dynamic pro-
gramming could solve this problem effectively and quickly: Δ𝐸HES = 2 ⋅ 𝐶HES ⋅𝑃𝑏 max , (21)
𝑓𝑖+1 (Volpre (𝑖 + 1)) where 0 < 𝐶HES < 1 is an important factor used to determine
the size of hysteresis band and the value of 𝐶HES has close
= min {𝑓𝑖 (Volpre (𝑖)) , V (Volpre (𝑖) , 𝑃𝑏pre (𝑖))} relationship with BESS characteristics, load characteristics,
and forecast uncertainty levels.
Volpre (𝑖 + 1) = Volpre (𝑖) + 𝑃𝑏pre (𝑖) ⋅ Δ𝑡 Hysteresis band can be used to decide when the BESS
(18) charge or discharge power and also could extend the cycle life
𝑓0 (Volpre (0)) = 0 of BESS; however, because of forecast uncertainty, how much
BESS should be charged or discharged in power fluctuation
𝑖 = 0, 1, . . . , 𝑁 − 1 smoothing also should be determined.
Subjected to: (3)–(8), (7) Implement heuristic dispatch control policy com-
bined with hysteresis band to mitigate fluctuation in
where 𝑓𝑖+1 (Volpre (𝑖 + 1)) refers to the standard variance of HES at real-time.
power flowed at PCC in period 𝑖 + 1 with standard variance
𝑓𝑖 (Volpre (𝑖)) in period 𝑖; V(Volpre (𝑖), 𝑃𝑏pre (𝑖)) denotes the index Real-time operation of BESS should consider the forecast
function [27]. error of load demand and RES generation, the capacity level
of BESS, and the total power level of this day; conventional
Stage 2: Heuristic Dispatch Control Combined with Hysteresis control strategies could not deal with this problem effectively;
Band Based on Real-Time Data. Predicted data of load however, the heuristic dispatch policy combined with hys-
demand and RES generation (PV and wind) could not be teresis band proposed in this paper could solve this problem:
so perfect because of forecast uncertainty, which lead to the
{ 𝑌 (𝑘)
fact that real-time operation of HES could not follow the {
{ , if 𝑌 (𝑘) < 0
preplanned routine completely; BESS should fully play its { 𝑌premin
level (𝑘) = {
unique role as it could be operated as a load or generator unit {
{ 𝑌 (𝑘)
{ , otherwise
if needed to alleviate fluctuations and improve power quality
{ 𝑌premax
of HES in real-time as much as possible. For reaching this (22)
aim, a real-time robust control algorithm, namely, heuristic 𝑃𝑏 (𝑘) = 𝑓 (Vol𝑏 (𝑘) , 𝐿 error (𝑘) , level (𝑘)) + 𝑃𝑏pre (𝑘)
dispatch control combined with hysteresis band, is proposed.
Detailed procedures can be described as follows. 𝑘 = 1, 2, . . . , 𝑁
(4) Collect the real-time data of load demand and RES Subjected to: (3)–(8),
generation (PV and wind) in period 𝑘.
where level(𝑘) is an auxiliary variable and represents the net-
(5) Compare the actual net-generation 𝑌(𝑘) and the generation level of period 𝑘 in one day, which is important
forecasted net-generation 𝑌pre (𝑘) and then compute for actual BESS operation. 𝑓 is a function of BESS capacity,
the actual forecast error level in period 𝑘: forecast error, net-generation level, and scheduled power of
BESS at period 𝑘 in day-ahead programming. The detailed
temp (𝑘) = 𝑌 (𝑘) − 𝑌pre (𝑘) 𝑘 = 1, 2, . . . , 𝑁, (19)
BESS heuristic dispatch control policy combined hysteresis
temp (𝑘) band of real-time operation can be demonstrated as the
𝐿 error (𝑘) = , (20) following the steps.
𝑌pre (𝑘)
(7.1) Collect the value of level(𝑘), if level(𝑘) > 1; adjust
where if the equation of (19) combined with the forecast error the BESS operation to satisfy the power scheduled
of RES generation (PV and wind) and load demand, in this as much as possible, if not over the limit of BESS.
way, much computational room and time could be saved. Otherwise, it proceeds to (7.2).
𝐿 error (𝑘) is an important variable in deciding BESS real- (7.2) If the actual net-generation power is in the hysteresis
time control operation [21], and we assume that −𝐸𝑃,max ≤ band, |temp(𝑘)| < Δ𝐸HES , and BESS were operated
𝐿 error (𝑘) ≤ 𝐸𝑃,max ; if 𝐿 error (𝑘) exceed this scope, we define as scheduled; if temp(𝑘) > 0, excess energy will
that 𝐿 error (𝑘) equals the closest value in this scope. be exported to the external grid; on the contrary,
purchase the demand deficit from the external grid.
(6) Determine the size of hysteresis band.
Otherwise, it proceeds to (7.3).
According to the past experiences of our work and other (7.3) The operation power of BESS in period 𝑘 can be
researchers [28], there are many periods that temp(𝑘) are represented as follows:
very small values close to zero; in these conditions, BESS will
operate as scheduled day-ahead as much as possible. The size 𝑃𝑏 (𝑘) = 𝑓 (Vol𝑏 (𝑘) , 𝐿 error (𝑘)) , (23)
Pb (k) 4. Simulation and Results

For better demonstrating the performance of each BESS
Pbmax operation strategy, this section is divided into four successive
parts. One-day case study of each BESS operation strategy in
Heuristic BESS operation power fluctuation smoothing is implemented in Section 4.1;
a vivid impression will be about the performance of each
strategy; Section 4.2 describes the performance of each BESS
dispatch strategy of one whole simulation horizon, which is
Pbpre(k) based on the analysis of one-day case, but the conclusions
are more convincing and more detailed than Section 4.1;
sensitive analysis of each BESS dispatch strategy in situations
No manipulation in real-time
where BESS parameters are fixed but the forecasts results are
Pbpre(k) imperfect is presented in Section 4.3; Section 4.4 analyzes the
(1 − L emax ) performance changes in situations where forecast uncertainty
−L emax 0 L emax L error(k) is fixed but the BESS parameters are varying. The former
two parts could be considered as special cases of the latter
Figure 2: Real-time BESS operation with heuristic dispatch strategy. two parts; they analyze the power fluctuation performance
of each BESS strategy in HES with high RES penetration
level in perfect forecast conditions; however, the latter two
parts discuss the robust feature of each BESS dispatch strategy
where 𝑃𝑏 (𝑘) is varying with respect to 𝑓; for easy understand- in conditions where forecast results are imperfect or BESS
ing, we do not use complex function to show the relationships parameters are varying. The data needed in this paper is
among 𝑃𝑏 (𝑘) with Vol𝑏 (𝑘) and 𝐿 error (𝑘), just as formula (23) coming from [31].
and Figure 2 illustrated. In Figure 2, the green line means Figure 3 shows the power of actual PV generation, wind
that HES controller actually operates the BESS at real-time generation, load demand, and net-generation of HES of this
just with forecast data directly as the control without any paper in the whole simulation horizon, respectively. The red
manipulation, whereas the red line means that the BESS line represents the power of PV generation, the blue line
capacity and actual net-generation in period 𝑘 are concerned; shows the power of wind generation, the green line indicates
BESS actual operation should consider the current state of the load demand, and the cyan line denotes net-generation of
the system. The detailed illustration of heuristic algorithm is HES, respectively.
presented in [29, 30] and their reference articles: Figure 3 fully illustrates the properties of RES generation
and load demand from the point of one whole year. By
{ 𝑃𝑏pre (𝑘) (1 + 𝐿 error (𝑘)) , comparison of red line of PV generation and blue line of
{
{
{
{ if 𝐿 error (𝑘) < 0 wind generation, we could observe that both of them have the
{
{ feature of intensive fluctuation, intermittency, and seasonal
{
{ 𝐿 error (𝑘)
{
{
{𝑃𝑏pre (𝑘) + (𝑃𝑏 max − 𝑃𝑏pre (𝑘)) ( 𝐸𝑃,max ) ,
{ changing. In general, sunlight in summer is richer than in
𝑃𝑏 (𝑘) = { winter; however, wind source is richer in winter than in
{
{ if 𝑌 (𝑘) > 0, 𝐿 error (𝑘) > 0 summer; therefore, this phenomenon shows that a HES has
{
{
{
{ 𝐿 (𝑘) more advantages than energy systems which only have one
{
{ 𝑃𝑏pre (𝑘) − (𝑃𝑏pre (𝑘) − 𝑃𝑏 max ) ( error ),
{
{ 𝐸 kind of them. Furthermore, we could also observe that the
{
{ 𝑃,max
if 𝑌 (𝑘) < 0, 𝐿 error (𝑘) > 0 stochastic feature of wind generation is more significant than
{
that of PV generation and load demand. The feature of load
𝑘 = 1, 2, . . . , 𝑁 demand is that more energy is needed in winter than in
summer, just because winter needs more electricity energy to
Subjected to: (3)–(8). be used to keep houses warm.
(24) All the parameters needed in this paper are shown as
follows: 𝛼 = 90%, 𝛽 = 10%, Vol𝑏 = 2400 kWh, 𝑃𝑏 max =
800 kW, and 𝐶HES = 0.05, and the initial BESS capacity is
Vol𝑏 (0) = (1/2)Vol𝑏 , 𝑁 = 96, 𝑀 = 365; for simplicity,
(8) Update the BESS state, move to the time step of 𝑘 + 1, we assume that the rated power of transformer between the
and repeat the algorithm from step (4) if this day is grid-connected HES and the external grid could support the
not over; otherwise go to step (1) until the end of the load demand if no RES generators exist; namely, 𝑃grid max =
whole simulation horizon. max(− min(𝑌(𝑡)), max(𝑌(𝑡))).
This two-stage dispatch strategy also has other benefits 4.1. One-Day Case Simulation. In Figure 4, the green lines
to HES such as cost saving and system reliability improving; intuitively show the performance of BESS in mitigating fluc-
however, not being the focus of this paper, there is no cover tuation in different strategies of one typical day. Where mul-
about them. tistage dispatch strategy has the best performance because
2500 3000
2000 2500
(kW)
2000
(kW)
1500 1500
1000 1000
500 500
0
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
15 min ×104 15 min ×104
PV power Wind power
(a) PV generation (b) Wind generation

3000 3000
2500 2000
1000
(kW)
(kW)
2000
1500 0
1000 −1000
500 −2000
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
15 min ×104 15 min ×104
Load demand Net-generation
(c) Load demand (d) Net-generation
Figure 3: Data of RES generation and load demand for HES in one year.
BESS could effectively and intelligently shift the peak power one year) in different forecast uncertainty levels, and different
to smooth the net-generation power flowed at PCC in this size of BESS should be discussed.
strategy, however, the other strategies could not achieve
this purpose, because they all rule based strategy; the BESS 4.2. Whole Horizon Duration Study (One Year). The results
operation in these strategies just follows the real-time net- shown in Table 2 demonstrate the performance of power
generation. They do not have preoptimization of BESS nor fluctuation smoothing and quality improvement of each
real-time robust adjustment actions for compensating the strategy of one year. In total, the HES power quality and
errors of day-ahead prediction; therefore, their performances operation improvement through BESS integration are very
in alleviating power fluctuation are very limited. By observing effective. For example, the standard variance of power flowed
the cyan lines we could find that the operation of BESS in in HES at PCC reduced more or less for multistage dispatch,
strategy of multistage dispatch is more flexible and intelli- load following, and maximum charging dispatch strategy;
gent. furthermore, the indicator net use rate demonstrates that all
Table 1 reports the performances of the described strate- the BESS strategies increase the use rate of RES in local HES,
gies as Figure 3 shows. It demonstrates that the benchmark which has significant benefits when RES penetration level
value standard variance is 680.224, different BESS operation increased.
strategies have different performances, and the differences In all of the BESS operation strategies referred to in
are very significant, in these strategies. The performances this paper, only multistage dispatch strategy reduces the
of maximum charging strategy and maximum discharg- peak power of HES, which demonstrates the superiority and
ing strategy have close relationship with tendency of net- intelligence of this strategy; despite the fact that there are
generation power flowed in HES and RES penetration level; many reasons leading to this result, such as BESS capacity,
in this one day case, the power curve is not idea for maximum the occasion of peak power coming forth, only multistage
charging and maximum discharging dispatch strategy, and dispatch could grasp opportunities effectively. The reason that
the size of BESS is too small for these strategies to fully the standard variance of power flowed in HES for maximum
take their advantages. The reason why the value of index discharging dispatch strategy is higher than benchmark is
net use rate seems tiny is that this value is decided by the that when RES generation and BESS discharging could not
definition of net use rate in Section 2, and the fact that BESS meet load demand, and the external grid will import power to
size is not so idea is another one important reason. Other support load demand and charge the BESS at the same time,
evaluation indicators have no meaning presented in one-day which result in more subpeak power demand.
case simulation, which will be shown in the next further The indicator of Vol rate demonstrates that BESS could
analysis. fully develop the unique feature in all strategies and, namely,
Figure 4 and Table 1 just show the performance of all could be regarded as a load or a generator in different con-
the strategies in alleviating power fluctuation and improving ditions when needed; in addition to maximum discharging
power in HES of one typical day. We could not obtain the strategy, in this strategy, BESS capacity stay at high level in
final conclusion that which BESS operation strategy has the most periods.
best performance just trough these simple simulation results, Although many helpful results and conclusions could be
hence, further researches of longer time simulation (at least obtained, however, all the results of Figure 3 and Tables 1
Table 1: Performance of different strategies in mitigating power fluctuation and improving power quality (one typical day case).
Dispatch strategy
Evaluation index Multistage dispatch Load following Maximum charging Maximum
Normal strategy
strategy strategy strategy discharging strategy
Var 680.224 442.444 529.156 587.563 682.340
net use rate — 0.212 0.164 0.137 0.141
Table 2: Performance of different strategies in mitigating power fluctuation and improving power quality (a whole year).
Dispatch strategy
Evaluation index Multistage dispatch Load following Maximum charging Maximum
Normal strategy
strategy strategy strategy discharging strategy
Var 713.281 492.111 622.933 658.319 783.686
net use rate — 0.1562 0.1572 0.103 0.1107
Vol rate — 0.5250 0.4556 0.5058 0.7591
𝑃peak (kW) 4170.6 3430.6 4170.6 4170.6 4170.6
Table 3: Performance of each BESS dispatch strategy in different forecast uncertainty levels of one-year simulation.
Var net use rate (Vol rate) 𝑃peak (kW)
Normal: 726.611 Normal: — Normal: — Normal: 4541.1
Strategy 1: 506.055 Strategy 1: 0.1556 Strategy 1: 0.5186 Strategy 1: 3778.74
Sensitive test 1
(𝐸𝑃,max = 5%)
Nor: 744.851 Normal: — Normal: — Normal: 5254.9
Sensitive test 2
(𝐸𝑃,max = 10%)
Sensitive test
3(𝐸𝑃,max = 15%)
Sensitive test 4
(𝐸𝑃,max = 20%)
and 2 are based on fixed parameters of BESS and forecast where the mean value of 𝑅𝑃 is 0 and the standard variance is 1;
uncertainty level; the conclusions obtained could not be in this paper, we just set four forecast uncertainty levels, and
convincing if we need to use these conclusions to determine 𝐸𝑃,max is 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20%, respectively.
BESS size and conduct actual BESS operation; therefore, fur- For saving space, we use short nomenclature normal;
ther discussions should be implemented to demonstrate the Strategy 1, Strategy 2, Strategy 3, and Strategy 4 replace
performances of different strategies in different conditions. normal operation strategy, multistage dispatch strategy, load
4.3. Sensitive Analysis 1. This subsection discusses the per- following dispatch strategy, maximum charging dispatch
formance degrading of each BESS strategy in different fore- strategy, and maximum discharging dispatch strategy, respec-
cast uncertainty conditions, with fixed BESS size. For easy tively.
understanding, we just use the variation of net-generation The results shown in Table 3 and Figure 4 demonstrate
to represent the variation of RES generation (wind, PV) and the performance of each operation strategy in mitigating
load demand; thus, the real-time net-generation could be fluctuation and improving power quality of HES with high
formulated as follows: penetration level of RES integration under conditions that the
forecast is imperfect. This sensitive analysis is mainly used
𝑌 (𝑘) = 𝑌pre (𝑘) ⋅ (1 + 𝐸𝑃,max ⋅ 𝑅𝑃 ) for evaluating the robust of each BESS dispatch strategy in
(25)
𝑘 = 1, 2, . . . , 𝑁, conditions that the BESS sizes in HES have been decided but
Multistage dispatch control strategy Load following strategy

3000 3000
2500 2500
2000 2000
1500 1500
1000 1000
Power (kW)
Power (kW)
500 500
0 0
−500 −500
−1000 −1000
−1500 −1500
−2000 −2000
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Time (15 min) Time (15 min)
(a) (b)
Maximum charging strategy Maximum discharge strategy
3000 3000
2500 2500
2000 2000
1500 1500
1000 1000
Power (kW)
Power (kW)
500 500
0 0
−500 −500
−1000 −1000
−1500 −1500
−2000 −2000
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Time (15 min) Time (15 min)
Power of the BESS Exchange power to the grid Power of the BESS Exchange power to the grid
Volume of BESS Net-generation power Volume of BESS Net-generation power
(c) (d)
Figure 4: Performance of different strategies in mitigating fluctuation and improving power quality. (a) Multistage dispatch strategy. (b) Load
following dispatch strategy. (c) Maximum charging dispatch strategy. (d) Maximum discharging dispatch strategy (one typical day case).
actual RES generation (wind, PV) and load demand are not strategy keep steady very well. Observing the indictor of
as assumed in planning. Vol rate and Ppeak could obtain the similar conclusions
Observing the indicator of Var in Table 3 and Figure 5, like net use rate.
we could find that the performance of multistage dispatch
strategy is more robust than other strategies, as the tendencies 4.4. Sensitive Analysis 2. As discussed above in this paper,
of five lines in Figure 4 show, the tendencies of the other BESS size level plays a very important role in power fluc-
strategies follow the tendency of normal strategy without tuation smoothing and quality improving for HES which
BESS, and their performances all have closer relationship integrated with high penetration level of RES; suitable BESS
with the forecast uncertainty than multistage dispatch strat- size will help to fully develop the performance of dispatch
egy. Observing the indicator of net use rate, we could find strategy. In this subsection, we will investigate the relation-
that the performances of maximum charging strategy and ships between BESS size and BESS operation performance.
maximum discharging dispatch strategy degrade rapidly with Because the strategy of normal operation without BESS
forecast uncertainty level increasing; however, the perfor- has no BESS integration, the investigations and results will
mance of multistage dispatch strategy and load following not be referred to; in addition to this strategy, all other
900 0.16
850 0.15
800 0.14
Index value of net-use rate

750 0.13
Index value of var
700 0.12
650 0.11
600 0.1
550 0.09
500 0.08
450
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
Forecast uncertainty level (%) Forecast uncertainty level (%)
Dispatching strategy Dispatching strategy
Normal operation Load following strategy
Load following strategy Maximum charging strategy
Maximum charging strategy Maximum discharging strategy
Maximum discharging strategy
(a) (b)
Figure 5: Performance of each BESS dispatch strategy with different forecast uncertainty levels in one year simulation. (a) Standard variance.
(b) Net RES use rate.
strategies will be discussed from the indicator of standard total trend of performance improving with the increasing of
variance, net RES use in HES, and mean BESS utilization BESS limited capacity and power is similar like analyzed in
rate. When we did experiments, we found that the tendency Figure 7; however, the performance improving rate is slower
of BESS performance in multistage strategy is very evident; than multistage dispatch strategy, such as when 𝑃𝑏 max =
therefore, the BESS parameters range in this strategy is not so 15500 kW, Vol𝑏 = 15500 kWh, the Var = 480.5563, and
large, and the limited power ranges from 500 kw to 3000 kw, net use rate = 0.3804 (there is a little distortion in graph
and the limited capacity ranges from 1000 kwh to 9000 kwh. compression); this performance has been reached when
For the other strategies, the limited power ranges from 500 kw Vol𝑏 ≤ 5000 kwh to the strategy of multistage dispatch.
to 15500 kw, and the limited capacity ranges from 500 kwh to Comparing with Figures 6 and 8, there are some differ-
15500 kwh. In addition to that, we assume that the forecast ences with the other two strategies which have been analyzed.
uncertainty level in this subsection is 5% in all strategies. First, the total tendency of performance in power smoothing
Figure 6(a) demonstrates that with the increasing of BESS has some difference with the strategy of multistage dispatch
capacity the standard variance of power flowed in HES and load following. The performance in power fluctuation
decreases, but if power of BESS could not increase with the smoothing is improving with the BESS capacity and power
increasing of capacity, the increasing rate of standard variance increase, no possibility to grow worse at least; however, in
will be slower and slower; however, the power increasing strategy of maximum charging, this tendency is not suitable,
rate should not keep with the increasing rate of capacity, and if the rated capacity is fixed, the performance will degrade
and the trend could be observed from the graph. Figure 6(b) with the increasing of rated power; the optimal standard
illustrates the similar trends like Figure 6(a), as the increasing variance is Var = 553.797, where 𝑃𝑏 max = 1000 kW
of BESS capacity and power, the RES using rate through the and Vol𝑏 = 10500 kWh. Second, with the increasing of
charging and discharging of BESS in HES increasing steady. BESS capacity, the net-use rate of RES will be growing, but
Figure 6(c) presents that with the increasing of BESS capacity slower and slower, and the highest value is net use rate =
and power, the use rate of BESS increases in the beginning 0.2386, which is too small to be compared with the above
and then keeps steady when the capacity and power of BESS two strategies; furthermore, the net-use rate of RES will be
are enough and then keeps decreasing when the capacity and decreasing sharply with the increasing of rated power of
power are too large to HES. BESS. The last but not least, the use rate of BESS varies
After carefully observing Figure 7 and comparing with a lot with the varying of BESS rated power and capacity.
Figure 6, we could obtain the following conclusions. The Figure 8 demonstrates the importance of deciding suitable
Standard variance of net-generation The net-use rate of RES
700 0.4
600
0.3
500
Ratio
0.2
Ratio
400
0.1
300
200 0
3000 3000
2500 2500
2000 9000 2000 9000
Ra 1500 7000 Ra
ted 1500 7000
ted 5000
po 1500 h) po 1500 5000 h)
3000 (kW we (kW
we 1000 r (k 1000 3000 ty
r( 500 1000 acity 500 1000 paci
kW e d cap W) d ca
) R at Rate
(a) (b)
The use rate of BESS
0.6
0.55
Ratio
0.5
0.45
3000
2500
2000 9000
Ra
ted 1500 7000
pow 1500 5000 )
1000 3000 Wh
er ( ty (k
kW
) 500 1000 c apaci
d
Rate
(c)
Figure 6: Performance of multistage dispatch strategy with different levels of BESS parameters. (a) Standard variance of net-generation at
PCC. (b) Net-use rate of RES in HES. (c) BESS use rate.
and effective parameter of BESS no matter which operation RES are similar with dispatch strategy and load following
strategy. strategy, but the increasing trend is not slower than any of
The performance of maximum discharging strategy also them, and the optimal value is net use rate = 0.3363, where
has some unique characteristics comparing with multistage 𝐸𝑏 max = 2500 kW and Vol𝑏 = 15500 kWh; furthermore,
dispatch strategy, load following strategy, and maximum there is a fast increasing to the value of net-use rate as the
charging strategy. The optimal standard variance is Var = increasing of rated power when BESS capacity is fixed. The
734.019, where 𝑃𝑏 max = 500 kW and Vol𝑏 = 11000 kWh, as reason why Figure 9(c) has so apparently diversifications as
Figure 9(a) shows. The optimal value of var is not obtained BESS parameters changes is mainly decided by the BESS
when Vol𝑏 = 15500 kWh, which illustrates that the per- strategy.
formance of power fluctuation smoothing do not improve Sensitive analysis results from Figure 6 to Figure 9 indi-
with the increasing of BESS capacity like other strategies. cate that the performance of multistage dispatch strategy
As Figure 9(b) demonstrates, the trends of net-use rate of is more stable and outstanding than the other strategies.
Standard variance of net-generation

The net-use rate of RES
700 0.4
650
0.3
600
Ratio
Ratio
0.2
550
500 0.1
450 0
15500 15500
Rat 10500 15500 15500
Rat 10500
ed
5500 10500 ed p 10500
pow
5500 Wh) owe 5500
(kWh
)
er ( ity (k 5500
kW 500 500 c ap a c r (k
W) 500 500 c apacity
) Rated Rate d
(a) (b)
0.465
0.46
0.455
Ratio
0.45
0.445
0.44
0.435
15500
Rat 10500 15500
ed p 5500 10500
owe 5500 h)
r (k
W) 500 500 acit y (kW
d cap
Rate
(c)
Figure 7: Performance of load following dispatch strategy with different levels of BESS parameters. (a) Standard variance of net-generation
at PCC. (b) Net-use rate of RES in HES. (c) BESS use rate.
From the index of standard variance var we could observe grows, but the optimal rated power has big difference with
that to power fluctuation smoothing, the improving rate of the specific strategy. If we could fully analyze the relationships
multistage dispatch strategy is faster and more stable, and among BESS parameters and forecast uncertainty levels and
the load following strategy has better performance than the power smoothing performance, an optimal sizing of BESS
two other strategies. To the indicator of net use rate, load could be determined, also a suitable operation strategy
following strategy has the best performance than other strate- which combined performance of efficient and robust will be
gies, but gap between the value of load following strategy proposed according to the object of BESS. Furthermore, the
and multistage dispatch strategy is very small and will be results of case study obtained in this paper could be utilized
smaller and smaller if BESS size increases. The indicator of in economy or/ and reliability analysis.
peak power in HES 𝑃peak is not discussed in this case study,
and because the advantages of multistage dispatch strategy 5. Conclusions
are so significant, no detailed experiments should be done.
In generally, the performance of BESS in mitigating In this paper a novel multistage dispatch strategy is proposed
power fluctuation caused by high penetration of RES inte- for alleviating fluctuation and improving power quality of
gration will be better and better as the BESS rated capacity HES, which integrates high penetration level of RES, which
Standard variance of net-generation The net-use rate of RES
1000 0.25
900 0.2
800 0.15
Ratio
Ratio
700 0.1
600 0.05
500 0
15500 15500
10500 15500 Ra 10500 15500
Rat 10500 ted 10500
ed 5500 h) po 5500 )
pow 5500
y (kW we 5500 kWh
er ( 500 500 acit r (k 500 500 a city (
k d cap W d cap
W)
Rate ) Rate
(a) (b)
0.9
0.8
0.7
Ratio
0.6
0.5
0.4
15500
10500 15500
Rat 10500
ed 5500
pow 5500 h)
er ( (kW
500 500 a city
k W) d cap
Rate
(c)
Figure 8: Performance of maximum charging dispatch strategy with different levels of BESS parameters. (a) Standard variance of net-
generation at PCC. (b) Net-use rate of RES in HES. (c) BESS use rate.
could decide when and how much should the BESS be both in duration of one day and one year long. Further, we
charged or discharged. This approach is consisted with two analyze the availability of strategies to cope with inevitable
main parts; preoptimize the BESS operation day-ahead by disturbance and forecast errors and also discuss the impact
predicted data of RES generation (wind, PV) and load of BESS parameters on power smoothing performance of
demand with modified dynamic programming algorithm, the HES; simulation results demonstrate that the strategy
and dynamically adjust the BESS actual operation with proposed in this paper is more robust and economic than
heuristic dispatch control combined with hysteresis band other strategies.
based on real-time HES data. Four other conventional BESS Future work will be focused on relaxing our assumption
operation strategies also have been discussed in different so as to include forecast uncertainty modeling and state
cases for evaluating the performance of the multistage dis- estimation, and considering more elements in HES, such as
patch strategy. First, we assume perfect knowledge of the controllable loads and real-time price, and should include
HES state and forecast data, the simulation results show that some other problems such as unit commitment problem,
the approach proposed in this paper has better performance economic dispatch problem, and so on.
Standard variance of net-generation

The net-use rate of RES
1200 0.4
1100
0.3
1000
Ratio
Ratio
0.2
900
800 0.1
700 0
15500 15500
10500 15500 15500
Ra
ted 10500 Rat 10500 10500
po 5500 h) ed 5500
we 5500 pow
r (k 500 500 acit y (kW er ( 5500
ity (k
Wh)
kW 500 capac
W) d cap 500
Rate ) Rated
(a) (b)
0.9
0.8
Ratio
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
15500
10500 15500
Ra 10500
ted 5500
pow 5500 h)
(kW
er ( 500 500 pa city
k W) d ca
Rate
(c)
Figure 9: Performance of maximum dispatch discharging strategy with different levels of BESS parameters. (a) Standard variance of net-
generation at PCC. (b) Net-use rate of RES in HES. (c) BESS use rate.
Nomenclature 𝑃prewind (𝑘): Predicted wind generation power in period

𝑘 when doing day-ahead forecast (kW)
Variables 𝑃presolar (𝑘): Predicted PV generation power in period 𝑘
when doing day-ahead forecast (kW)
𝑃wind (𝑘): Aggregate power generated by wind
𝑃𝑏pre (𝑖): BESS charging or discharging power in
generators in period 𝑘 (kW)
period 𝑘 when doing day-ahead program-
𝑃solar (𝑘): Aggregate power generated by PV generators ming (kW)
in period 𝑘 (kW) level(𝑘): An auxiliary variable, used for controlling
𝑃grid (𝑘): Power imported from or exported to the real-time BESS operation
external grid in period 𝑘 (kW) Vol𝑏 : BESS capacity limit (rated capacity) (kWh)
𝑃load (𝑘): Real-time load of HES in period of 𝑘 (kW) 𝑃𝑏 (𝑘): Real-time BESS charge or discharge power
Vol𝑏 (𝑘): Capacity of BESS in period 𝑘 (kWh) in period 𝑘 (kW)
𝑃preload (𝑘): Predicted load demand in period 𝑘 when 𝑃𝑏 max : maximum charging power limit of BESS
doing day-ahead forecast (kW) (kW), 𝑃𝑏 max > 0
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/289492
Research Article
Fermentation Process Modeling with Levenberg-Marquardt
Algorithm and Runge-Kutta Method on Ethanol Production by
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Dengfeng Liu,1 Ling Xu,1,2 Weili Xiong,1 Hong-Tao Zhang,3 Chi-Chung Lin,3
Lihua Jiang,1 and Baoguo Xu1
1
Key Laboratory of Industrial Advanced Process Control for Light Industry, Ministry of Education,
Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China
2
School of Internet of Things Technology, Wuxi Institute of Commerce, Wuxi 214153, China
3
Key Laboratory of Industrial Biotechnology, Ministry of Education, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Baoguo Xu; xbg@jiangnan.edu.cn
Received 19 February 2014; Accepted 8 April 2014; Published 19 June 2014
Copyright © 2014 Dengfeng Liu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
The core of the Chinese rice wine making is a typical simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) process. In order to
control and optimize the SSF process of Chinese rice wine brewing, it is necessary to construct kinetic model and study the influence
of temperature on the Chinese rice wine brewing process. An unstructured kinetic model containing 12 kinetics parameters was
developed and used to describe the changing of kinetic parameters in Chinese rice wine fermentation at 22, 26, and 30∘ C. The
effects of substrate and product inhibitions were included in the model, and four variable, including biomass, ethanol, sugar and
substrate were considered. The R-square values for the model are all above 0.95 revealing that the model prediction values could
match experimental data very well. Our model conceivably contributes significantly to the improvement of the industrial process
for the production of Chinese rice wine.
1. Introduction wheat qu is a starter culture containing predominately the

fungus Aspergillus oryzae and enzymes as saccharifying and
Chinese rice wine is an important alcoholic beverage made fermenting agents. To make Chinese wheat qu, the wheat
from whole steamed sticky rice (also known as glutinous rice) grain is milled, mixed with natural water, and pressed into a
in China with a long history. At this time, the production starter cake. It is subsequently incubated at 28−30∘ C for 48 h
of Chinese rice wine has reached 1.4 million tons per year. and dried at 45∘ C until the moisture is lower than 12% (w/w)
Thus far, traditionally the rice wine fermentation process is
[4, 5]. The Chinese rice wine brewing process can be divided
still manually controlled by technicians based on their expe-
into two stages as follows: whole rice was soaked first and
rience. This caused variability of the flavour for each batch of
then steamed. Finally, the steamed sticky rice, Chinese wheat
Chinese rice wine. Hitherto, how to maintain and standardize
the flavour of all batches of rice wine is still an unsolved issue. qu, and tap water were mixed at an appropriate ratio and
To achieve optimal automatic bioreactor control in the rice naturally fermented at lower than 33∘ C condition for 96 h (the
wine fermentation production process is expected to resolve main stage). The resulting broth was pumped into a fermentor
such problem. Development of a robust mathematical model tank at 15∘ C for another 45 days (the second stage). In all the
on the optimal automatic control fermentation system for processes of Chinese rice wine brewing, the first stage is the
Chinese rice wine production is absolutely necessary [1–3]. key step for acquiring high Chinese wine quality and yield.
Whole sticky rice and Chinese wheat qu are the two key Consequently, we focused on developing an unstructured
raw materials used for Chinese rice wine brewing. Chinese model to describe the main stage of the fermentation process.
The main-stage fermentation process of rice wine produc- process. Therefore, we cannot directly apply the alcohol
tion is typically simultaneous saccharification and fermen- fermentation kinetic models to describe the Chinese rice
tation (SSF) process. It is divided into two stages: the first wine fermentation process. It is necessary to develop a new
stage is enzymatic saccharification and microbial growth, and and specific SSF model to describe the Chinese rice wine
the second stage is enzymatic saccharification and microbial brewing process. In addition, although temperature is the
fermentation (ethanol production). During the enzymatic key factor affecting the Chinese rice wine, the Chinese wheat
saccharification process the polysaccharides from whole qu quality and yield are also very important. Hitherto, there
steamed sticky rice are hydrolyzed into reducing sugar and are only limited publications on the study of the effect of
oligosaccharides for the fermentation process. The reducing temperature for Chinese rice wine fermentation production.
sugar is converted into ethanol and flavour agent through the Consequently, we focused on (1) analyzing of the effect
Chinese rice wine fermentation production process. of various temperatures on Chinese rice wine fermentation,
There are several kinetic models in industrial alcoholic (2) formulating the kinetic model on reducing sugar and
beverage fermentation to describe the SSF process of ethanol ethanol production during Chinese rice wine fermentation,
production with different materials such as corn flour [6, 7], (3) validating the model with experimental data of the SSF
wheat flour [8, 9], and some cellulosic substrates [10–15]. process in Chinese rice wine fermentation using the Chinese
Hitherto, these SSF models are mainly classified as two types: wheat qu, sticky rice, Saccharomyces cerevisiae to develop
unstructured model and cybernetic model. In cybernetic model parameters from our experimental data at various
modeling, the core parts are the description of the synthesis temperatures using the least-squares algorithm.
rates of key enzymes and the metabolic flux balance of the
equation of the enzymes in the Chinese wheat qu. As the
saccharification process of Chinese rice wine was conducted 2. Material and Methods
with Chinese wheat qu containing enzymes, cybernetic
2.1. Microorganisms for Fermentation. The yeast, Saccha-
modeling cannot explain this situation. Kroumov et al.
romyces cerevisiae EC1118 (Lallemand Australia Pty Ltd,
[16] developed an unstructured model for simultaneous
Underadale, SA, Australia), was used in this study and stored
saccharification and fermentation of starch to ethanol with
at 4∘ C. The Chinese wheat qu used in this study was supplied
the recombinant strain of S. cerevisiae YPB-G. In this case, S.
by the Shaoxing Nu󸀠 er Hong Rice Wine Company (Zhejiang,
cerevisiae YPB-G can produce both saccharification enzymes
China) and stored at room temperature. Sticky (glutinous)
and ethanol. Therefore, new saccharification enzymes were
rice purchased from a local store in Columbia, MO (product
induced in the fermentation process. It is different from that
of Thailand, distributed by Walong Marketing Inc., Buena
of Chinese rice wine brewing during which saccharification
Park, CA, USA) was used in this study.
enzymes are not induced endogenously. Chavan et al. [17]
modeled the SSF process from starch to flavour compounds.
Podkaminer et al. [11] found ethanol concentration can 2.2. Fermentation and Sample Preparation. To analyze the
partly inactivate the enzyme and then developed a kinetic saccharification process, steamed rice, Chinese wheat qu
model to model this phenomenon for thermophilic SSF at and water at the ratio of 10 : 2 : 30 was prepared under
50∘ C with Thermoanaero saccharolyticum ALK2. These SSF three different temperatures (22, 26, and 30∘C) [18]. At the
kinetic models provided useful information for developing predetermined time, samples of 5 mL cultures were taken
the kinetic models to describe the SSF process in Chinese rice from the fermentor and for analyses. Reducing sugar and pH
wine fermentation. were recorded with pH meter (S220 SevenCompact pH/Ion)
There are many kinetic models to describe the SSF and UV spectrometer (Thermo Scientific Spectronic Gensys
processes. However, all existing models cannot apply to the 5 UV Spectrometer) at 600 nm.
conditions of Chinese rice wine brewing. Chinese wheat qu The Chinese rice wine fermentation experiments were
and sticky rice are the main raw materials for producing carried out in 1000 mL shake flask (600 mL working volume)
reducing sugar. The Chinese wheat qu mainly contains amy- at 22, 26, and 30∘ C without pH control. Samples of 5 mL of
loglucosidase and 𝛼-amylase which hydrolyze the starch in the fermentation broth were taken for analyses of reducing
the sticky rice to reducing sugar [5]. Saccharomyces cerevisiae sugar [19] and pH. 20 mL of broth was taken for analyzing the
yeast was used to convert the reducing sugar into ethanol ethanol concentration. The Chinese rice wine fermentation
[18]. In the Chinese rice wine fermentation production, was conducted with the medium containing steamed rice,
there are several factors which are different from other SSF Chinese wheat qu and water at the ratio of 10 : 2 : 30. Saccha-
processes: (1) whole steamed rice instead of starch flour is romyces cerevisiae EC118 was added to water and heated to
used as source to supply starch which is then hydrolyzed 40∘ C for 20 min at the ratio of 500 g : 5 L water. Subsequently,
to reducing sugar; (2) in the Chinese rice wine brewing 20 mL of the resulting broth was added to each flask.
process, Chinese wheat qu which contains 𝛼-amylase and As the Chinese rice wine fermentation is at half-solid state
amyloglucosidase is used to complete the saccharification of and half-liquid process and the sticky rice is always in the
rice; (3) variable temperatures are used up to 33∘ C. (4) The fermentation broth, it is difficult to determine the biomass of
concentration of sugars can reach as high as 150 g L−1 ; (5) Saccharomyces cerevisiae for which 20 mL of Saccharomyces
final ethanol concentration in Chinese rice wine brewing can cerevisiae EC118 was added to the fermentation medium
reach as high as 21% (v/v). The brewing process condition for under three different temperatures (22, 26, and 30∘ C) for 96 h.
Chinese rice wine is different from the alcohol fermentation All the cultures were taken out at various times (see Section 3)
and were analyzed in the following section. This medium only performed using the Levenberg-Marquardt method and the
contains glucose with concentration at 150 g L−1 . fourth-order Runge-Kutta method. The objective function (e)
was used:
2.3. Analytical Methods
̂𝑖 )2
(𝑋𝑖 − 𝑋 (𝐸𝑖 − 𝐸̂𝑖 )
2
̂𝑖 )2
(𝐺𝑖 − 𝐺
2.3.1. Determination of Biomass. For biomass determination, 𝑒=∑ +∑ +∑ , (4)
𝑖
̂2
𝑋 𝑖 𝐸̂2 𝑖
̂2
𝐺
5 mL of fermentation mash was taken out and centrifuged at 𝑖 𝑖 𝑖
6,000 g for 4 min. The cells were suspended in 5 mL distilled

water. The optical density was determined at 600 nm with the where, 𝑋𝑖 , 𝐸𝑖 , 𝐺𝑖 are the experimental values of the dry cell
UV spectrometer. If the OD600 is above 1, the sample was weight biomass, ethanol, and reducing sugar, respectively.
On the contrary, 𝑋 ̂𝑖 , 𝐸̂𝑖 , and 𝐺
̂𝑖 are the values predicted
diluted and then tested until the DO600 is less than 1. Dry
cell weight (X) was determined with cell pellet dried at 80∘ C by the model. Parameters estimate and identification of the
in an oven for 48 h. The standard curve of cell biomass was model were realized through minimizing 𝑒 value of (4).
obtained as below based on the linear relation of OD value The nonlinear regression analysis in accordance with the
(y) and dry cell weight (X): Levenberg-Marquardt method [20] was used to minimize
the objective function (e), which has been successfully used
𝑋 = 0.668𝑦 − 0.0062, (𝑅2 = 0.996) , (1) in the optimization parameters in the other kinetic models
[21–24]. The model was solved by using the fourth-order
where X is dry cell weight and g L−1 ; OD600 is optical density Runge-Kutta method ode 45 with the MATLAB R2009a
at 600 nm. software. Both the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method and the
Levenberg-Marquardt method were also applied to optimize
2.3.2. Determination of the Quantity of Reducing Sugar in the estimated parameters with the MATLAB R2009a software
the Chinese Wine Fermentation Broth. For the determination [20].
of the reducing sugar (G) concentration, the fermentation
broth was taken and centrifuged, and then 20 𝜇L was diluted
to 2 mL with distilled water and mixed with 1.5 mL 3,5- 3. Results and Discussion
dinitrosalic acid reagent [19]. After it was heated to 100∘ C for During the Chinese rice wine fermentation, temperature
10 min, samples were diluted to 25 mL and then determined plays important role in the reducing sugar, ethanol produc-
with UV spectrometer at 520 nm. The standard curve of tion, and its flavour formation. Consequently, it is necessary
reducing sugar was obtained as described below based on the to study the kinetic of yeast growth and production of
linear relation of OD520 value (z) and reducing sugar (G): Saccharomyces cerevisiae under various temperatures. The
𝐺 = 0.7294𝑧 + 0.0344, (𝑅2 = 0.999) , (2) effect of temperature on ethanol production has been studied
above 30∘ C [25, 26]. However, as the temperature in the
where G is reducing sugar concentration, g L−1 ; OD520 is Chinese rice wine fermentation process is lower than 31∘ C, it
optical density at 520 nm from UV spectrometer. is necessary to explore the effect of temperature under 30∘ C.
2.3.3. Determination of the Concentration of Ethanol. An 3.1. Cell Growth at Various Temperatures. Saccharomyces cer-
ebulliometer (Napa, CA, USA) was used to determine evisiae cell growth showed a classical cell growth trend under
the alcohol content in the Chinese rice wine (http:// various temperatures (Figure 1). The batch fermentation pro-
www.dujardin-salleron.com/societe/index.php?langue=2). cess of Chinese rice wine can be separated into different
The test is based on the difference between the boiling points stages. The first stage is the lag phase. In this stage, the biomass
of water and wine. The procedure is as follows: (1) determine increased slowly, and then the biomass increased faster in
the boiling point of water; (2) dilute the wine sample so that the subsequent exponential growth phase. Finally, 5.2 g L−1
the boiling point of the diluted wine is within 4∘ C of the of biomass was attained at 26∘ C in the stationary phase. The
boiling point of water; (3) calculate the concentration of the highest cell biomass was achieved at 26∘ C which is most
wine with the standards value indicated by the instrument. suitable for yeast growth. Reducing sugar formation began to
form as soon as the fermentation started. However, ethanol
2.4. Curve Fitting and Parameter Identification Procedure. production was initiated when the yeast cells reached the
Based on model, there are 12 parameters which need to exponential phase and cell growth occurred simultaneously.
be estimated with data from the experiments under vari- Similar phenomenon has been reported [25].
ous temperatures in this work. They are 𝑘1 , 𝑘2 , 𝑘3 , 𝑘4 , 𝑌𝑥/𝑠 ,
𝑌𝑝/𝑠 , 𝑘0 , 𝑘𝑠 , 𝑘𝑠1 , 𝑘ps1 , 𝑘pi1 , 𝑘𝑚 . They can be expressed with the 3.2. Reducing Sugar Formation and Consumption at Various
following equation: Temperatures. To evaluate the reducing sugar production at
𝐶 = 𝑓 (𝑘1 , 𝑘2 , 𝑘3 , 𝑘4 , 𝑌𝑥/𝑠 , 𝑌𝑝/𝑠 , 𝑘0 , 𝑘𝑠 , 𝑘s1 , 𝑘ps1 , 𝑘pi1 , 𝑘𝑚 ) . various temperatures, fermentation process only with the
Chinese wheat qu treatment was performed. Figure 2(a)
(3)
shows that reducing sugar increased with the fermentation
To obtain an ideal kinetic model, the optimization and time. However, the improvement of reducing sugar forma-
reoptimization steps of the identification procedures were tion at 30∘ C was higher than that at other temperatures
as well as from 2 h to 25 h. Reducing sugar formation declined 6

until 60 h. Thereafter, the reducing sugar concentration was
sharply lower. It suggested the Aspergillus oryzae fungus in 5
the Chinese wheat qu also consumed the reducing sugar but
did not affect the Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast, which used 4
Biomass (g/L)
the reducing sugar to produce ethanol.
Figure 2(b) shows the reducing sugar profile under vari- 3
ous temperatures. A maximum reducing sugar concentration
of 140 g L−1 was accumulated in the fermentation broth at 2
22 h under 30∘ C. The profile of the reducing sugar indicates
that during the initial stage the saccharification rate was 1
higher than the fermentation rate leading to the accumulation
of the reducing sugar. The yeast was in the lag phase with 0
lower consumption of reducing sugar for cell growth. Subse- 0 20 40 60 80 100
quently, the yeast entered the exponential stage during which Fermentation time (h)
reducing sugar was consumed. The maximum reducing sugar
30∘C
concentrations in the broth were 130 g L−1 , 130 g L−1 , and 26∘C
140 g L−1 at 22, 26, and 30∘ C, respectively. The reducing sugar 22∘C
concentration reached the peak at 30∘ C higher than that at
26∘ C. The reducing sugar concentration that reached peak Figure 1: Kinetic model of SSF process in rice wine fermentation.
level at 22∘ C nearly 10 h later than that at 26 or 30∘ C. These
results suggested that at the saccharification stage (0 to 50 h)
higher temperature facilitated reducing sugar formation. 3.4. Model Development. The system considered by the
High temperature can provide positive effect on the unstructured model is composed of four main variables:
cell biomass growth and ethanol production at first 50 h. starch (S), reducing sugar (G), dry cell weight (X), and
After 50 h, low temperature is better for cell maintenance ethanol concentrations (E). The chemical reactions for this
and enzymatic activity which enhance ethanol production. process are shown in Figure 4.
Therefore, ideal rice wine fermentation can be improved
by a two-stage temperature control strategy to increase the 3.4.1. Saccharification of Starch to Reducing Sugar. During
ethanol production level and reduce organic acid production. Chinese rice wine fermentation, the reducing sugar from the
enzymatic hydrolyzed starch was used to produce ethanol
and/or maintain cell growth. The net reducing sugar accu-
mulation rate is
3.3. Ethanol Production and pH at Various Temperatures.
Ethanol production by Saccharomyces cerevisiae showed a 𝑑𝐺
= 𝑟𝑓 − 𝑟𝑢 , (5)
typical trend at various temperature levels (Figure 3(a)). The 𝑑𝑡
highest cell biomass was achieved at 26∘ C. However, highest where 𝑟𝑓 is reducing sugar formation and 𝑟𝑢 is reducing sugar
ethanol production was at 22∘ C. The levels of ethanol and consumption used for fermentation with Saccharomyces cere-
cell biomass were compared from 0 to 40 h. The cell biomass visiae.
at 30∘ C attained the highest level of 6 g L−1 . The ethanol The Michelis-Menten kinetics, including competitive
production at 30∘ C at first 50 h is at the highest compared with inhibition of reducing sugar, was used to describe the enzy-
other conditions. However, the ethanol production at 22∘ C matic saccharification of starch to reducing sugar in Chinese
increased quickly after 50 h and the ethanol concentration rice wine fermentation process. Thus,
accumulation at 22∘ C reached the highest value of 11% (v/v).
𝑆
These results suggest that both ethanol production and cell 𝑟𝑠 = 𝑘1 . (6)
growth were affected by temperature. During the first 50 h, 𝑘𝑚 (1 + (𝐺/𝑘0 )) + 𝑆
higher temperature was suitable for cell growth and ethanol The assumed model in the saccharification level is based
production. However after 50 h, the lower temperature was on the model to describe starch saccharification [16]. In this
better for ethanol production. Temperature, which can affect model, the Saccharomyces cerevisiae EC118 was used for
the production of ethanol, was also observed by other related the fermentation, and Chinese wheat qu was used for the
researches [27, 28]. saccharification.
For pH values, similar changing profiles were observed Reducing sugar was used to evaluate the sugar con-
at different temperature (Figure 3(b)) which shows that pH centration in fermentation broth of rice wine fermentation
decreased dramatically during the first 40 h under 26 and process. In this work, the reducing sugar was considered as
30∘ C conditions. It suggests that high temperatures will glucose.
enhance the organic acid production and will cause pH to As for the exact ratio of 𝛼-amylase and amyloglucosidase
drop more quickly than that at low temperatures. in the Chinese wheat qu, 𝛼-amylase and amyloglucosidase
200 140
120
160
Reducing sugar (g/L)

100
120 80
60
80
40
40 20
0
0 0 20 40 60 80 100
0 20 40 60 80 100 Fermentation time (h)
Fermentation time (h)
30∘C 30∘C
26∘C 26∘C
22∘C 22∘C
(a) (b)
Figure 2: Experimental residue reducing sugar curve of the batch fermentation at various temperatures; (a) only added Chinese wheat qu
and (b) added Chinese wheat qu and S. cerevisiae.
100 7.0
6.5
80
6.0
Ethanol (g/L)
60
5.5
pH
40 5.0
4.5
20
4.0
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 3.5
0 20 40 60 80 100
30∘C
30∘C
26∘C
26∘C
22∘C
22∘C
(a) (b)
Figure 3: Experimental residue reducing sugar curve of the batch fermentation at various temperatures; (a) only added Chinese wheat qu
and (b) added Chinese wheat qu and S. cerevisiae.
were considered as a “complex enzyme.” For simplification of 3.4.2. Microbial Growth. Part of the sugar was consumed by
the model, the concentration of enzyme was considered as the cells for growth. The specific growth rate of yeast was
constant. The enzymatic affinity to the starch is independent described as the Monod equation with substrate inhibition
of enzyme concentration. below:
The mass transfer limitations and conformational
changes of the enzyme structure were not considered in the
model.
Ethanol was considered as the main products; other 𝐺
𝜇 = 𝑘2 . (7)
flavour compounds were not considered in this work. 𝑘𝑠 + 𝐺
SSF Reducing sugar balance:

(1) Saccharification of starch to reducing sugar 𝑑𝐺
k3 Cell maintenance = 𝑟𝑓 − 𝑟𝑢 , (14)
Enzyme 𝑑𝑡
Reducing
+ k1 k2 Cell growth
sugar where
starch
k4 Ethanol
𝑆
𝑟𝑓 = 1.11𝑘1 , (15)
(2) Fermentation of reducing sugar to ethanol 𝑘𝑚 (1 + (𝐺/𝑘0 )) + 𝑆
1 𝑑𝑋 1 𝑑𝐸
𝑟𝑢 = + 𝑟𝑚 + . (16)
Figure 4: Kinetic model of SSF process in rice wine fermentation. 𝑌𝑥/𝑠 𝑑𝑡 𝑌𝑝/𝑠 𝑑𝑡
3.4.5. Solving Model. Since the kinematic model of the SSF in

The growth rate of yeast cell was assumed to be directly rice wine fermentation is nonlinear, therefore, only numerical
proportional to the dry cell weight; so the growth rate of cells solution is available but not analytical solution. In this work,
is written as the Runge-Kutta method was used to get the numerical
solution for the model. The initial condition was set as 𝑥0 , and
𝑑𝑋
= 𝜇𝑋, (8) 𝑥𝑖 was achieved as numerical solution by recursive relation
𝑑𝑡 equation:
where 𝑋 is the dry cell weight and 𝐺 is reducing sugar 1
concentration. 𝐾s is the inhibition coefficient. 𝑥𝑖+1,𝑗 = 𝑥𝑖𝑗 + (𝑏 + 2𝑏2𝑗 + 2𝑏3𝑗 + 𝑏4𝑗 ) + 𝑂 (ℎ5 ) ,
6 1𝑗
Some of the sugar was consumed by cells for cellular
maintenance. The sugar needed was directly proportional to 𝑏1𝑗 = ℎ𝑓𝑗 (𝑡𝑖 , 𝑥𝑖1 , 𝑥𝑖2 , . . . , 𝑥𝑖𝑛 ) ,
the dry cell weight. It is described in
ℎ 𝑏 𝑏 𝑏
𝑟𝑚 = 𝑘3 𝑋. (9) 𝑏2𝑗 = ℎ𝑓𝑗 (𝑡𝑖 + , 𝑥𝑖1 + 11 , 𝑥𝑖2 + 12 , . . . , 𝑥𝑖𝑛 + 1𝑛 ) ,
2 2 2 2
3.4.3. Fermentation of Reducing Sugar to Ethanol. Ethanol ℎ 𝑏 𝑏 𝑏

𝑏3𝑗 = ℎ𝑓𝑗 (𝑡𝑖 + , 𝑥𝑖1 + 21 , 𝑥𝑖2 + 22 , . . . , 𝑥𝑖𝑛 + 2𝑛 ) ,
was the metabolic product of Saccharomyces cerevisiae fer- 2 2 2 2
mentation. Ethanol is assumed to be directly proportional
to the dry cell weight and substrate as well as reducing 𝑏4𝑗 = ℎ𝑓𝑗 (𝑡𝑖 + ℎ, 𝑥𝑖1 + 𝑏31 , 𝑥𝑖1 + 𝑏32 , . . . , 𝑥𝑖𝑛 + 𝑏3𝑛 ) .
sugar concentration. The effects of the reducing sugar and (13󸀠 )
metabolic product ethanol inhibitions were considered in the
fermentation process from reducing sugar to ethanol. The 3.5. Validating and Estimating Parameters of Unstructured
formation rate of ethanol from reducing sugar is written as Model for Chinese Rice Wine Fermentation. Several models
follows: and parameters related to only starch hydrolysis have been
1 1 constructed and evaluated with 𝛼-amylase [29] and amy-
𝑟𝐸 = 𝑘4 𝐺𝑋, (10) loglucosidase [30]. However, no study on the effect of various
(𝑘𝑠1 + 𝐺) (𝑘ps1 + 𝐸 + (𝐸2 /𝑘pi1 ))
temperatures on ethanol fermentation was undertaken with
their models. Therefore, it is interesting to analyze the effect
where 1/(𝑘𝑠1 + 𝐺) is the substrate inhibition and 1/(𝑘ps1 + 𝐸 + of a series of temperatures on ethanol production. To acquire
(𝐸2 /𝑘pi1 )) is the product inhibition. kinetic parameters of the kinetic model for Chinese rice wine
fermentation under various temperatures, the simulated Chi-
3.4.4. Model of the SSF Process. The model of SSF process is nese rice wine fermentation process at different temperatures
described as follows based on (5)–(10). in a scale-down level was done, considering the temperature
Starch balance: in Chinese rice wine brewing was controlled below 33∘ C.
Accordingly, 22, 26, and 30∘ C were chosen and controlled for
𝑑𝑆 𝑆 the simulated Chinese rice wine fermentation. The data and
= −𝑘1 . (11)
𝑑𝑡 𝑘𝑚 (1 + (𝐺/𝑘0 )) + 𝑆 simulation are shown in Figures 5(a), 5(b), and 5(d). The data
are presented in data points and simulation is presented with
Biomass balance: solid lines for reducing sugar (G), biomass (X), and ethanol
(E), respectively.
𝑑𝑋 𝐺
= 𝑘2 𝑋. (12) All the optimized parameters were calculated and fitted
𝑑𝑡 𝑘𝑠 + 𝐺 the modeling data with the experimental data at 22, 26, and
30∘ C. The R-square value was used to evaluate the model
Ethanol balance:
fitting. The 𝑅2 value more close to 1, the model fitting is
𝑑𝐸 considered to be better. The R-square values of the model
= 𝑟𝐸 . (13) under different temperatures which are calculated by 𝑅2 = 1−
𝑑𝑡
6 100
5
80
4
Biomass (g/L)
Ethanol (g/L)
60
3
40
2
20
1
0 0
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100
Fermentation time (h) Fermentation time (h)
30∘C 22∘C 30∘C 22∘C

26∘C 26∘C 26∘C 26∘C
22∘C 30∘C 22∘C 30∘C
(a) (b)
250
140
200 120
100
150
Starch (g/L)
80
100 60
40
50
20
0 0
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100
Fermentation time (h) Fermentation time (h)
30∘C 30∘C 22∘C

26∘C 26∘C 26∘C
22∘C 30∘C
22∘C
(c) (d)
Figure 5: Experimental data and simulated data for batch experiments at 22, 26, and 30∘ C (a). Cell mass concentration. (b) Ethanol
concentration. (c) Starch concentration. (d) Reducing sugar concentration.
Table 1: R-square value for the model. 0.95 at 30∘ C, respectively. The R-square values of cell mass
under the temperatures from 22 to 30∘ C are 0.99, 0.98, and
Temperature
State varible 0.99, respectively. The R-square values of ethanol are all 0.99
22∘ C 26∘ C 30∘ C at all three different temperatures. The plot figures (Figure 5)
Reducing Sugar 0.96 0.97 0.95 and R-square values show that the model fit the data very
Cell mass 0.98 0.99 0.98 well. The model thus is very useful to describe the Chinese
Ethanol 0.99 0.99 0.99 rice wine fermentation process.
The kinetic parameters at all temperatures are shown
in Table 2. The maximum rate of saccharification (𝑘1 ) was
(∑(𝑥𝑖 − 𝑥̂𝑖 )2 / ∑(𝑥𝑖 − 𝑥𝑖 )2 ) are shown as Table 1. The R-square increased from 6.772 g L−1 h−1 at 22∘ C to 7.721 g L−1 h−1 at
values of reducing sugar are 0.96 at 22∘ C, 0.97 at 26∘ C, and 30∘ C with the temperature increasing. Maximum specific
Table 2: Kinetic and stoichiometric parameters values and initial conditions of the model.
Temperature
Evaluated parameter
22∘ C 26∘ C 30∘ C Units
𝑘1 6.772 7.099 7.721 g L−1 h−1
𝑘2 0.110 0.120 0.127 g L−1 h−1
𝑘3 0.001 0.001 0.001 h−1
𝑘4 99.399 105.383 135.393 g L−1 h−1
𝑘𝑚 31.856 31.809 32.436 g L−1
𝑘0 139.959 139.964 139.887 g L−1 h−1
𝑌𝑥/𝑠 0.894 0.882 0.651 g g−1
𝑘𝑠 116.533 104.533 104.596 g L−1
𝑌𝑝/𝑠 0.254 0.244 0.257 g g−1
𝑘𝑠1 60.984 60.984 61.344 g L−1
𝑘ps1 56.256 56.287 56.176 g L−1
𝑘pi1 170.778 170.779 170.756 g L−1
growth rate (𝑘2 ) was increased from 0.110 at 22∘ C to 0.127 constant are decreased with the temperature increasing.
at 30∘ C. Consumption coefficient for cell maintenance (𝑘3 ) It is to be noted that the parameters values of yield
contains the same value 0.001 h−1 under various tempera- coefficient of product, saturation growth constant, sub-
tures. The maximum ethanol production rate (𝑘4 ) increased strate growth inhibition constant, and substrate produc-
from 99.399 g L−1 h−1 at 22∘ C to 135.393 at 30∘ C also. Glu- tion inhibition term cannot be affected apparently by the
cose inhibition constant for saccharification (𝑘0 ), saturation temperature.
growth constant (𝑘𝑠1 ), substrate growth inhibition constant Overall, exploring the fermentation process provides
(𝑘ps1 ), substrate production inhibition term (𝑘pi1 ), and yield very useful information for industrial ethanol fermentation
coefficient of product (𝑌𝑝/𝑠 ) all only have little fluctuation to reduce power consumption and increases production.
under various temperatures. However, the yield coefficient of At present, kinetic modeling is an indispensable step in
cell growth (𝑌𝑥/𝑠 ) was decreased from 0.894 g g−1 at 22∘ C to exploring and developing a better fermentation process since
0.651 g g−1 at 30∘ C. the models can be used to determine an optimal operational
condition for the production of a target metabolite. However,
The model of biomass is quite accurate and there was no
an unstructured kinetic model to study the temperature
drastic mismatch between the experimental and simulation
on ethanol production in Chinese rice wine fermentation
data (Figure 5(a)). The effect of intermediate products of
is still not available until now. Therefore, our new model
reducing sugar from starch hydrolysis on cell growth and
suitable for rice wine fermentation and analysis of the effect of
ethanol production can be very significant. The Chinese
temperatures on ethanol production contributes significantly
rice wine fermentation is a typical SSF process in which to the improvement of the industrial production process for
at the initial stage the reducing sugar concentration is low Chinese rice wine.
but the starch concentration is higher. In this model, total
reducing sugar was used as sugar contents. The computa-
tion model for reducing sugar concentration and ethanol
4. Conclusion
production fits very well to the profile of experimental data
(Figures 5(b) and 5(d)). It is to be noted that the computation SSF is an essential industrial technology for converting biore-
model for ethanol production cannot fit very well at 22∘ C sources into useful products, such as lactic acid and ethanol
from 0 to 60 h (Figure 5(b)). The utilization of glucose at 22∘ C [31–35]. As ethanol can be used as biofuel, producing ethanol
is lower than the other conditions, but the glucose formation from bioresource is becoming very important bioprocess to
is similar to the other conditions and ethanol concentration resolve the energy crisis [36, 37], and several models have
reached the highest value. The pH values at low temperature been developed to describe the SSF process from wood, corn
were higher than that at high temperature (Figure 3(b)) flower, and starch [38, 39]. The SSF process uses whole rice
because organic acid produced more at higher temperature and Chinese wheat qu, which contains mostly 𝛼-amylase and
in the fermentation broth. All the results suggested that high amyloglucosidase, to produce reducing sugar and ethanol
temperature enhanced glucose to produce organic acid but with Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Additionally, ethanol produc-
not ethanol. tion achieved as high as 21% (v/v), compared to only 11%
In addition, high temperature can increase the values concentration in industrial ethanol fermentation. Further-
of maximum rate of saccharification, maximum specific more, the temperature is limited to below 31∘ C [18, 40] in
growth rate, and maximum ethanol production rate. How- this process. Consequently, exploring the fermentation pro-
ever, yield coefficient for cell growth and saturation growth cess provides very useful information for industrial ethanol
fermentation to reduce power consumption and increases technical assistance. Shaoxing Nverhong Rice Wine Com-
production. At present, kinetic modeling is an indispensable pany is acknowledged for the material support. This work was
step in exploring and developing a better fermentation supported in part by National Science Foundation of China
process since the models can be used to determine an (21276111 and 21206053), Zhejiang Science and Technology
optimal operational condition for the production of a target Project (2011C12033), 111 Project (B12018), China Scholarship
metabolite. However, an unstructured kinetic model to study Council (no. 2010679023), and Jiangnan University PhD
the temperature on ethanol production in Chinese rice wine Research Fund (no. JUDCF10062).
fermentation is still not available until now. Therefore, our
new model suitable for rice wine fermentation and analysis of
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/689398
Research Article
Analysis of Combined Power and Refrigeration Generation
Using the Carbon Dioxide Thermodynamic Cycle to Recover
the Waste Heat of an Internal Combustion Engine
Shunsen Wang, Kunlun Bai, Yonghui Xie, Juan Di, and Shangfang Cheng
School of Energy and Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, No. 28, Xianning West Road, Xi’an 710049, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Yonghui Xie; yhxie@mail.xjtu.edu.cn
Received 23 March 2014; Accepted 12 May 2014; Published 2 June 2014
Copyright © 2014 Shunsen Wang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
A novel thermodynamic system is proposed to recover the waste heat of an internal combustion engine (ICE) by integrating the
transcritical carbon dioxide (CO2 ) refrigeration cycle with the supercritical CO2 power cycle, and eight kinds of integration schemes
are developed. The key parameters of the system are optimized through a genetic algorithm to achieve optimum matching with
different variables and schemes, as well as the maximum net power output (𝑊net ). The results indicate that replacing a single-
turbine scheme with a double-turbine scheme can significantly enhance the net power output (𝑊net ) and lower the inlet pressure
of the power turbine (𝑃4 ). With the same exhaust parameters of ICE, the maximum 𝑊net of the double-turbines scheme is 40%–
50% higher than that of the single-turbine scheme. Replacing a single-stage compression scheme with a double-stage compression
scheme can also lower the value of 𝑃4 , while it could not always significantly enhance the value of 𝑊net . Except for the power
consumption of air conditioning, the net power output of this thermodynamic system can reach up to 13%–35% of the engine
power when it is used to recover the exhaust heat of internal combustion engines.
1. Introduction et al. [1] developed a waste heat recovery system using the
Brayton cycle, which consists of a heat exchanger to recover
The internal combustion engine (ICE) has been a primary the exhaust heat, a turbocharger system to compress air
power source for automobiles, long-haul trucks, locomotives, and convert the heat energy into mechanical work, and an
and ships in the past few decades. Although a lot of advanced electric machine integrated into the turbocharger shaft to
technologies have been developed to increase the thermal generate electric power. Results indicate that it can improve
efficiency of the ICE, around 60%–75% of the fuel energy is fuel efficiency by as much as 10%. Song et al. [3] simplified
still lost as waste heat through the exhaust and the coolant the above system using the turbocharger compressor as
[1]. Despite the engine exhaust and the engine coolant having the Brayton cycle compressor and the fuel economy of the
similar energy content, the higher temperature of the engine’s diesel engine was improved only by 2.6% at high engine
exhaust gas makes it more thermodynamically attractive speed and 4.6% at low engine speed under engine full-load
when viewed from the perspective of exergy. This results in operating conditions. In 2005, Cummins Inc. proposed a
a higher theoretical efficiency gain when coupled to a heat scheme to recover the waste heat of a heavy-duty diesel
engine [1]. engine through ORC. Then, AVL Inc. planned to develop a
Recently, many efforts have been made to recover waste supercritical ORC to recover the waste heat of heavy-duty
energy from the engine exhaust. Bianchi and De Pascale [2] automotive diesel engine. Diego A. Arias from the University
evaluated three thermodynamic cycles, the organic Rankine of Wisconsin proposed three different supercritical ORCs to
cycle (ORC), Stirling, and the inverted Brayton, in order to recover different kinds of waste heat from a hybrid engine.
recover low- and medium-grade waste heat. They determined BMW Inc. produced the “Turbo Steamer” system with a
that an ORC is the most attractive one of the three. Jansen high temperature cycle and a low temperature cycle. The
high temperature cycle recovers the waste heat of the engine can be further made simple and compact because the working
exhaust, and the low temperature cycle mainly recovers the fluid and some equipment are shared by the refrigeration
waste heat of the engine cooling system. Although research cycle and the power cycle, which can be the most feasible
regarding the use of ORC to recover the waste heat of ICE has way for the waste heat recovery of ICE. In 2005, Chen et
made some progress, the large size of the package unit and the al. [25] proposed a thermodynamic cycle system with CO2
leakage of organic fluids restrict its engineering application as a working fluid to recover the waste heat of the ICE.
[4]. The system works separately or works in combination with
For the past few years, the transcritical/supercritical CO2 the already exiting CO2 A/C unit to produce power for
power cycle has attracted more and more attention. Persichilli the A/C system’s compressor or even add further power to
et al. [5, 6] compared the cycle efficiency, equipment cost, the propulsion system. In this paper, some new integration
and environmental performance of the transcritical CO2 schemes of combined power and refrigeration generation
cycle, the ORC, and the steam Rankine cycle. Results show with the CO2 thermodynamic cycle are proposed, and the
that the CO2 transcritical power cycle can achieve a high key parameters of the system are optimized using a genetic
efficiency over a wide range of heat source temperatures algorithm to get optimum matching with different variables
(from 204∘ C to 650∘ C) with lower cost. They also did and schemes, as well as the maximum net power output. This
preliminary tests of a 250 kW waste heat recovery system research is very significant for promoting the development of
using CO2 as the working fluid, which proved that the system ICE waste heat recovery.
performed as expected. Chen et al. [7] also compared the
CO2 transcritical power cycle and the ORC with R123 as
a working fluid. They found that when utilizing the low- 2. System Description and Modeling
grade heat source with equal mean thermodynamic heat
rejection temperature, the CO2 transcritical power cycle has 2.1. Thermodynamic Cycles. In most cases, a large terminal
a slightly higher power output than the ORC. Besides, other temperature difference is selected to reduce the size of the
studies [8–11] on the CO2 power cycle for waste heat recovery automotive heat exchanger, so that the typical values of the
have been reported, which confirmed its feasibility. CO2 is condensing temperature are usually higher than the critical
superior to other working fluids because of its lower critical temperature of carbon dioxide. Therefore, the waste heat
temperature (31.18∘ C, close to ambient temperature), smaller recovery of an automotive internal combustion engine has to
latent heat of vaporization in the transcritical power cycle, use the supercritical power cycle.
and no pinching point problem during the supercritical heat Figure 1(a) shows a typical single turbine supercritical
transmission [12–14]. In addition, CO2 is natural, cheap, and CO2 power cycle system, referred to as STC. In this cycle,
environmentally friendly. It does not decompose or explode first the CO2 is compressed by a high-pressure compressor
within the temperature range of the ICE exhaust gas [15–19]. (HPC) from state 2 to state 3. Then, it is heated to state 4 by
Furthermore, CO2 is suitable for the compact microchannel the exhaust gas of the ICE in the gas heater. Next, the CO2
heat exchanger because of its excellent flow and heat-transfer expands in a high-temperature turbine (HT), which can drive
properties. Under the conventional working parameters, the the vehicle directly or generate electricity (G). Lastly, the CO2
density of CO2 is 5 to 20 times the density of organic fluids, exhaust of the HT is cooled from state 5 to state 2 in a gas
which makes the compressor, turbine, and piping system of cooler, thus completing a power cycle.
the CO2 cycle much smaller than that of the ORC. So the CO2 In order to improve the efficiency of waste heat recovery
cycle is highly suitable for recovering the waste heat from the and lower the exhaust temperature of HT, a double-turbine
ICE exhaust [5]. supercritical CO2 power cycle system as shown in Figure 1(b)
As is well known, most of the existing automobile air con- is proposed, which is referred to as DTC. In this cycle, first
ditioning systems use HFC-R134a as a refrigerant. Because the CO2 is compressed by a high-pressure compressor (HPC)
of the vibration and the frequent overhaul of the unit, the from state 2 to state 3. Next, it is divided into two parts; one
leakage of refrigerant is much greater than in household air part is heated to state 4 by the exhaust gas of the ICE in the gas
conditioning, which is one of the main sources of greenhouse heater and then expands in a high-temperature turbine (HT).
gas. Recently, BMW, Volkswagen, and some other major The other part is heated to state 4 by the CO2 exhaust of the
automobile manufacturers have planned to use CO2 as HT in the regenerator and then expands in a low-temperature
the refrigerant for automobile air conditioning in order to turbine (LT). Lastly, the two parts of the CO2 meet in a gas
reduce the emission of greenhouse gas [20–24]. Several new cooler and release the residual heat to the ambient air, during
and innovative designs for heat exchangers, compressors, which the parameters of CO2 vary from state 1 to state 2,
and valves have emerged from studies in this area. This completing a power cycle. Here, the HT and the LT have the
application has recently received increased attention based same expansion ratio and inlet pressure but different inlet
on the European Parliament’s July 2006 vote to phase out the temperatures, which can significantly improve the efficiency
refrigerant HFC-134a. of waste heat recovery and thermal power conversion. In
Hence, a system of combined power and refrigeration addition, compared to the STC system, it is a very compact
generation using the CO2 thermodynamic cycle to recover system, with the addition of a low-temperature turbine (LT)
the waste heat of an internal combustion engine is interesting. and a regenerator in the basic of STC system.
This system can not only take full advantage of the superiority According to literature [20], a transcritical CO2 refriger-
of CO2 power cycles in high efficiency and small size, but also ation cycle system as shown in Figure 2(a) can be used as the
Exhaust Exhaust
Exhaust Exhaust in out
in out
Gas heater
4
Gas heater 3
4 3
HT LT G HPC
4󳰀
5󳰀
3
HT G HPC
Regenerator
5
5
6
1 1
2 2
Gas cooler Gas cooler
(a) System layout of STC (b) System layout of DTC
Figure 1: Typical system layout of the supercritical CO2 power cycle.
11 10 10
Fore cooler
8
2 8
Throttling Throttling
valve valve
LPC LPC
12 12
9 9
Gas cooler Gas cooler

Evaporator Evaporator
(a) With fore cooler (b) Without fore-cooler
Figure 2: Typical system layout of the transcritical CO2 refrigeration cycle.
air conditioning in an automobile. In this cycle, supercritical Based on the operating principle of thermodynamic
CO2 (state 12) is compressed by a low-pressure compressor cycles and the basic idea of combined power and refrigeration
(LPC) from state 11 to state 12. Then, it is cooled down generation, two patterns are proposed to integrate the waste
to state 2 and state 8 in the gas cooler and fore cooler, heat recovery supercritical CO2 power cycle and thetranscrit-
successively. Next, the CO2 with low temperature and high ical CO2 refrigeration cycle to simplify and make the system
pressure condenses to state 9 through a throttling valve. compact, as shown in Figures 3 and 4. For the integration
Further, the CO2 liquid evaporates by absorbing the heat pattern in Figure 3, the exhaust CO2 pressure of HT is equal
of the automobile compartment in the evaporator and the to the discharge pressure of LPC. HPC can only be used by the
automobile compartment is cooled. Finally, the CO2 after power circuit and LPC can only be used by the refrigeration
evaporation (state 10) is heated up to state 11 in a fore circuit. However, the two circuits share a gas cooler, a working
cooler before entering LPC, completing a refrigeration cycle. fluid tank, and other auxiliary equipment. For the integration
Considering the limits of vehicle space, removal of the fore pattern in Figure 4, the exhaust CO2 pressure of HT is equal
cooler is an alternative, as shown in Figure 2(b). However, to the intake pressure of LPC, and two circuits share the LPC
the effect of the fore cooler on the whole performance cycle as well as the gas cooler, the working fluid tank, and other
requires further analysis. auxiliary equipment. In this system, the power cycle includes
Exhaust Exhaust 4
in out
400
11 10
5
Fore cooler
Gas heater 300
8
Pa
T (∘ C)
M
20
Pa
4 3 200
M
10
Throttling
valve
HT G HPC LPC 100 3 12
12 2
8 10
5 9 9 11
0
1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0
S (kJ·(kg·K)−1 )
1
2
Evaporator Power cycle
Gas cooler
Refrigeration cycle
(a) System layout of SSF cycle (b) 𝑇-𝑆 diagram of SSF cycle
Exhaust Exhaust
in out 4
11 400
10
Fore cooler 4󳰀
Gas heater 5
4 8 300
3 5󳰀
T (∘ C)
Throttling
Pa
M
valve 200
Pa
20
HT LT G HPC LPC
M
󳰀
10
4 12
9
5󳰀
3 100 3 12
Regenerator 2
5 8 10
Evaporator 9 11
0
6 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0
S (kJ·(kg·K)−1 )
1
2 Power cycle
Gas cooler Refrigeration cycle
(c) System layout of DSF cycle (d) 𝑇-𝑆 diagram of DSF cycle
Figure 3: System layout and 𝑇-𝑆 chart of SSF and DSF cycles.
a double-stage compression with intercooling. According Figures 3(b), 3(d), 4(b), and 4(d) show the 𝑇-𝑆 diagram
to the characteristics of the integrated pattern, the systems of the SSF, DSF, SDF, and DDF schemes, respectively. In these
shown in Figures 3(a) and 3(c) are referred to as the SSF diagrams, the inlet pressure of the turbine was chosen to be
scheme and the DSF scheme, respectively, while the systems 20 MPa and the discharge pressure of the LPC and the evapo-
shown in Figures 4(a) and 4(c) are referred to as the SDF rator pressure are set at 10 MPa and 5 MPa, respectively. It can
scheme and the DDF scheme, respectively. The first letter be seen from these diagrams that the turbine exhaust CO2
“S” or “D” represents single turbine or double turbines. The temperature of the double-turbine scheme is significantly
second letter ”S” or “D” represents single-stage compression lower than that of the single turbine scheme. In addition,
or double-stage compression of the power cycle. The third the turbine exhaust CO2 temperature of the double-stage
letter “F” denotes the refrigeration cycle with fore cooler. compression scheme of the power cycle is also significantly
The absence of the third letter means the absence of the lower than that of the single-stage compression scheme.
fore cooler. Thus, there are totally eight kinds of integration However, further thermodynamic analysis and parameter
schemes: SSF, DSF, SDF, DDF, SS, DS, SD, and DD, based optimization are necessary for improving the waste heat
on the STC and DTC systems and the refrigeration system recovery of the ICE.
shown in Figure 2. No matter what kind of scheme, the HPC
and LPC are driven by the coaxial turbine, and the system net 2.2. Energy Analysis of Thermodynamics Models. For the
power output is used to drive the vehicle directly or generate simulation of cycle performance, the following assumptions
electricity. are made.
Exhaust Exhaust 4
in out 400
11 10
Fore cooler
Gas heater 300
5
Pa
8
T (∘ C)
M
20
4 3
200
Throttling
Pa
5M
valve
HT G HPC LPC 12
100 3
12
5 9 2
8
9 10
0
1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0
7
S (kJ·(kg·K)−1 )
Evaporator
2 Power cycle
1 Gas cooler Refrigeration cycle
(a) System layout of SDF cycle (b) 𝑇-𝑆 diagram of SDF cycle
Exhaust Exhaust 4
in out
400
11 10
Fore cooler
4 Gas heater
8 300
3 4󳰀 5
T (∘ C)
Throttling
valve
Pa
G 200
M
HT LT HPC LPC
20
󳰀 4󳰀 12 5󳰀
5 9
3
Pa
100 12
5M
Regenerator 3
5 Evaporator 2
8 10
9
6 0
1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0
7 S (kJ·(kg·K)−1 )
2 Power cycle
Gas cooler
1 Refrigeration cycle
(c) System layout of DDF cycle (d) 𝑇-𝑆 diagram of DDF cycle
Figure 4: System layout and 𝑇-𝑆 diagram of SDF and DDF cycles.
(1) All physical parameters and flow velocity of CO2 where 𝑚𝑇 is the total mass flow rate of CO2 in this power
on the same cross-section remain constant in these cycle, namely, 𝑚𝑇 = 𝑚𝐻 + 𝑚𝐿 .
cycles, which means that it is a one-dimensional The thermal balance equation of the gas heater can be
process. expressed as
(2) Flow losses in the pipelines and heat exchangers as
well as the leakage of CO2 are neglected.
For the DSF scheme shown in Figure 3(c), the isentropic 𝑄 = 𝑐g 𝑚g (𝑇gi − 𝑇go ) = 𝑚𝐻 (ℎ4 − ℎ3 ) , (3)
efficiency of HPC is
(ℎ3𝑠 − ℎ2 )
𝜂HPC = . (1)
(ℎ3 − ℎ2 ) where 𝑐g and 𝑚g are the average specific heat and the mass
flow rate of the engine exhaust gas, respectively; 𝑇gi and 𝑇go
The power consumption of HPC is
are the inlet and outlet temperatures of the engine exhaust gas
𝑊HPC = 𝑚𝑇 (ℎ3 − ℎ2 ) , (2) in the gas heater, respectively.
The isentropic efficiency of HT and LT is The pressure ratio of the refrigeration cycle is
(ℎ4 − ℎ5 ) 𝑃12
𝜂HT = , 𝜋𝑅 = . (16)
(ℎ4 − ℎ5𝑠 ) 𝑃11
(4) If the pressure loss of the pipelines and heat exchangers is
(ℎ 󸀠 − ℎ5󸀠 )
𝜂LT = 4 . neglected, then
(ℎ4󸀠 − ℎ5𝑠󸀠 )
𝑃3 = 𝑃4 = 𝑃4󸀠 , 𝑃7 = 𝑃5 = 𝑃5󸀠 = 𝑃6 = 𝑃11 . (17)
Turbine power is The calculation formulas of other parameters are the same
𝑊𝑇 = 𝑊HT + 𝑊LT , (5) as that of the DSF cycle. The calculation formulas of the
other six kinds of integration schemes can be obtained by
where 𝑊HT = 𝑚𝐻(ℎ4 − ℎ5 ) and 𝑊LT = 𝑚𝐿 (ℎ4󸀠 − ℎ5󸀠 ). simplifying the calculation formulas of the DSF scheme and
The thermal balance equation of the fore cooler can be the DDF scheme.
expressed as ℎ11 − ℎ10 = ℎ2 − ℎ8 .
The cooling capacity is 2.3. Optimization Methods and Operating Conditions. The
cooling capacity (𝑊𝑅 ), the exhaust temperature of the ICE
𝑊𝑅 = 𝑚𝑅 (ℎ10 − ℎ9 ) , (6) (𝑇gi ), and the CO2 temperature in the outlet of the gas cooler
(𝑇2 or 𝑇7 ) are the primary independent variables for the
where 𝑚𝑅 is the mass flow rate of CO2 in the refrigeration
above-mentioned waste heat recovery system in the vehicle,
cycle.
which will vary with the ambient temperature, the engine
The isentropic efficiency of LPC is
capacity, the engine speed, and so forth. However, the net
(ℎ12𝑠 − ℎ11 ) power output of the waste heat recovery system (𝑊net ) is the
𝜂LPC = . (7) most important dependent variable, which is also the objec-
(ℎ12 − ℎ11 )
tive function of the thermodynamic system optimization.
The power consumption of LPC is The maximum 𝑊net can be obtained by selecting the suitable
integrated scheme of the thermodynamic system, as well as
𝑊LPC = 𝑚𝑅 (ℎ12 − ℎ11 ) . (8) optimizing the key parameters such as the inlet pressure of
the HT (𝑃4 ) and the intake pressure of the LPC (𝑃2 ).
The net power output of the system is In this study, a typical internal combustion engine with
𝑊net = 𝑊𝑇 − 𝑊LPC − 𝑊HPC . 200 kW was used as the object to quantitatively analyze the
(9)
characteristics of the waste heat recovery system. During
The pressure ratio of the power cycle is design, about 28% of fuel combustion energy is converted
into useful work to drive the vehicle and its accessory loads,
𝑃3 and 34% of fuel combustion energy is carried out by the
𝜋𝑇 = . (10)
𝑃2 engine exhaust gases. Therefore, the maximum value of
available exhaust heat (𝑄max ) is equal to 242.9 kW. If the
The pressure ratio of the refrigeration cycle is ambient temperature is 25∘ C, the following expression can be
𝑃12 used to estimate the heat exchange capacity in the gas heater:
𝜋𝑅 = . (11)
𝑃11 𝑄max (𝑇gi − 𝑇go )
𝑄= kW. (18)
If the pressure losses of the pipelines and heat exchangers 𝑇gi − 25
are neglected, then
For maximum utilization of the waste heat, the thermody-
𝑃3 = 𝑃4 = 𝑃4󸀠 , 𝑃2 = 𝑃5 = 𝑃5󸀠 = 𝑃6 = 𝑃1 = 𝑃12 . (12) namic performance and the key parameters of every integra-
tion scheme were optimized through a genetic algorithm. The
For the DDF scheme shown in Figure 3(d), the LPC different integration schemes after parameter optimization
shares equipment between the power cycle and refrigeration were compared and analyzed to determine the optimum
cycle, and its power consumption is matching between the integration scheme and the exhaust
parameters of the internal combustion engine. Real-coded,
𝑊LPC = 𝑚𝑅 (ℎ12 − ℎ11 ) + 𝑚𝑇 (ℎ12 − ℎ7 ) . (13) ranking selection, arithmetic crossover, and self-adaptive
mutation methods were adopted in this optimization. Based
The isentropic efficiency of LPC is
on literature [26, 27], the population size, crossover proba-
𝑚𝑅 (ℎ12𝑠 − ℎ11 ) + 𝑚𝑇 (ℎ12𝑠 − ℎ7 ) bility, and stop generation were selected to be 50, 0.8, and
𝜂LPC = . (14) 400, respectively. The constraint conditions are as follows:
𝑚𝑅 (ℎ12 − ℎ11 ) + 𝑚𝑇 (ℎ12 − ℎ7 ) the evaporating temperature of CO2 in the refrigeration cycle
The pressure ratio of the power cycle is is equal to 14∘ C and the minimum terminal temperature
differences of the gas heater, heat regenerator, and fore-cooler
𝑃3 are 30∘ C, 10∘ C, and 10∘ C, respectively. In addition, the values
𝜋𝑇 = . (15)
𝑃7 of 𝜂HPC , 𝜂LPC , 𝜂HT , and 𝜂LT were all set as 75%.
70
65
65
60 60
55 55
50
50
Wnet (kW)
P4 (MPa)
45
40 45
35 40
30 35
25
30
20
15 25
400 450 500 550 600 400 450 500 550 600
Tgi (∘ C) Tgi (∘ C)
(a) Variation of the maximum net power output versus 𝑇gi (b) Variation of the optimal value of 𝑃4 versus 𝑇gi
10.8
10.6
10.4
P2 (MPa)
10.2
10.0
9.8
400 450 500 550 600

Tgi (∘ C)
SS SSF
DS DSF
SD SDF
DD DDF
(c) Variation of the optimal value of 𝑃2 versus 𝑇gi
Figure 5: Variation of the maximum net power output and the optimal value of parameters 𝑃4 and 𝑃2 versus the exhaust temperature of ICE.
3. Parametric Studies and Optimizations for 𝑊net and the optimum value of 𝑃4 increase sharply with the
Thermodynamics Cycles increase in 𝑇gi irrespective of the integration schemes. The
maximum 𝑊net and the optimum value of 𝑃4 at 𝑇gi = 600∘ C
3.1. Effect of Different Exhaust Temperature of ICE. The are about 2 to 3 times and 1.45–1.7 times as large as that at
exhaust temperature of ICE (𝑇gi ) is one of the major variables 𝑇gi = 400∘ C, respectively. With the same exhaust parameters
influencing the system design and parameter optimization, for the ICE, the maximum 𝑊net of the double-turbine scheme
which is closely related with the engine efficiency, engine is 40%–50% higher than that of the single turbine scheme,
capacity, engine speed, and so forth. In this section, the while the optimum value of 𝑃4 in the double turbines is 20%–
key parameters 𝑃4 and 𝑃2 were optimized through a genetic 35% lower than that in the single turbine scheme.
algorithm to get an optimum match with the variable 𝑇gi for There is a significant difference in the maximum 𝑊net
various integration schemes, in which the net power output between the double-stage compression scheme and the
(𝑊net ) was selected as the objective function. Figures 5(a), single-stage compression scheme, as shown in Figure 5(a).
5(b), and 5(c) show the variations of the maximum 𝑊net The growth of maximum 𝑊net in the double-stage compres-
and the optimal 𝑃4 , 𝑃2 versus 𝑇gi , respectively. Here, 𝑄max is sion scheme is faster than that in the single-stage compression
assumed to be constant, 𝑇2 = 45∘ C, 𝑇10 = 14∘ C, and 𝑊𝑅 = scheme with an increase in 𝑇gi . However, the maximum 𝑊net
6 kW. It can be seen from these curves that the maximum of the single-stage compression scheme is higher than that of
44 45
40
42
36
39
Wnet (kW)
P4 (MPa)
32
36
28
33
24
30
20
27
16
24
35 40 45 50 55 35 40 45 50 55
T2 (∘ C) T2 (∘ C)
(a) Variation of the maximum net power output versus 𝑇2 (b) Variation of the optimal value of 𝑃4 versus 𝑇2
13
12
P2 (MPa)
11
10
8
35 40 45 50 55
T2 (∘ C)
SS SSF
DS DSF
SD SDF
DD DDF
(c) Variation of the optimal value of 𝑃2 versus 𝑇2
Figure 6: Variation of the maximum net power output and the optimal value of parameters 𝑃4 and 𝑃2 versus 𝑇2 .
the double-stage compression scheme when 𝑇gi is less than (𝑇2 ) is determined primarily by the ambient temperature
450∘ C. In addition, the optimum value of 𝑃4 in the two-stage and the terminal temperature difference of the gas cooler,
compression scheme is 5 MPa to 6 MPa lower than that in the which is one of the main variables influencing the system
single-stage compression scheme if double turbines are used, design and the parameter optimization. In this section, the
while this value is 10 MPa to 12 MPa if a single turbine is used. optimum values of 𝑃4 and 𝑃2 matching with the variable 𝑇2
The optimum value of 𝑃4 in the DD or DDF scheme is only were obtained through a genetic algorithm to produce the
60% of that in the SS or SSF. maximum 𝑊net corresponding to every integration scheme.
Moreover, it can be seen that the absence of the fore cooler Figures 6(a), 6(b), and 6(c) show the variations of the
has little effect on the maximum 𝑊net and the optimum value maximum 𝑊net and the optimal 𝑃4 , 𝑃2 versus 𝑇2 , respectively.
of 𝑃4 irrespective of the integration schemes but requires Here, 𝑄max is assumed to be constant, 𝑇gi = 450∘ C, 𝑇10 =
a higher 𝑃2 . For the single-stage compression scheme, the 14∘ C, and 𝑊𝑅 = 6 kW. It can be seen that the maximum
optimum value of 𝑃2 does not change with the increase in 𝑊net decreases with the increase in 𝑇2 irrespective of the
𝑇gi , while it increases with 𝑇gi for the two-stage compression integration scheme. The maximum 𝑊net at 𝑇2 = 55∘ C is only
scheme. 40%–60% of that at 𝑇2 = 35∘ C. In addition, the variation
of 𝑇2 has a greater influence on the maximum 𝑊net of two-
3.2. Effect of the CO2 Temperature in the Outlet of the Gas stage compression schemes than on that of the single-stage
Cooler. The CO2 temperature in the outlet of the gas cooler compression schemes, especially for the DD scheme and the
46
33
44
30
42
27 40
Wnet (kW)
P4 (MPa)
38
24
36
21
34
18 32
15 30
28
12
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
WR (kW) WR (kW)
(a) Variation of the maximum net power output versus 𝑊𝑅 (b) Variation of the optimal value of 𝑃4 versus 𝑊𝑅
11.4
11.2
11.0
10.8
P2 (MPa)
10.6
10.4
10.2
10.0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
WR (kW)
SS SSF
DS DSF
SD SDF
DD DDF
(c) Variation of the optimal value of 𝑃2 versus 𝑊𝑅
Figure 7: Variation of the maximum net power output and the optimal value of parameters 𝑃4 and 𝑃2 versus 𝑊𝑅 .
DDF scheme. The maximum 𝑊net of the DD scheme and the Different integration schemes show a significant difference
DDF scheme is not only lower than that of the DS scheme at in the optimum value of 𝑃2 and the optimal 𝑃2 increases
𝑇2 > 41∘ C, but also decreases quickly with an increase in 𝑇2 . gradually in the order of DD, SD, SS, and DS schemes. The
The maximum 𝑊net of the DD scheme and DDF scheme is fore cooler is able to increase maximum 𝑊net and decrease
close to that of single turbine schemes at 𝑇2 = 55∘ C, while the the optimum value of 𝑃4 , and 𝑃2 , but its effect on 𝑊net and 𝑃4
maximum 𝑊net of the DS scheme and DSF scheme is always can be neglected compared to other factors.
about 10 kW to 12 kW higher than that of the single turbine
schemes.
As shown in Figures 6(b) and 6(c), the optimum value 3.3. Effect of Different Cooling Capacities. In the combined
of 𝑃4 decreases with an increase in 𝑇2 in the two-stage power and refrigeration generation with the CO2 thermo-
compression schemes. However, the optimum value of 𝑃4 dynamic cycle, the cooling capacity (𝑊𝑅 ) is another major
increases with an increase in 𝑇2 in the single-stage com- variable influencing the system design and parameter opti-
pression schemes (e.g., DS scheme) or remains constant mization that is closely related to the spatial size needing to
(e.g., SS scheme). Furthermore, the optimum value of 𝑃2 be cooled, the sealing performance of the compartment, and
increases with an increase in 𝑇2 . The optimum value of 𝑃2 the ambient temperature. In this section, the optimum values
at 𝑇2 = 55∘ C is about 1.3 to 1.5 times that of at 𝑇2 = 35∘ C. of 𝑃4 and 𝑃2 matching with the variable 𝑊𝑅 were obtained
through a genetic algorithm to produce the maximum 𝑊net In addition, the optimum value of 𝑃4 decreases with
corresponding to every integration scheme. Figures 7(a), the increase in 𝑇2 in the two-stage compression
7(b), and 7(c) show the variations of the maximum 𝑊net schemes. However, the optimum value of 𝑃4 increases
and the optimal 𝑃4 , 𝑃2 versus 𝑊𝑅 , respectively. Here, 𝑇gi = with the increase in 𝑇2 in the single-stage compression
450∘ C, 𝑇10 = 14∘ C, and 𝑇2 = 45∘ C. It can be seen that schemes (e.g., DS scheme) or remains constant (e.g.,
the maximum 𝑊net decreases linearly with increasing 𝑊𝑅 , SS scheme).
while the optimum values of 𝑃4 and 𝑃2 increase slightly with
increasing 𝑊𝑅 .
(3) The effect of the fore cooler on the overall perfor-
The cycles with the fore cooler have a slightly higher 𝑊net
mance of the thermodynamic system can be neglected
than the cycles without fore cooler, which is more obvious
as it is much lower than the net power output. In most
in the double-turbine schemes than in the single turbine
cases, the fore cooler can be removed to downsize the
schemes. In addition, the difference in the maximum 𝑊net
system.
increases with increasing 𝑊𝑅 between the DD scheme and the
DDF scheme or the DS scheme and the DSF scheme. When
𝑊𝑅 is equal to 30 kW, the difference in the maximum 𝑊net is (4) The integration scheme of the double turbines with
2.5 kW between the DDF scheme and the DD scheme, while the two-stage compression has significant advantages
it is 1.5 kW between the DSF scheme and the DS scheme. in improving the thermal power conversion efficiency
Moreover, the optimum values of 𝑃4 and 𝑃2 for the schemes and reducing the turbine inlet pressure. Except for
with fore cooler are smaller than that of the schemes without the power consumption of air conditioning, the net
fore cooler, whose difference increases with 𝑊𝑅 . The optimal power output of this thermodynamic system can
values for 𝑃4 and 𝑃2 of the schemes with fore cooler are reach up to 13%–35% of the engine power when it
0.6 MPa to 1.0 MPa and 0.2 MPa to 0.3 MPa lower than that is used to recover the exhaust heat of an internal
of the schemes without fore cooler, respectively. However, combustion engine.
𝑊𝑅 has little effect on the scheme selection and parameter
optimization compared to 𝑇2 and 𝑇gi . In order to downsize
the system, the fore cooler can be removed from the cycle as Nomenclature
𝑊𝑅 is far lower than 𝑊net .
CO2 : Carbon dioxide
DD: Integration system of the double-turbine
4. Conclusions power cycle with double-stage compression
In this paper, a new thermodynamic system was proposed to and a refrigeration cycle
recover the waste heat of the internal combustion engine by DDF: DD scheme with fore cooler
integrating the transcritical CO2 refrigeration cycle with the DS: Integration system of the double-turbine
supercritical CO2 power cycle, and eight kinds of integration power cycle with single-stage compression
schemes were developed. The key parameters of the system and a refrigeration cycle
were optimized through a genetic algorithm to get the opti- DSF: DS scheme with fore cooler
mum match with different variables and schemes, in which 𝐺: Generator
the net power output (𝑊net ) was selected as the objective ℎ: Enthalpy (kJ/kg)
function. The main conclusions were as follows. HPC: High pressure compressor
HT: High-temperature turbine
(1) Replacing a single turbine scheme with a double- ICE: Internal combustion engine
turbine scheme can significantly enhance the net LT: Low-temperature turbine
power output (𝑊net ) and lower the inlet pressure LPC: Low pressure compressor
of a power turbine (𝑃4 ). With the same exhaust 𝑚: Mass flow rate (kg/s)
parameters of the ICE, the maximum 𝑊net of a ORC: Organic Rankine cycle
double-turbine scheme is 40%–50% higher than that 𝑃: Pressure (MPa)
of the single turbine scheme, while the optimum 𝑄: Heat exchange capacity in the gas heater (kJ)
value of 𝑃4 in the double turbines is 20%–35% lower 𝑆: Entropy (kJ/(kg⋅K))
than that in the single turbine scheme. Replacing a SD: Integration system of the single-turbine
single-stage compression scheme with a double-stage power cycle with double-stage compression
compression scheme can also lower the value of 𝑃4 , and a refrigeration cycle
while it could not always significantly enhance the SDF: SD scheme with fore cooler
value of 𝑊net . The optimum value of 𝑃4 in the DD or SS: Integration system of the single-turbine
DDF scheme is only 60% that in the SS or SSF scheme. power cycle with single-stage compression
(2) The maximum 𝑊net decreases with the increase in the and a refrigeration cycle
CO2 temperature in the outlet of the gas cooler (𝑇2 ) SSF: SS scheme with fore cooler
and the variation of 𝑇2 has a greater influence on the 𝑇: Temperature (∘ C)
maximum 𝑊net of two-stage compression schemes 𝑊: Power (kW)
than on that of the single-stage compression schemes. 𝑊net : Net power output (kW).
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𝑇: Power cycle of supercritical CO2 fluid in collectors of solar Rankine cycle
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/923745
Research Article
Mathematical Modeling of Eddy-Current Loss for
a New Induction Heating Device
Hai Du, Junyuan Li, and Yanbin Qu

School of Information Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, 2 West Wenhua Road, Weihai 264209, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Yanbin Qu; quyanbin@hit.edu.cn
Received 23 January 2014; Accepted 28 March 2014; Published 1 June 2014
Copyright © 2014 Hai Du et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
A new induction heating device is presented in this paper. This device can convert mechanical energy into heat energy by utilizing
eddy currents, which are induced by rotating permanent magnets. A mathematical model is established for estimating eddy-current
loss of the device. The distribution of induced currents and the resultant magnetic field intensity are considered in the process of
modeling the eddy-current loss and so is the mutual influence of the electric field between neighborhood pole projection areas.
Particularly, the skin effect is considered by correcting the numerical integral domain of eddy current density, which has great
effect on the calculating results. Based on specific examples, the effectiveness and correctness of proposed model are proved by
finite element analysis. The results show that the mathematical model can provide important reference for design and structure
optimization of the device.
1. Introduction Based on the eddy-current brake concept, we present a

mathematical model of eddy-current loss for the induction
In the process of induced heating, the thermal power is due to heating device at low-speed operation. First, the cylindrical
eddy currents, when conductor is subjected to an alternating- induction heating device with large curvature radius is
current (AC) magnetic field. Most induction heating devices, simplified as linear model, so rotating movement is changed
with electric energy as input, produce the AC magnetic into linear movement. Second, the surface charge, due to the
field by using coils [1–5]. In this paper, we present a novel
motional induced electric field, at the edge of the pole projec-
induction heating device, with rotating mechanical energy
tion area is obtained. From these charges, the Coulomb field
as input, and the eddy currents are induced by the relative
intensity is calculated by using Coulomb’s law. Meanwhile,
motion between conductor and permanent magnets.
This device is mainly composed of a stator and a dual- the mutual influence between neighborhood Coulomb fields
rotor. The stator is made of copper, inside which there are is considered. Third, the eddy current in the pole projection
heat-exchange pipes with an inlet and an outlet, and the dual- area, due to rotational magnetic field of the permanent
rotor is made of iron. The structure of the device is shown in magnets, is derived. Finally, the brake force is calculated by
Figure 1. There is an alternative magnetic field between two applying the Lorentz force law through numerical integral
rotors produced by permanent magnets with alternating pole method. Based on the relationship between the brake force
configurations. When the dual-rotor and hence the magnetic and the loss power, the eddy-current loss is obtained at
field rotate, the fluid flowing through the heat-exchange pipes different speeds. Since the eddy current generates the mag-
can be heated by the eddy-current loss of the stator. During netic flux opposite to the applied magnetic flux, the induced
this process, input rotating mechanical energy is converted magnetic flux density is calculated in a lumped way by using
into thermal energy. This device is similar to the eddy-current Ampere’s law, and the net magnetic flux density is defined by
brake in structure and energy conversion. Many efforts have introducing the magnetic Reynolds number. In the process of
been done to the modeling of the eddy-current brake so far the numerical integral, the skin effect is considered according
[6–8]. to the characteristics of the eddy currents distribution.
Permanent magnet Inlet

Heat-exchange pipes
Inlet
Stator
Dual-rotor
Outlet Outlet
(a) (b)
Figure 1: Structure of the heating device. (a) Stator and dual-rotor and (b) heat-exchange pipes of stator.
l1 z
N S S N l S
S N
S
N g d x
y
l2
w N S N
R a
Figure 3: Linear model.
R1
R2 Where 𝑏 is the axial length of model, 𝑎 (𝑎 = (𝑙1 + 𝑙2 )/2)
is the length of permanent magnets, 𝑙 is the spacing distance
between adjacent permanent magnets, 𝑑 is the thickness of
stator, and 𝑔 is the air gap. With this model simplification, the
anticlockwise rotating movement at an angular velocity 𝜔 is
changed into linear movement of the stator, with the constant
Figure 2: Cylindrical model. velocity V = 𝜔𝑅 perpendicular to the direction of alternative
magnetic field B.
As shown in Figure 4, the movable charges in the pole
projection area of the stator are subject to the magnetic force
Also, the analytical results are compared with the finite 𝑞k×B which directed upward along the stator. This action will
element results and the causes leading to difference being lead to a separation of the charges, the positive ones moving to
analysed. the top of the stator and the negative ones to the bottom. The
Coulomb charges stack at the ends of the region of the pole
projection and produce an electric field E pointing downward
2. Analysis of Eddy-Current Loss that will tend to decrease the total force on the given charge
moving upward in the interior [9].
The cylindrical model of the induction device is shown in In the present case, the current density induced in the
Figure 2. There are 𝑛 surface mounted permanent magnets stator is given by
radial magnetized on each rotor, with alternating pole con-
figurations, and 𝑛 is even. Where 𝑙1 and 𝑙2 are the arc length
J = 𝜎E󸀠 , (1)
of the permanent magnets on inner rotor and outer rotor, 𝑅
is the distance to the stator core center from the center of the
cylindrical model; 𝑅1 and 𝑅2 are the circular radius of inner where 𝜎 is the conductivity of the stator and the electric field
and outer permanent magnets. intensity E󸀠 can be calculated as [10]
To simplify the mathematical modeling, the cylindrical
model is simplified as a linear one as shown in Figure 3. E󸀠 = E + EV , (2)
y (𝜁, b ) where n𝑦± is the unit outward normal vector on the planes
𝜌sy+ ny+ 2 Δ𝜁 parallel to the 𝑥𝑧 plane at 𝑦 = ±𝑏/2. If 𝜌𝑙𝑦+ and 𝜌𝑙𝑦− are defined
b as the line charge densities at the points (𝜁, 𝑏/2) and (𝜁, −𝑏/2),
2 they are written down as follows:
𝜌𝑙𝑦+ = +𝜀0 V𝐵Δ𝜁,

ly+ Py (9)
v×B 𝜌𝑙𝑦− = −𝜀0 V𝐵Δ𝜁,
ax
p(x, y) where Δ𝜁 is the differential length in the 𝑥 direction, as shown

b a z a x in Figure 4. If l𝑦+ and l𝑦− are the displacement vectors from
−
2 2 the points (𝜁, 𝑏/2) and (𝜁, −𝑏/2) to the point 𝑃(𝑥, 𝑦), the
ly− electrostatic fields E𝑦+ and E𝑦− by the line charge densities
are calculated by Coulomb’s law:
𝜌𝑙𝑦+ l𝑦+
E𝑦+ = ∫
2𝜋𝜀0 󵄨󵄨󵄨l 󵄨󵄨󵄨2
b
󵄨󵄨 𝑦+ 󵄨󵄨
− b
𝜌sy− ny− Δ𝜁 (𝜁, − )
2 2 V𝐵 𝑎/2 (𝑥 − 𝜁)
= ∫ { a
2𝜋 −𝑎/2 (𝑥 − 𝜁)2 + (𝑦 − 𝑏/2)2 𝑥
Figure 4: Polarization in pole projection area and charge distribu-
tion in the stator core due to motion of inducing magnetic field. (𝑦 − 𝑏/2)
+ 2
a } 𝑑𝜁,
2 𝑦
(𝑥 − 𝜁) + (𝑦 − 𝑏/2)
(10)
where E is the electrostatic field of Coulomb charge along the 𝜌𝑙𝑦− l𝑦−
E𝑦− =∫
edges of the pole projection area. EV is the electromotive field 2𝜋𝜀0 󵄨󵄨󵄨l 󵄨󵄨󵄨2
driving charges and is expressed as follows: 󵄨󵄨 𝑦− 󵄨󵄨
EV = k × B. (3) V𝐵 𝑎/2 (𝑥 − 𝜁)
=− ∫ { a
2𝜋 −𝑎/2 (𝑥 − 𝜁)2 + (𝑦 + 𝑏/2)2 𝑥
The current density J induced in the pole projection area can
be written down by using (1), (2), and (3) as follows: (𝑦 + 𝑏/2)
+ 2
a } 𝑑𝜁.
2 𝑦
J = 𝜎 (E + k × B) . (4) (𝑥 − 𝜁) + (𝑦 + 𝑏/2)
Since the electromotive field k × B is easily known, E is the Then, the total electrostatic field intensity E is obtained by
key step to obtain the current density J. In Figure 4, using the superposition theory as
B = −𝐵a𝑧 , E = E𝑦+ + E𝑦− .
(5) (11)
k = Va𝑥 .
In order to simplify the algorithm in this case, we consider
P𝑦 is defined as the polarization with respect to the 𝑦 that the line charges ±𝜀0 V𝐵Δ𝜁 at 𝑦 = ±𝑏/2 extend indefinitely
component and is written down as follows: in the 𝑧 direction and from −𝑎/2 to +𝑎/2 in the 𝑥 direction,
which is the source of E. Therefore, the 𝑧 component of the
P𝑦 = 𝜀0 EV , (6) electrostatic field E is ignored, and the total electrostatic field
intensity E is expressed as E = 𝐸𝑥 a𝑥 + 𝐸𝑦 a𝑦 , where 𝐸𝑥 and 𝐸𝑦
where 𝜀0 is the permittivity in free space. Thus, P𝑦 can be
are the summations of the 𝑥 and 𝑦 components of E𝑦+ and
expressed by using (3), (5), and (6) as follows:
E𝑦− , and they are written down as
P𝑦 = 𝜀0 k × B = 𝜀0 V𝐵a𝑦 . (7)
2 2 2 2
V𝐵 {(2𝑥 + 𝑎) + (2𝑦 − 𝑏) } {(2𝑥 − 𝑎) + (2𝑦 + 𝑏) }
The surface charge densities on the plane parallel to the 𝑥𝑧 𝐸𝑥 = ln ,
plane at 𝑦 = ±𝑏/2 are defined as 𝜌𝑠𝑦± , which is analogously 4𝜋 {(2𝑥 − 𝑎)2 + (2𝑦 − 𝑏)2 } {(2𝑥 + 𝑎)2 + (2𝑦 + 𝑏)2 }
calculated by using the method of calculating the magnetic (12)
pole density at the surface of the permanent magnet [11]. In
the present case, 𝜌𝑠𝑦+ and 𝜌𝑠𝑦− are written down as follows: V𝐵 2𝑥 + 𝑎 2𝑥 − 𝑎
𝐸𝑦 = [tan−1 − tan−1
2𝜋 2𝑦 − 𝑏 2𝑦 − 𝑏
𝜌𝑠𝑦+ = P𝑦 ⋅ n𝑦+ = 𝜀0 V𝐵ay ⋅ n𝑦+ = +𝜀0 V𝐵, (13)
(8) +𝑎−1 2𝑥 2𝑥 − 𝑎
−tan + tan−1 ].
𝜌𝑠𝑦− = P𝑦 ⋅ n𝑦− = 𝜀0 V𝐵ay ⋅ n𝑦− = −𝜀0 V𝐵, 2𝑦 + 𝑏 2𝑦 + 𝑏
Then, the eddy current density J induced in the stator can be flux density is calculated from the eddy current I by using
obtained from (4). In the pole projection area, the 𝑥 and 𝑦 Ampere’s law in order to achieve accurate results. The eddy
components of J are given as follows: current I is obtained from the eddy current density J by two-
dimensional numerical integration. Here, we ignore the 𝐽𝑥 ,
𝐽𝑥 = 𝜎𝐸𝑥 since it is much smaller than the 𝐽𝑦 in the pole projection area,
(14) and the 𝑦 component of I is expressed as
𝐽𝑦 = 𝜎 (𝐸𝑦 + V𝐵) .
𝑎/2 𝑑/2
By using the Lorentz force law, we have the magnetic braking 𝐼𝑦 = 2 ∫ ∫ 𝐽𝑦 𝑑𝑥 𝑑𝑧. (20)
−𝑎/2 0
force as follows:
𝑎/2 𝑏/2
Here, we ignore the skin effect in the stator. Thus, 𝐽𝑦 is
𝐹𝑥 = − ∫ 𝐽𝑦 𝐵 𝑑𝑉 = −𝑑 ∫ ∫ 𝐽𝑦 𝐵 𝑑𝑥 𝑑𝑦. (15) regarded as being uniform distribution on the 𝑥𝑧 plane,
V −𝑎/2 −𝑏/2 and the thickness of stator 𝑑 is regarded as the size of the
𝑎/2 𝑏/2 eddy-current distribution in the 𝑧-axis. Skin effect means
𝐹𝑦 = − ∫ 𝐽𝑥 𝐵 𝑑𝑉 = −𝑑 ∫ ∫ 𝐽𝑥 𝐵 𝑑𝑥 𝑑𝑦. (16) that the current density in stator core varies exponentially
V −𝑎/2 −𝑏/2 inward from the surface in a time varying magnetic field.
The distance in which the current density decreases to 1/𝑒
In the outside of the pole projection area, the magnetic of surface value is called the nominal depth of penetration
flux density 𝐵 is zero, and the eddy currents cannot produce which is given by the relation
the braking force; therefore, V is the volume of the pole
projection area in (15) and (16). Since the number of poles
2𝜌
𝑛 is even, the summation of 𝐹𝑦 is zero. The 𝐽𝑦 inside the pole 𝛿=√ , (21)
projection is considered for the determination of 𝐹𝑥 from (15), 𝜔𝜇
and we just need to calculate the 𝐸𝑦 by (13).
For the model of multipoles with alternating (NSNSNS) where 𝜌 is the resistivity of stator core and 𝜇 is the absolute
pole configuration, the magnetic flux of neighboring poles is permeability of stator core. With the speed increasing, the
symmetrical distribution of interest pole with respect to 𝑧- skin effect quickly pushes the induced currents toward the
axis, and the surface charges at the edge of the neighboring surface of the stator and depletes the core of the stator from
pole projection area will affect the electric field of the interest inducing eddy currents. Therefore, the thickness of the stator
pole. Thus, the expression of electric field intensity 𝐸𝑦 should 𝑑 is not appropriate to be regarded as the size 𝐽𝑦 distribution
be revised. The electric field intensity of the interest pole can in the 𝑧-axis. According to the theory of two-dimensional
be expressed as wave propagation in the electromagnetic field, the 𝐽 in the
stator is expressed as [12–14]
V𝐵
𝐸𝑦𝑖 (𝑥, 𝑦) = 𝐾 (𝑥, 𝑦) 𝐽 = 𝐽𝑚 𝑒−𝛼𝑦 cos (𝜔𝑡 − 𝜆𝑥 − 𝛼𝑦)
2𝜋
2𝑥 + 𝑎 2𝑥 − 𝑎 𝜋
𝐾 (𝑥, 𝑦) = tan−1 − tan−1 𝜆=
2𝑦 − 𝑏 2𝑦 − 𝑏
(17) 𝜏 (22)
2𝑥 + 𝑎 2𝑥 − 𝑎 𝜎𝜇𝜔
− tan−1 + tan−1 . 𝛼=√ = √𝜎𝜇𝜋𝑛𝑝 𝑛,
2𝑦 + 𝑏 2𝑦 + 𝑏 2
where 𝐽𝑚 is the current density amplitude on the outer surface
Hence, the electric field intensity of the neighboring poles can of stator, 𝜏 is the polar distance, 𝜎 is the conductivity of
be written down as follows: the stator, 𝑛 is the number of magnetic poles, and 𝑛𝑝 =
V𝐵 60𝜔/2𝜋𝑛 (r/min) is the speed. The skin effect is considered
𝐸𝑦(𝑖−1) (𝑥, 𝑦) = −𝐸𝑦𝑖 (𝑥 + 𝑎 + 𝑙, 𝑦) = − 𝐾 (𝑥 + 𝑎 + 𝑙, 𝑦) by using 𝐽𝑦 𝑒−𝛼𝑧 instead of 𝐽𝑦 , and as a result the numerical
2𝜋
integral domain of eddy current density needs to be corrected
𝐸𝑦(𝑖+1) (𝑥, 𝑦) = −𝐸𝑦𝑖 (𝑥 − 𝑎 − 𝑙, 𝑦) in (20). We introduce an equivalent size 𝑑󸀠 /2 instead of the
constant 𝑑/2 to obtain the correct eddy current. The 𝑑󸀠 is a
V𝐵
=− 𝐾 (𝑥 − 𝑎 − 𝑙, 𝑦) . function of the 𝑛𝑝 and is defined as
2𝜋
(18)
1 − 𝑒−𝑑𝛼
𝑑󸀠 (𝑛𝑝 ) = , (23)
Thus, the superposition electric field intensity inside every 𝛼
pole projection area is expressed as
where from (23), the equivalent size 𝑑󸀠 (𝑛𝑝 ) decreases with the
𝐸𝑦 = 𝐸𝑦𝑖 + 𝐸𝑦(𝑖+1) + 𝐸𝑦(𝑖−1) . (19) increase of speed 𝑛𝑝 . Therefore, the revised 𝐼𝑦 is a function of
the 𝑛𝑝 and is expressed as
In (15), the original magnetic field 𝐵, produced by per-
𝑎/2 𝑑󸀠 (𝑛𝑝 )/2
manent magnets, will be decreased by the induced magnetic
𝐼𝑦 = 2 ∫ ∫ 𝐽𝑦 𝑑𝑥 𝑑𝑧. (24)
field generated by eddy currents. The induced magnetic −𝑎/2 0
30 14
25 12
10
20
Power loss (kW)
Power loss (kW)

8
15
6
10
4
5
2
0 0
0 100 200 300 400 500 0 100 200 300 400 500
Speed (r/min) Speed (r/min)
FEM results FEM results

Analytical results with considering skin effect Analytical results with considering skin effect
Analytical results without considering skin effect Analytical results without considering skin effect
Figure 5: Analytical results and FEM results (𝑛 = 20). Figure 6: Analytical results and FEM results (𝑛 = 10).
10
By using Ampere’s law, the induced magnetic flux density
𝐵in has the form of 𝐵in = 𝜇0 𝐼𝑦 /2𝑔, which decreases the
original magnetic flux density 𝐵. The resultant magnetic flux 8
density 𝐵𝑚 is expressed as 𝐵𝑚 = 𝐵𝑒−𝐵in /𝐵 = 𝐵𝑒−𝑅𝑚 , and 𝑅𝑚
is the magnetic Reynolds number, which is defined as 𝐵in /𝐵.
Power loss (kW)
Thus, considering the induced magnetic flux, (15) is rewritten 6

down as
𝑎/2 𝑏/2 4
𝐹𝑥 = − ∫ 𝐽𝑦 𝐵𝑚 𝑑𝑉 = −𝑑 ∫ ∫ 𝐽𝑦 𝐵𝑚 𝑑𝑥 𝑑𝑦. (25)
V −𝑎/2 −𝑏/2
2
Also, the eddy-current loss has the form
𝑃𝑒 = F ⋅ k = 𝐹𝑥 a𝑥 ⋅ Va𝑥 = 𝐹𝑥 V. (26) 0
0 100 200 300 400 500
Thus, we have the total eddy-current loss of the induction Speed (r/min)
device given by
n = 20
𝑃𝑒 = 𝑛𝐹𝑥 V n = 10
Figure 7: Difference between two mathematical models with and

= −𝑛𝑑V2 𝐵𝑚 𝜎𝐵 without skin effect.
𝑎/2 𝑏/2
1 (27)
×∫ ∫ { [𝐾 (𝑥, 𝑦) − 𝐾 (𝑥 − 𝑎 − 𝑙, 𝑦)
−𝑎/2 −𝑏/2 2𝜋
listed in Table 1, transient FEM models and mathematical
models considering two cases of with and without skin effect
−𝐾 (𝑥 + 𝑎 + 𝑙, 𝑦)] + 1} 𝑑𝑥 𝑑𝑦. are built, and the comparison between mathematical analysis
results and FEM results has been carried out.
The calculated results can be obtained through the numerical The results of the two examples with 20 and 10 poles are
integral method. This power loss is the heat source of heat shown in Figures 5 and 6, respectively. The analytical model
transfer fluids in the stator. without considering the skin effect has small application
range, and the deviation between the analytical results and
3. Validation by Finite Element Analysis the FEM results appears when the rotation speed is just over
200 r/min. However, the analytical model with considering
Two specific examples with 20 and 10 poles are given, which the skin effect has wider application range, which agreed
have the same structure parameters and physical parameters well with the FEM results within 400 r/min range of rotation
except for the number of poles. Based on these parameters speed.
Power loss (kW)

4
0
0 100 200 300 400 500
Speed (r/min)
n = 20
n = 10
Figure 8: Difference between analytical results and FEM results.
5.000e − 003 5.000e − 003

3.889e − 003 3.889e − 003
2.778e − 003 2.778e − 003
A (Wb/m)
A (Wb/m)
1.667e − 003 1.667e − 003

5.556e − 003 5.556e − 003
−5.556e − 004 −5.556e − 004
−1.667e − 003 −1.667e − 003
−2.778e − 003 −2.778e − 003
−3.889e − 003 −3.889e − 003
−5.000e − 003 −5.000e − 003
(a) (b)
Figure 9: Distribution of flux at speed of (a) 0 r/min and (b) 400 r/min.
Table 1: Parameters. provide preliminary estimations of eddy-current loss. The

Description Variable Value main reason is considered that the eddy-current loss is
calculated only in the volume of the pole projection from
Average radius of stator (mm) 𝑅 200
(27), and the loss outside the pole projection is ignored
Radius of inner permanent magnet (mm) 𝑅1 194.5 which increases with the speed increase. The magnetic flux
Radius of outer permanent magnet (mm) 𝑅2 205.5 distribution at 0 r/min and 400 r/min speeds is shown in
Radian of permanent magnets (rad) / 𝜋/60 Figures 9(a) and 9(b). The available magnetic flux inside the
Thickness of stator (mm) 𝑑 5 pole projection decreases relatively with the increase of speed.
Air gap (mm) 𝑔 7 On the contrary, the magnetic flux outside the pole projection
Axial length of model (mm) 𝑏 200 increases which makes no contributions to the analytical
Conductivity of the stator (1/Ωm) 𝜎 5.8 × 107 model of eddy-current loss.
Absolute permeability of stator core (H/m) 𝜇 4𝜋 × 10−7
Original flux density in the air gap (T) 𝐵 0.4
4. Conclusion
In this paper, an induction heating device developed for heat-
The influence of skin effect is related to the number ing fluid has been presented. Driven by power installation
of poles. The less the number of poles is, the smaller the such as turbine, motor, and fan, this device can realize the
frequency of AC magnetic field and the influence of skin conversion of the wind energy, water energy, and recovered
effect are, at the same rotation speed. As shown in Figure 7, energy of other power installations into thermal energy.
the example with 10 poles has the smaller difference between A mathematical model of eddy-current loss for this
two mathematical models with and without skin effect than device has been proposed based on the eddy-current brake
the one with 20 poles. concept. In modeling the eddy-current loss, the skin effect
The analytical results have been lagged behind the finite has been considered by correcting the numerical integral
element results, and the difference increases with the speed domain of eddy current density, which effectively extends the
increase, as shown in Figure 8. When the rotation speed applied speed range of the mathematical model. Based on
exceeds appropriate range, the analytical model cannot specific examples, this model was validated by FEM analysis.
This model shows an explicit relationship between structure [14] D. Ishak, Z. Q. Zhu, and D. Howe, “Eddy-current loss in
parameters and power performance, which is useful for the rotor magnets of permanent-magnet brushless machines
design and structure optimization of the induction heating having a fractional number of slots per pole,” IEEE Transactions
device. on Magnetics, vol. 41, no. 9, pp. 2462–2469, 2005.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (NSFC 51207031).
References
[1] M. Horii, N. Takahashi, and T. Narita, “Investigation of evo-
lution strategy and optimization of induction heating model,”
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1, pp. 128–137, 2010.
[5] S.-M. Jang, S. K. Cho, S.-H. Lee, H. W. Cho, and H. C. Park,
“Thermal analysis of induction heating roll with heat pipes,”
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[6] H. D. Wiederick, N. Gauthier, D. A. Campbell et al., “Magnetic
braking: simple theory and experiment,” American Journal of
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[7] M. A. Heald, “Magnetic braking: improved theory,” American
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[8] K. Lee and K. Park, “Modeling eddy currents with boundary
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[9] R. K. Wangsness, Electromagnetic Fields, John Wiley & Sons,
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[10] H. H. Woodson and J. R. Melcher, Electromechanical Dynamics
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[11] P. Lorrain and D. R. Corson, Electromagnetic Fields and Waves,
Freeman, San Francisco, Calif, USA, 2nd edition, 1970.
[12] Z. Q. Zhu, K. Ng, N. Schofield, and D. Howe, “Improved
analytical modeling of rotor eddy current loss in brushless
machines equipped with surface mounted permanent magnets,”
IEE Proceedings of Electric Power Applications, vol. 151, no. 6, pp.
641–650, 2004.
[13] J. D. Edwards, B. V. Jayawant, W. R. C. Dawson, and D. T.
Wright, “Permanent-magnet linear eddy-current brake with a
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/735926
Research Article
Energy Loss in Pulse Detonation Engine due to Fuel Viscosity
Weipeng Hu,1,2,3 Zichen Deng,1,2 and Gongnan Xie4

1
School of Mechanics, Civil Engineering and Architecture, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710072, China
2
State Key Laboratory of Structural Analysis of Industrial Equipment, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, Liaoning 116023, China
3
Guangxi Key Laboratory of Disaster Prevention and Structural Safety, Guangxi University, Nanning, Guangxi 530004, China
4
School of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710072, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Weipeng Hu; wphu@nwpu.edu.cn
Received 7 April 2014; Accepted 5 May 2014; Published 29 May 2014
Copyright © 2014 Weipeng Hu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
Fluid viscosity is a significant factor resulting in the energy loss in most fluid dynamical systems. To analyze the energy loss in the
pulse detonation engine (PDE) due to the viscosity of the fuel, the energy loss in the Burgers model excited by periodic impulses
is investigated based on the generalized multisymplectic method in this paper. Firstly, the single detonation energy is simplified as
an impulse; thus the complex detonation process is simplified. And then, the symmetry of the Burgers model excited by periodic
impulses is studied in the generalized multisymplectic framework and the energy loss expression is obtained. Finally, the energy
loss in the Burgers model is investigated numerically. The results in this paper can be used to explain the difference between the
theoretical performance and the experimental performance of the PDE partly. In addition, the analytical approach of this paper
can be extended to the analysis of the energy loss in other fluid dynamic systems due to the fluid viscosity.
1. Introduction efficiency of the PDE from the structure parameters of PDE

in laboratory; and Brophy and Hanson [6] investigated the
Improving the efficiency of the pulse detonation engine fuel distribution effects on pulse detonation engine operation
(PDE) is an everlasting objective for the researchers in the and performance. Recently, Yan and colleagues [7–10] studied
associated fields. Generally, the efficiency of the PDE is the fuel filled length, the frequency of the detonation, and the
determined by the energy loss due to the viscosity of the fuel, structure parameters of PDE effects on the performance of
the heat dissipation of the structure, and other factors, in the PDE.
which the energy loss due to the viscosity of the fuel is a major For the limitation of the measuring means, the energy
factor. loss due to the viscosity of the fuel in the PDE has not been
In the current research findings, the effects on the effici- reported in current literatures, while the energy losses due
ency of the PDE from the structure parameters of PDE, the to viscosity of the fluid in some fluid dynamic models have
mass fraction of the fuels, and the frequency of the det- been investigated in many literatures [11–15]. The research
onation have been reported. For example, Bratkovich and results implied that the energy losses due to viscosity could
Bussing [1] presented a PDE performance model, which not be neglected in the majority of fluid models. Thus, the
considered inlet, mixer, combustor, and nozzle contributions energy loss due to the viscosity of the fuel in the PDE is
to PDE performance attributes, referring to the ideal PDE presented by studying the energy loss due to the viscosity
model presented by Endo and Fujiwara [2]. Radulescu and of the fluid in Burgers model excited by periodic impulses.
Hanson [3] presented a study to address the influence of Focusing on the energy loss due to the viscosity of the fluid
convective heat losses on the flow field and performance of in the PDE, a Burgers model excited by periodic impulses is
PDE, considering various working conditions; Tangirala and introduced to describe the flow field in the PDE firstly; and
Dean [4] proposed a performance estimation model for the then based on the generalized multisymplectic theory [16–
PDE with exit nozzle; Glaser [5] studied the effect on the 18], the expression of the energy loss due to the viscosity of
the fluid is derived from the first-order symmetric form of where 𝑆(z) = −𝑢𝑞 + (1/6)𝑢3 is the Hamiltonian function and
the Burgers model; finally, the numerical results of the energy the external excitation is
loss are reported.
F (𝑡, 𝑥)
T
2. Energy Loss in = (0, ∫ 𝑓 (𝑡, 𝑥) d𝑥, 0)
PDE Model due to Fuel Viscosity
𝑁 T
The practical model of the PDE in laboratory is a slender tube;
= (0, ∫ 𝐴 ∑ Ψ𝛿 (𝑡 + 𝑛𝑇, 𝑉𝑡 − 𝑉𝜑0 − 𝑛𝑉𝑇 + 𝑥0 ) d𝑥, 0)
thus the practical flow field in the detonation tube is three- 𝑛=0
dimensional. Ignoring the effect of the boundary layer, the
flow field on arbitrary cross section in the detonation tube 𝑁 T
is homogeneous approximately. With this assumption, the = (0, 𝐴𝐿 ∑ Ψ𝜀 (𝑡 + 𝑛𝑇, 𝑉𝑡 − 𝑉𝜑0 − 𝑛𝑉𝑇 + 𝑥0 ) , 0) ;
three-dimensional flow field in the detonation tube can be 𝑛=0
simplified to one-dimensional flow field. (3)
In addition, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the
energy loss due to the viscosity of the fuel; thus the effect of here 𝜀(𝑡 + 𝑛𝑇, 𝑉𝑡 − 𝑉𝜑0 − 𝑛𝑉𝑇 + 𝑥0 ) is the step function.
the chemical reactions among the components of the fuel can For simplicity, skew-symmetric matrices M, K, and sym-
metric matrix K̂ are defined as
be represented by a series of periodic impulses. Then the flow
fields in the detonation tube can be expressed by the following 1
Burgers model: [ 0 2 0] 0 0 1
[ ]
M = [− 1 0 0] , K = [ 0 0 0] ,
[ ]
𝜕𝑡 𝑢 + 𝑢𝜕𝑥 𝑢 − ]𝜕𝑥𝑥 𝑢 = 𝑓 (𝑡, 𝑥) 𝑥 ∈ [0, 𝐿] ,
2 [−1 0 0]
(1) [ 0 0 0] (4)
0 0 0
where ] is the kinematics viscosity of the fuel. ̂ = [0 ] 0] .
K
𝑓(𝑡, 𝑥) = 𝐴 ∑𝑁 𝑛=0 Ψ𝛿(𝑡 + 𝑛𝑇, 𝑉𝑡 − 𝑉𝜑0 − 𝑛𝑉𝑇 + 𝑥0 )
[0 0 0]
(𝑛 = 0, 1, . . . , 𝑁, 𝑁 = [(𝑡 − 𝜑0 )/𝑇], [⋅] is the symbol of
the rounding operation) are sequence of periodic impulses Obviously, if ] = 0 and F(𝑡, 𝑥) = 0, the symmetric form
that describes the effect of the periodic detonations resulting (2) is a multisymplectic form [19, 20], which satisfies the
multisymplectic conservation law and the local energy con-
from the chemical reactions among the components of the
servation law as well as the local momentum conservation
fuel. 𝑡 + 𝑛𝑇 is the moment of the impulse and 𝑉𝑡 − 𝑉𝜑0 −
law.
𝑛𝑉𝑇 + 𝑥0 is the position of the impulse that satisfies 0 ≤
Actually, the kinematic viscosity coefficient of the fuel ] in
𝑉𝑡 − 𝑉𝜑0 − 𝑛𝑉𝑇 + 𝑥0 ≤ 𝐿; 𝐴 is a constant that denotes the the PDE is a positive real number, which makes the symmet-
amplitude of periodic detonation wave. Ψ is a switch function: ric form (2) generalized multisymplectic [17] with external
0 0≤𝑡<𝜑
Ψ = { 1 𝑡≥𝜑0 0 . 𝐿 is the length of the detonation tube. 𝑇 is the excitation. Following the outline of [17], the local energy error
period of the detonation. 𝑉 is the propagation speed of the of the symmetric form (2) can be obtained [17]:
detonation wave. 𝑥0 is the position where the first detonation
wave appears. 𝜑0 is the time lag between burning the fuel and 𝑁
appearing of the first detonation wave. Δ 𝑙 = 𝜕𝑡 [𝐴𝐿 ∑ Ψ𝜀 (𝑡 + 𝑛𝑇, 𝑉𝑡 − 𝑉𝜑0 − 𝑛𝑉𝑇 + 𝑥0 )

𝑛=0
Equation (1) can be used to describe the flow filed of the
transient state as well as the steady state in the detonation 1 ̂ 𝜕𝑥 z] + 1 𝜕𝑥 zT (K + K)
+𝑆 (z) − zT (K + K) ̂ 𝜕𝑡 z
tube. The symmetric form of (1) can be obtained referring to 2 2
the results of [17].
Introducing canonical momenta 𝜕𝑥 𝑝 = 𝑢, 𝜕𝑥 𝑞 = −(1/2) 𝑁
𝜕𝑡 𝑢, and defining state variable z = (𝑝, 𝑢, 𝑞)𝑇 , (1) becomes the = 𝐴𝐿 (1 + 𝑉) ∑ Ψ𝛿 (𝑡 + 𝑛𝑇, 𝑉𝑡 − 𝑉𝜑0 − 𝑛𝑉𝑇 + 𝑥0 )
𝑛=0
first-order partial differential equations
] ]
+ 𝜕𝑥 𝑢𝜕𝑡 𝑢 − 𝜕𝑡 (𝑢𝜕𝑥 𝑢)
2 2
1
[ 0 2 0] 0 0 1 0 0 0 𝑁
[ 1 ] = 𝐴𝐿 (1 + 𝑉) ∑ Ψ𝛿 (𝑡 + 𝑛𝑇, 𝑉𝑡 − 𝑉𝜑0 − 𝑛𝑉𝑇 + 𝑥0 )
[− 0 0] 𝜕𝑡 z + ([ 0 0 0] + [0 ] 0]) 𝜕𝑥 z
[ ] 𝑛=0
2 [−1 0 0] [0 0 0] (2)
[ 0 0 0 ] ]
− 𝑢𝜕𝑡𝑥 𝑢 = Δ 𝑙𝑒 − Δ 𝑙] ,
2
= ∇z 𝑆 (z) + F (𝑡, 𝑥) , (5)
where the local energy error contains two parts: one is the Using the Preissman box discrete method, the discrete
local energy increment Δ le = 𝐴𝐿(1 + 𝑉) ∑𝑁 𝑛=0 Ψ𝛿(𝑡 + 𝑛𝑇, 𝑉𝑡 −
form of the symmetric form (2) can be obtained:
𝑉𝜑0 −𝑛𝑉𝑇+𝑥0 ) resulting from the impulse excitation; another
part is the local energy loss Δ 𝑙] = (]/2)𝑢𝜕𝑡𝑥 𝑢 due to the fluid 1
viscosity. [ 0 2 0] 0 0 1
[ 1 ] + 𝑖
[− 0 0] 𝛿𝑡 z𝑗+1/2 + [ 0 ] 0] 𝛿𝑥 z𝑗
+ 𝑖+1/2
Superficially, the local energy loss Δ 𝑙] has nothing to do [ ]
with all the detonation parameters (𝐿, 𝑉, 𝑇, 𝑥0 , 𝜑0 , and 𝐴), 2 [−1 0 0] (8)
but actually the effect of the detonation is included in the [ 0 0 0]
distribution of the flow field 𝑢. = ∇z 𝑆 (z𝑖+1/2
𝑗+1/2 ) + F (𝑖, 𝑗) ,
From the local energy loss (3), it is easy to get the global
energy error;
where 𝛿𝑡+ is the forward differences to 𝜕𝑡 z and 𝛿𝑥+ is the
𝐿
Δ 𝑔 = ∫ Δ 𝑙 d𝑥 forward differences to 𝜕𝑥 z, z𝑖𝑗+1/2 = (z𝑖𝑗+1 + z𝑖𝑗 )/2, z𝑖+1/2
𝑗 =
𝑖+1/2
0 (z𝑖+1 𝑖1 𝑖+1 𝑖 𝑖+1 𝑖
𝑗 + z𝑗 )/2, and z𝑗+1/2 = (z𝑗+1 + z𝑗+1 + z𝑗 + z𝑗 )/4.
𝐿 𝑁 It has been proven that the discrete form (8) is generalized
= ∫ [𝐴𝐿 (1 + 𝑉) ∑ Ψ𝛿 (𝑡 + 𝑛𝑇, 𝑉𝑡 − 𝑉𝜑0 − 𝑛𝑉𝑇 + 𝑥0 ) multisymplectic with structure-preserving property if the
0 𝑛=0 kinematic viscosity coefficient of the fuel ] is small enough
[17].
] The discrete form of the local energy error of the symmet-
− 𝑢𝜕𝑡𝑥 𝑢] d𝑥. ric form (2) at the point (𝑡𝑖 , 𝑥𝑗 ) is
2
(6)
𝑁
𝑖
In this paper, we consider that the components of the fuel (Δ 𝑙 )𝑗 = 𝐴𝐿 (1 + 𝑉) ∑ Ψ𝛿 (𝑖 + 𝑛𝑇, 𝑉𝑖 − 𝑉𝜑0 − 𝑛𝑉𝑇 + 𝑥0 )
are mixed uniformly, which means that the kinematic viscos- 𝑛=0
ity coefficient of the fuel ] in the PDE is independent of time ] 𝑖+1/2 + + 𝑖+1/2 𝑖 𝑖
and position; thus, the global energy error is − 𝑢𝑗+1/2 𝛿𝑡 𝛿𝑥 𝑢𝑗+1/2 = (Δ le )𝑗 − (Δ 𝑙] )𝑗 ,
2
𝐿 𝑁
(9)
Δ 𝑔 = ∫ 𝐴𝐿 ∑ Ψ (1 + 𝑉) 𝛿 (𝑡 + 𝑛𝑇, 𝑉𝑡 − 𝑉𝜑0 − 𝑛𝑉𝑇 + 𝑥0 ) d𝑥
0 𝑛=0 where the local energy increment resulting from the impulse
excitation is (Δ le )𝑖𝑗 = 𝐴𝐿(1 + 𝑉) ∑𝑁 𝑛=0 Ψ𝛿(𝑖 + 𝑛𝑇, 𝑉𝑖 − 𝑉𝜑0 −
] 𝐿
− ∫ 𝑢𝜕 𝑢d𝑥 𝑛𝑉𝑇 + 𝑥0 ) and the local energy loss due to the fluid viscosity
2 0 𝑡𝑥 𝑖+1/2 + + 𝑖+1/2
is (Δ 𝑙] )𝑖𝑗 = (]/2)𝑢𝑗+1/2 𝛿𝑡 𝛿𝑥 𝑢𝑗+1/2 .
𝑁 Similarly, the discrete form of the global energy error of
= 𝐴𝐿2 (1 + 𝑉) ∑ Ψ𝜀 (𝑡 + 𝑛𝑇, 𝑉𝑡 − 𝑉𝜑0 − 𝑛𝑉𝑇 + 𝑥0 ) the symmetric form (2) at the 𝑡𝑖 is
𝑛=0
𝑁
] 𝐿 𝑖
− ∫ 𝑢𝜕 𝑢d𝑥 (Δ 𝑔 ) = 𝐴𝐿2 (1 + 𝑉) ∑ Ψ𝜀 (𝑖 + 𝑛𝑇, 𝑉𝑖 − 𝑉𝜑0 − 𝑛𝑉𝑇 + 𝑥0 )
2 0 𝑡𝑥 𝑛=0
= Δ ge − Δ 𝑔] ; (𝐿/Δ𝑥)−1
]Δ𝑥 [ 𝑖+1/2 + + 𝑖+1/2 𝑖+1/2 + + 𝑖+1/2
(7) − 𝑢1/2 𝛿𝑡 𝛿𝑥 𝑢1/2 + 2 ∑ 𝑢𝑗+1/2 𝛿𝑡 𝛿𝑥 𝑢𝑗+1/2
4 𝑗=1
similarly, the global energy error contains two parts: one is [
the global energy increment Δ ge = 𝐴𝐿2 (1 + 𝑉) ∑𝑁 𝑛=0 Ψ𝜀(𝑡 +
𝑛𝑇, 𝑉𝑡−𝑉𝜑0 −𝑛𝑉𝑇+𝑥0 ) resulting from the impulse excitation; 𝑖+1/2
+𝑢(𝐿/Δ𝑥)+1/2 𝛿𝑡+ 𝛿𝑥+ 𝑢(𝐿/Δ𝑥)+1/2
𝑖+1/2 ]
𝐿
another part is the global energy loss Δ 𝑔] = (]/2) ∫0 𝑢𝜕𝑡𝑥 𝑢d𝑥 ]
due to the fluid viscosity. 𝑖 𝑖
= (Δ ge ) − (Δ 𝑔] ) ,
3. Generalized Multisymplectic Scheme (10)
To investigate the energy loss in PDE by generalized multi- where the global energy loss due to the fluid
𝑖+1/2 + + 𝑖+1/2
symplectic method [16, 17], the generalized multisymplectic viscosity is (Δ 𝑔] )𝑖 = (]Δ𝑥/4)[𝑢1/2 𝛿𝑡 𝛿𝑥 𝑢1/2 +
scheme for the symmetric form (2) must be constructed
2 ∑(𝐿/Δ𝑥)−1
𝑗=1
𝑖+1/2 + + 𝑖+1/2
𝑢𝑗+1/2 𝑖+1/2
𝛿𝑡 (𝛿𝑥 𝑢𝑗+1/2 ) + 𝑢(𝐿/Δ𝑥)+1/2 𝑖+1/2
𝛿𝑡+ 𝛿𝑥+ 𝑢(𝐿/Δ𝑥)+1/2 ]
firstly.
(we select the trapezoid quadrature method to calculate
Referring to [17], introduce a uniform grid {(𝑡𝑖 , 𝑥𝑗 )} in 𝑅2 𝐿
with time step size Δ𝑡 in the 𝑡-direction and spatial step size the numerical integration ∫0 𝑢𝜕𝑡𝑥 𝑢d𝑥) and the global
Δ𝑥 in the 𝑥-direction. The approximate value of z(𝑡, 𝑥) at the energy increment resulting from the impulse excitation is
point (𝑡𝑖 , 𝑥𝑗 ) is denoted by z𝑖𝑗 . (Δ ge )𝑖 = 𝐴𝐿2 (1 + 𝑉) ∑𝑁𝑛=0 Ψ𝜀(𝑖 + 𝑛𝑇, 𝑉𝑖 − 𝑉𝜑0 − 𝑛𝑉𝑇 + 𝑥0 ).
3 ×105
4
(Δl )ij
2
0
2 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
(Δlv )ij , ((−Δl )ij )
x (m)
×105
4
(Δle )ij
2
1
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2
x (m)
×104
8
6
0
(Δlv )ij
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 4
2
x (m)
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2
Figure 1: Local energy error and local energy loss due to the
x (m)
viscosity of the fuel on each grid at 𝑡 = 5 × 10−8 s.
Figure 2: Local energy error, local energy increment resulting from
the impulse excitation, and local energy loss due to the viscosity of
4. Numerical Results the fuel on each grid at 𝑡 = 4 × 10−4 s.
In this section, some numerical results about the energy loss
in PDE will be presented. In the numerical experiments, we
×105
let the step lengths be Δ𝑡 = 5 × 10−9 s and Δ𝑥 = 0.01 m, 10
8
structure parameter of the PDE be 𝐿 = 2 m, the detonation 6
(Δg)i
4
parameters be 𝐴 = 100 m ⋅ s−2 , 𝑉 = 2000 m ⋅ s−1 , 𝑥0 = 0.2 m, 2
0
𝜑0 = 1 × 10−7 s, and 𝑇 = 0.02 s (which implies that the −2
detonation frequency is 50 Hz) and the kinematic viscosity 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
coefficient of the fuel ] = 0.1. The inset boundary condition t (ms)
×105
considered in this paper is 𝑢(𝑡, 0) = 100 m ⋅ s−1 . 10
We simulate the flow field in the PDE by the structure- 8
(Δge )i
6
preserving scheme (8) and calculate the energy error on each 4
2
grid. The numerical results of the local energy error and the 0
local energy loss due to the viscosity of the fuel at different 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
time are shown in Figures 1 and 2. t (ms)
The local energy error is equal to the negative local energy ×104
6
loss due to the viscosity of the fuel on each grid at 𝑡 = 5×10−8 s
(Δgv )i
4
((Δ 𝑙 )𝑖𝑗 = −(Δ 𝑙] )𝑖𝑗 ), and the local energy error on each grid 2
is negative, see Figure 1, which implies that the local energy 0
increment resulting from the impulse excitation on each grid 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
t (ms)
((Δ le )𝑖𝑗 ) is zero (Ψ = 0) at 𝑡 = 5 × 10−8 s.
The local energy error, the local energy loss due to the Figure 3: Global energy error, global energy increment resulting
viscosity of the fuel, and the local energy increment resulting from the impulse excitation, and global energy loss due to the
from the impulse excitation increase quickly on the grids near viscosity of the fuel on each grid at 𝑡 = 4 × 10−4 s.
the detonation wave at 𝑡 = 4 × 10−4 s, see Figure 2, which
implies that the local energy loss due to the viscosity of the
fuel increases when the speed of the fuel increases. 5. Conclusion
Based on the numerical results of the local energy error,
the global energy error, the global energy increment resulting Energy loss in PDE due to the viscosity of the fuel is an
from the impulse excitation, and the global energy loss due important factor that affects the efficiency of PDE. In this
to the fluid viscosity at each time step can be easily obtained. paper, the energy loss due to the fuel viscosity is investigated
Figure 3 implies that the global energy loss due to the fluid numerically. A Burgers model excited by periodic impulses is
viscosity can not be neglected in PDE. Neglecting the global established to describe the detonation process of PDE firstly.
energy loss due to the fluid viscosity will exaggerate the thrust Then, the energy loss expressions are derived from the gen-
of the PDE (here, the thrust is represented by the global eralized multisymplectic form of the Burgers model. Finally,
energy increment) by ((5.436924761525581×104 )/(8×105 ))× the numerical results of the energy loss in PDE are reported.
100% ≈ 6.7962% at 𝑡 = 5 × 10−4 s. From the results, it can be concluded that the energy loss
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The research is supported by the National Natural Science
energy loss and heat transfer in cavity flows,” International
Foundation of China (11372252 and 11372253), the Sci- Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids, vol. 54, no. 12, pp. 1407–
ence Foundation of Aviation of China (2013ZB53020), the 1423, 2007.
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ties (3102014JCQ01035), the Open Project of Guangxi Key response of non-homogeneous string fixed at both ends,”
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/624145
Research Article
Pore Network Analysis of Zone Model for Porous Media Drying
Yuan Yuejin,1,2 Zhao Zhe,1 Nie Junnan,1 and Xu Yingying1

1
School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710021, China
2
State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710049, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Yuan Yuejin; yyjyuan1@163.com
Received 24 February 2014; Accepted 18 April 2014; Published 18 May 2014
Copyright © 2014 Yuan Yuejin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
In view of the fact that the zone model for porous media drying cannot disclose the mechanism of liquid phase distribution
effectively, a pore network model for the slow isothermal drying process of porous media was developed by applying the theories of
pore network drying and transport-process, which fused the physical parameters of porous media, such as porosity, pore mean
diameter, and pore size distribution into the model parameters, and a sand bed drying experiment was conducted to verify
the validity of this model. The experiment and simulation results indicate that the pore network model could explain the slow
isothermal drying process of porous media well. The pore size distributions of porous media have a great effect on the liquid
phase distribution of the drying process. The dual-zone model is suitable for the porous media whose pore size distribution obeys
Gaussian distribution, while the three-zone model is suitable for the porous media whose pore size distribution obeys the lognormal
distribution when the drying analysis of porous media is conducted.
1. Introduction three-zone model (Figure 1(b)), based on the study of the

dual-zone model, and thought that the evaporation process
In general, the drying process of porous media can be divided of porous media drying took place in some region called the
into three periods: initial drying period, constant drying rate evaporation zone. Then, in a material subjected to drying,
period, and falling drying rate period. When the moisture in general three zones can be distinguished (cf. Figure 1(b)):
movement within porous media can no longer maintain the “dry zone,” “evaporation zone,” and “wet zone.” During the
material surface saturated with liquid, the drying rate starts to constant drying rate period the wet zone fills the whole
decrease and the falling drying rate period begins. Currently, material and evaporation process takes place on the surface
the zone model for porous media drying is often applying to of the drying material. The evaporation and wet zones appear
the character analysis of the falling drying rate period [1]. In subsequently during the falling drying rate period. Both of
1929, Sherwood reported that there was an evaporation front the vapour and liquid moisture transfer mechanisms occur
interface during the falling drying rate period, which divided in the evaporation zone [2, 3].
the drying material into two parts of different property: “dry From the above description, it can be seen that the
zone” and “wet zone,” and this was called the dual-zone model zone model for porous media drying comes from the sum-
(Figure 1(a)). In the dry zone moisture is transferred in the marization of a large number of phenomenal observations
form of vapour only, while in the wet zone liquid moisture and experimental researches and describes the liquid phase
will be transferred [2, 3]. It is a great advance that the drying distribution during the process of porous media drying.
material is divided into two zones of different property by But it cannot explain the internal mechanism of the “zone”
the dual-zone model in the process of the drying study. phenomenon distinctly. Namely, which of the drying factors
However, a large number of experimental studies have shown affects the liquid phase distribution during the process of
that sometimes there was not an obvious “evaporation front” porous media drying? It makes sometimes the “dual zones”
interface inside the porous media during the falling drying appear clearly and at other times the “three zones” be much
rate period [4]. In 1932, Luikov and Kolesnikov proposed the more consistent with the actual situation. Therefore, a pore
Drying surface Drying surface
Dry zone
Dry zone
Evaporation front
Evaporation front
Wet zone
Wet zone
(a) Dual-zone model (b) Three-zone model
Figure 1: Sketch of zone models.
network model for the slow isothermal drying process of balance in order to obtain the drying curve of sand bed during
porous media would be developed in this paper by applying the isothermal slow drying process. The digital camera was
the theories of pore network drying and transport-process, fixed above the sand bed, which took photos intermittently,
which fused the physical parameters of porous media, such as in order to obtain the drying phase distribution.
porosity, pore mean diameter, and pore size distribution into Generally, the parameters for describing the structure
the model parameters, and then the mechanism analysis of characteristics of sand bed included the porosity (𝑃), pore
liquid phase distribution during the process of porous media size distribution (𝑓), pore mean diameter (𝑑𝑚 ), and the side
drying was conducted. length (𝐿). The pore network physical model of the sand bed
The pore network method was introduced to the study was constructed (Figures 3(b) and 3(c)) by applying the above
of porous body drying by Daian, Nowicki, and others in the constructional procedure, and the mass transfer inside the
early 1990s, which was later developed by Prat and Yortsos. sand bed was studied in the pore scale, and the scope of
Finally, the pore network drying theory came into being pore size was about 10−5 ∼ 10−3 m. The pore (node) was
[5–13], which was a method based on the discrete medium spherical, the throat was cylindrical, and the diameter of
assumption. This theory assumed that the moisture transfer pores and throats followed certain probability distributions.
has great superiority in the pore space of porous media, A two-dimension pore network physical model could be
that the node (pore) and throat are applied to describe the described by the parameters of space distribution coefficient
topological structure inside the porous media, and that the (𝛽), distance between two nodes (𝑎), pore size distribution
mass transfer in porous media is studied in the pore scale. (𝐹), and the number of model scale (𝑚) [5].
Generally, the constructional procedure of the pore network The relation between the structure parameter of sand bed
physical model for porous media is shown in Figure 2, which and pore network physical model can be obtained by the
includes four key steps: factual structure, distilled grids, analysis and computation. The distance between two nodes
regularized grids, and physical model. The model is mainly (𝑎) is
composed of two parts: pore-throat-pore network and solid
√𝜋𝑑𝑚 𝑑
skeleton [5, 14–16]. 𝑎= ≈ 0.8862 𝑚 . (1)
√
2 𝑃 √ 𝑃
2. Experimental Materials and Method The pore size distribution (𝐹) of physical model is equal to
the pore size distribution (𝑓) of sand bed; namely,
In order to obtain the drying characteristics (such as liquid
phase distributions inside a wet material and drying kinetics) 𝐹 = 𝑓. (2)
in an isothermal slow drying process of real porous media
and to verify the validity of the simulation results, a sand The space distribution coefficient (𝛽) is
bed, which is representative of natural porous media, was
√𝑃
chosen as the object of the drying simulation. The sand bed 𝛽=1− . (3)
(Figure 3(a)) was composed of one packing ring and two 0.8862
layers of organic glass plate, and a drying container with The number of model scale (m) is
the rectangular cavity of 3 mm thick was formed. When the
experiment was going on, the prepared sand and alcohol 𝐿√𝑃
were put into the drying container of sand bed. The density 𝑚 = int (1.1284 ), (4)
𝑑𝑚
of the alcohol was 0.789 g/cm3 and the room temperature
was 293 K. The sand bed was placed flatly on the electronic where int is the integral function.
Node
Throat
(a) Actual structure (b) Distilled grids (c) Regularized grid (d) Physical model
Figure 2: Construction of pore network physical model.
Evaporative side Nodes Q

Y
(1−𝛽)a/2 𝛽a(1 − 𝛽)a/2

Impervious side
solid
Q
Constructed Enlarged
L
Throat pore
(1 −𝛽)a/2 h
L Upper
Sand glass
sealed Lower
ring O 𝛽a (1 −𝛽)a/2
glass X
(a) (b) (c)
Figure 3: Sand bed (a), pore network physical model (b), and enlarged pore network (c).
3. Pore Network Mathematical Model system model, for any liquid phase region, the equation below
can be obtained by the law of conservation of mass:
In this paper, we assumed that all the moisture was contained
in the pore space. The following considerations are made 𝜕𝑚𝑙
in the “pore-throat” space network system model: (1) all = −𝑆𝑚𝑙 , (6)
𝜕𝑡
the pores and throats are filled with liquid (alcohol) in
the initial drying state; (2) convective mass transfer can where 𝑚𝑙 is the mass of the liquid phase in the region (kg) and
be neglected, and diffusion mass transfer plays the leading 𝑆𝑚𝑙 is the source item, that is, the evaporation rate of moisture
role; (3) during the drying process, the sand bed was kept on the “liquid-vapor” interface (kg/s). When (5) and (6) are
horizontal, neglecting the gravity effect for moisture transfer; applied to the same region, the mass decrement of liquid
and (4) the Kairvin effect and shrinkage during drying were phase caused by evaporation is just equal to the vapor mass
neglected. addition of the vapor phase caused by evaporation; namely,
𝑆𝑚𝑙 = 𝑆𝑚V .
3.1. Mass Transfer Equation. Then, in the pore-throat space The mass transfer of liquid evaporation in certain pore
system of a physical model, for any vapor phase region, the (𝑖, 𝑗) of pore network was shown in Figure 4. The liquid phase
equation below can be obtained by the law of conservation of is a single-component phase, namely, wetting phase, while
mass: the vapor phase is binary mixture phase that is composed
of vapor component and air component. When the system
𝜕𝑚V keeps constant temperature, the equilibrium concentration of
= ∇ (𝑘V ∇𝑝V ) + 𝑆𝑚V , (5)
𝜕𝑡 vapor component on the interface is a constant. The equation
of vapor flow rate on liquid-vapor interface can be obtained
where 𝑚V is the mass of vapor in the vapor phase region (kg), by Fick’s law of diffusion:
𝑘V is the effective diffusion coefficient of vapor (m3 /s), 𝑝V is
the vapor pressure (pa), and 𝑆𝑚V is the source item, that is, the 𝜋𝑑2 ℎ𝑀 (𝐶eq − 𝐶𝑖,𝑗 )
evaporation rate of moisture on the “liquid-vapor” interface 𝑆𝑚 = , (7)
(kg/s). 2 (1 + 𝛽) 𝑎
During the drying process, the liquid phase flow caused
by capillary force shows a saltation because of Haines jump where d is the throat diameter (m), ℎ is the mass transfer
[14]. Therefore, it is described by the drying simulating coefficient (m2 /s), 𝑀 is the component molar mass (g/mol),
algorithm in the next paragraphs, and only the evaporating 𝐶eq is the equilibrium concentration of vapor component
effect is taken into account now. In the “pore-throat” space on the interface (mol/m3 ), 𝐶𝑖,𝑗 is the concentration of vapor
Node (i + 1, j) Interface Throat Node (i, j)

1
T1 2
T2
4 T3
Liquid Vapor 5
6 3
gas
Figure 4: Moisture evaporation in pore (𝑖, 𝑗).
component in the pore (𝑖, 𝑗) (mol/m3 ), 𝛽 is the space

distribution coefficient, and 𝑎 is the distance between two
nodes (m). Figure 5: Liquid phase distribution of pore network drying.
3.2. Simulation Algorithm of Drying. With the above equa- 1

tions (5), (6), and (7) and the proper initial and boundary
Moisture content ratio Φ

conditions, the solution of a model of the two-dimensional 0.8
pore network problem can be achieved. The steps of the
computer modeling algorithm for drying can be summarized 0.6
as follows.
Step 1, label every liquid cluster in the network (also 0.4
called TC, just as A, B, and C shown in Figure 5). Step
2, calculate the total evaporation flux of all the gas-liquid 0.2
interfaces for every liquid cluster. For instance, in Figure 5,
0
the total evaporation flux of the liquid cluster A is just 0.0 6.0 12.0 18.0 24.0 30.0 36.0 42.0
the sum of evaporation flux of its eight throats at the gas- Time t (h)
liquid interface. Step 3, identify the throat of the lowest
capillary pressure located at the frontier (gas-liquid interface) Simulation
Experiment
for each liquid cluster. Step 4, calculate the drying time of
the total evaporation flux of every liquid cluster obtained
in Step 2 and assigned to the throat identified in Step 3. Figure 6: Drying curves comparison of experiment and simulation.
Step 5, choose the throat which is the first to finish drying
among the throats obtained in Step 4 as the finish-drying
throat in this modeling periodicity, including its connected difference was used to disperse the equation set. The main
nodes. Meanwhile, calculate the evaporation flux of the parameters needed in the simulation are listed in Table 1.
throat having the lowest capillary pressure of other liquid
clusters during this period, deducting the liquid evaporated
from the corresponding throat. Step 6, update the liquid 5. Results Analysis and Discussion
phase distribution within the network, and repeat the above-
described procedure until the model finishes drying entirely. 5.1. Comparison between Simulation and Experiment
5.1.1. Drying Curves. It can be seen in Figure 6 that the
3.3. Initial and Boundary Conditions. The initial moisture moisture content ratio in the sand bed declined rapidly
content ratio is 1.0 for the simulation. The boundary condi- in the initial stages of drying. However, at the end of the
tions for the drying model are identical with the descriptions drying, after about 24 h, the drying curve was flattened out,
in the experiment section. which indicated that the drying speed declined and the
sand bed was to reach equilibrium moisture content. The
trend of the model-predicted drying curve agrees with the
4. Computer Simulations experimental curve and the values differ by no more than
11.2%. This indicates that the model in this work can simulate
The programming tool Visual C++ and MATLAB were
the isothermal slow drying process of sand bed effectively.
applied to develop the modeling program in this paper.
The programs generated the physical model of the two-
dimensional pore network based on the structural parameter 5.1.2. Liquid Phase Distributions. It can be concluded from
of the material, and then such programs were performed Figure 7 that there is a good agreement between the experi-
according to the simulation algorithm of drying. In this ment and simulation liquid phase distributions, and this just
course, (5)–(7) needed to be solved. The method of finite corresponds with the above analysis of drying curves.
(a)
Evaporation front
(b)
(I) Φ = 83.9% (II) Φ = 55.2% (III) Φ = 26.7%
Figure 7: Liquid phase distributions comparison of simulation (a) and experiment (b).
Evaporation front
(I) Φ = 83.9%
(II)Φ = 55.2%
(III) Φ = 26.7%
(a) 𝛽 = 0.1708 (b) 𝛽 = 0.3044 (c) 𝛽 = 0.4707
Figure 8: Simulated liquid phase distribution for different space distribution coefficients.
Evaporation font
(I) Φ = 83.9%
(II) Φ = 55.2%
(III) Φ = 26.7%
(a) Gaussian distribution (b) Lognormal distribution (c) Mixed distribution
Figure 9: Simulated liquid phase distribution for different pore size distributions.
Evaporation front
Dry zone
Wet zone
(a)Dual-zones model (b) Gaussian distribution
Dry zone
Evaporation
zone
Wet zone
(c) Three-zones model (d) Lognormal distribution
Figure 10: Comparison of zone model and simulation.

Table 1: The main parameters during simulation.
Mass transfer coefficient Alcohol molar mass Alcohol equilibrium concentration Alcohol density
(ℎ/m2 ⋅s−1 ) (𝑀/g⋅mol−1 ) (𝑐eq /mol⋅m−3 ) (𝜌𝑤 /g⋅mm−3 )
1.154 × 10−4 46.063 2.423 0.789 × 10−3

Number of model
Space distribution coefficient Distance between two nodes Pore size distribution
scale
(𝛽/—) (𝑎/mm) (𝐹/mm)
(𝑚/—)
Gaussian distribution
0.3044 1.2858 77
N(0.8944, 0.14952 )
5.2. Pore Network Simulation Analysis of Zone Model Then, during the drying analysis of porous media, the dual-
zone model is suitable for the porous media whose pore size
5.2.1. Effect of Space Distribution Coefficient on Liquid Phase distribution obeys Gaussian distribution, while the three-
Distribution. Drying simulations for different space distribu- zone model is suitable for the porous media whose pore
tion coefficients (𝛽) of 0.1708, 0.3044, and 0.4707 were carried size distribution obeys the lognormal distribution. It can
out, all other unstated parameters applied were the same as be seen from Figure 7 that the dual-zone model is more
the experimental parameters, and the liquid phase distribu- accordant with the experiment material because the pore size
tion of each was obtained (see Figure 8). From Figure 8, it distribution of the sand bed obeys Gaussian distribution in
is concluded that the space distribution coefficient (𝛽) has Table 1.
little significant influence on the liquid phase distribution
of porous media during the drying process. The evaporation
front interface almost keeps a traditional line. 6. Conclusions
The pore network model presented in this paper can describe
5.2.2. Effect of Pore Size Distribution on Liquid Phase Distribu- the slow isothermal drying process of the sand bed, the
tion. Drying simulations for different pore size distributions superiority of which is that the physical parameters of porous
(𝐹) of Gaussian distribution N(0.8944, 0.14952 ), lognormal media, such as porosity, pore mean diameter, and pore size
distribution LN(−1.201, 1.101) and the mixed distribution distribution, can be fused into the model parameters. The
were carried out, and the 𝑋 direction of the mixed dis- trend of the simulated drying curve agrees with that of the
tribution obeyed Gaussian distribution N(0.8944, 0.14952 ) experimentally obtained curve. This indicates that the model
and 𝑌 direction of the mixed distribution obeyed lognormal in this work is effective.
distribution LN(−1.201, 1.101), all other unstated parameters The simulation results indicate that the space distribution
applied were the same as the experimental parameters, and coefficient has little significant influence on the liquid phase
the liquid phase distribution of each was obtained (see distribution of porous media during the drying process, but
Figure 9). It can be seen in Figure 9 that the pore size distri- the pore size distribution has a significant impact on the
bution (𝐹) has a significant impact on the liquid phase dis- liquid phase distribution. When the pore size distribution of
tribution of porous media during the drying process. When porous media obeyed Gaussian distribution, the evaporation
the pore size distribution of porous media obeyed Gaussian front interface almost kept a traditional line, and the dual-
distribution, the evaporation front interface almost kept a zone model is suitable for the drying analysis. However, when
traditional line. However, when the pore size distribution the pore size distribution obeyed the lognormal distribution
obeyed the lognormal distribution and mixed distribution, and mixed distribution, the evaporation front interface dis-
the evaporation front interface displayed an irregular curve, played an irregular curve, the wet patch appeared in some
and the wet patch appeared in some places. places, and the three-zone model is suitable for the drying
The comparison of liquid phase distributions between the analysis.
zone model and the simulation is shown in Figure 10. It can be
seen from Figure 10 that there was a good agreement between
the dual-zone model and simulation liquid phase distri- Conflict of Interests
butions when the pore size distribution obeyed Gaussian
distribution N(0.8944, 0.14952 ), and there was also a good
agreement between the three-zone model and simulation
liquid phase distributions when the pore size distribution
obeyed the lognormal distribution LN(−1.201, 1.101). Acknowledgments
From the above analysis of the effect of structure param-
eters on liquid phase distributions during the drying process This work was financially supported by the National Natural
of porous media, we can know that the pore size distribution Science Foundation of China (no. 51276105), the Natural
(𝐹) has a significant impact on the liquid phase distribution. Science Foundation of Shaanxi Educational Committee (no.
2013JK1016), and the Graduate Innovation Fund of Shaanxi

University of Science and Technology.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/504086
Research Article
Model-Based Water Wall Fault Detection and Diagnosis of
FBC Boiler Using Strong Tracking Filter
Li Sun, Junyi Dong, Donghai Li, and Yuqiong Zhang

State Key Lab of Power System, Department of Thermal Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100083, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Donghai Li; lidongh@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn
Received 21 February 2014; Accepted 17 March 2014; Published 28 April 2014
Copyright © 2014 Li Sun et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
Fluidized bed combustion (FBC) boilers have received increasing attention in recent decades. The erosion issue on the water wall
is one of the most common and serious faults for FBC boilers. Unlike direct measurement of tube thickness used by ultrasonic
methods, the wastage of water wall is reconsidered equally as the variation of the overall heat transfer coefficient in the furnace.
In this paper, a model-based approach is presented to estimate internal states and heat transfer coefficient dually from the noisy
measurable outputs. The estimated parameter is compared with the normal value. Then the modified Bayesian algorithm is adopted
for fault detection and diagnosis (FDD). The simulation results demonstrate that the approach is feasible and effective.
1. Introduction corrosion and erosion. In [4, 5], the erosion-prone areas

were identified in circulating and bubbling fluidized bed
Fluidized bed combustion (FBC) boiler, the most popular boilers and described current methods for erosion protection.
clean coal combustion technology in power and chemical The wastage rate was most significant in the water wall
industries [1], facilitates burning a wide variety of fuels with around the bed region, decreasing with increasing height [6].
high combustion efficiency, especially for the low-grading The rate of tube erosion is usually a complex function of
coal. The technology burns fuel at temperatures from 800 characteristics of the coal particulates, that is, shape, strength,
to 950∘ C, a range where nitrogen oxide (NOx ) formation is size, composition, and ash content, such as SiO2 , Al2 O3, and
much lower than that in traditional pulverized coal boiler [2]. Fe2 O3 [7]. Most researches [4–8] of tube wear have been
The fluidized bed has several potential advantages in CO2 conducted for exploration of erosion mechanism to improve
capture from flue gas [3]. In addition, water-wall slagging boiler design. However, there have been few reports on online
is significantly eliminated due to the combustion condition monitoring of erosion occurring during runtime. In [9],
of lower temperature. Furthermore, soot formation can be the method by ultrasonic thickness gauge was introduced
attenuated with the appropriate distributor plate layout. How- to investigate tube wastage patterns successfully. But the
ever, wastage of tube materials, both refractory and metallic, increased equipment cost and integration difficulties limit its
is more prominent than pulverized coal boiler because the broad application in industry.
particulates in the fluidization state strike and rub the tube An alternative monitoring method based on boiler
more fiercely and frequently. It has become a source of dynamic model and optimal estimation theory was intro-
concern for FBC boilers because it is responsible for water- duced in this paper. By delving into the performance char-
wall burst and even undesired shutdowns. acteristics of FBC boiler, we can deduce that the global
A great deal of research has been done in an effort to fur- wastage or deposition rate of water wall could be expressed
ther understand metal wastage in fluidized bed combustion equally as the variation of the overall heat transfer coefficient
environments and to find solutions to ease it. It is generally regardless of its cause. Hence the problem of thickness
acknowledged that tube wastage is caused by simultaneous measurement and detection was reconstructed as a parameter
estimation issue. This critical parameter can be assumed as CNO𝑥 Stack

an extended state, which would be estimated with other state CO2
variables simultaneously in an augmented nonlinear model.
Specifically, the observability of augmented system should be
examined, which serves as a necessary precondition of the Throat
temperature Throat
proposed software redundancy method other than hardware-
based measurement method.
The conventional linear estimation theory was proposed Freeboard
Heat exchanges
by Kalman [10] and then developed into nonlinear version
in NASA, named “extended Kalman filter” (EKF) which Freeboard
temperature
was widely applied in the aerospace and navigation areas. Secondary
However, in most industrial cases, the EKF method is of poor air flow
robustness against model mismatches [11], which can only Fuel feed
give a biased state estimation and even may quickly diverge, Bed Bed
owing to its linearization. We propose to adopt a new filter, temperature
called a strong tracking filter (STF) [12], which can overcome
the above-mentioned flaws of EKF. In STF, the mean square of Primary air
estimated residues is minimized based on the orthogonality flow
principal. Thus the Kalman gain can be adjusted in real time
Figure 1: A schematic of a typical FBC plant.
to track the actual states. This approach is applicable to joint
states and parameters estimation with unknown changing
laws.
In the current paper, Section 2 is devoted to a brief FBC model was originally formulated in [13] based on mass
introduction to the structure and model of a bubbling and energy balances, which was verified by experimental
fluidized bed combustor. The outline of STF is presented data. To strike a balance between fidelity and simplicity, the
in Section 3. After introducing an FDD strategy based on model was further modified as follows [14].
modified Bayes’ classification algorithm, computer simula- Dynamics of fuel inventory 𝑊𝐶 [kg]:
tion results are given in Section 4 to show the effectiveness
of the proposed approach. Section 5 is the conclusions and 𝑑𝑊𝐶 (𝑡)
= (1 − 𝑉) 𝑄𝐶 (𝑡) − 𝑄𝐵 (𝑡) . (1)
future work. The strategy in this paper is also applicable for 𝑑𝑡
circulating fluidized bed (CFB) boiler if the corresponding
dynamic model can be provided with acceptable accuracy. Dynamics of bed oxygen content 𝐶𝐵 [Nm3 /Nm3 ]:
𝑑𝐶𝐵 (𝑡) 1
2. System Description and = [𝐶 𝐹 (𝑡) − 𝑄𝐵 (𝑡) 𝑋𝐶 − 𝐶𝐵 (𝑡) 𝐹1 (𝑡)] . (2)
𝑑𝑡 𝑉𝐵 1 1
Analysis of FBC Boiler
2.1. Overview of Fluidized Bed Combustion Technology. Flu- Dynamics of freeboard oxygen content 𝐶𝐹 [Nm3 /Nm3 ]:
idized beds find widespread application in industrial applica-
tions because of their favorable heat transfer properties. With 𝑑𝐶𝐹 (𝑡) 1
= {𝐶 (𝑡) 𝐹1 (𝑡) + 𝐶2 𝐹2 (𝑡)
appropriate upward-blowing primary air velocity to suspend 𝑑 (𝑡) 𝑉𝐹 𝐵
solid fuels, there are tumbling action and bubble formation,
which provides more effective combustion and heat transfer. −𝑉𝑄𝐶 (𝑡) 𝑋𝑉 − 𝐶𝐹 (𝑡) [𝐹1 (𝑡) + 𝐹2 (𝑡)]} .
The bed of solid particles exhibits the properties of a boiling (3)
liquid and assumes the appearance of a fluid—“bubbling
fluidized bed.” The schematic of a FBC boiler is shown in Dynamics of bed temperature 𝑇𝐵 [K]:
Figure 1.
𝑑𝑇𝐵 (𝑡) 1
As shown in Figure 1, a mixture of inert/sorbent bed = {𝐻 𝑄 (𝑡) + 𝑐1 𝐹1 (𝑡) 𝑇1
material and solid fuel is fluidized by the primary air entering 𝑑𝑡 𝐶𝐼 𝑊𝐼 𝐶 𝐵
from below. Secondary air is injected above the fuel bed to −𝛼𝐵𝑡 𝐴 𝐵𝑡 [𝑇𝐵 (𝑡) − 𝑇𝐵𝑡 ] − 𝑐𝐹 𝐹1 (𝑡) 𝑇𝐵 (𝑡)} .
ensure complete gas burning out. But the total amount should (4)
be limited due to economic efficiency. The heat released in
combustion is captured by heat exchangers and used for the Dynamics of freeboard temperature 𝑇𝐹 [K]:
generation of steam.
𝑑𝑇𝐹 (𝑡) 1
2.2. Global Dynamic Model of Bubbling FBC Boiler. The full- = {𝑉𝑄𝐶 (𝑡) + 𝑐1 𝐹1 (𝑡) 𝑇1
𝑑𝑡 𝐶𝐹 𝑉𝐹
order dynamic model of FBC has been set up for mechanism
study, but it is not suitable for fault detection and state −𝛼𝐵𝑡 𝐴 𝐵𝑡 [𝑇𝐵 (𝑡) − 𝑇𝐵𝑡 ] − 𝑐𝐹 𝐹1 (𝑡) 𝑇𝐵 (𝑡)} .
estimation because of the complexity. The classical bubbling (5)
Dynamics of thermal power 𝑃 [MW]: Measurement residual:
𝑑𝑃 (𝑡) 1 𝛾𝑘 = y𝑘 − ℎ𝑒 (̂z−𝑘 ) . (11)

= [𝑃 (𝑡) − 𝑃 (𝑡)] , (6)
𝑑𝑡 𝜏mix 𝐶
Kalman gain:
where the combustion rate in bed 𝑄𝐵 [kg/s] is 𝑄𝐵 (𝑡) =
−1
(𝑊𝐶(𝑡)/𝑡𝐶)(𝐶𝐵 (𝑡)/𝐶1 ) and the combustion power 𝑃𝐶 [MW] 𝐾𝑘 = 𝑃𝑘− 𝐻𝑘𝑇 (𝐻𝑘 𝑃𝑘− 𝐻𝑘𝑇 + 𝑅𝑘 ) . (12)
is 𝑃𝐶(𝑡) = 10−6 [𝐻𝐶𝑄𝐵 (𝑡) + 𝐻𝑉𝑉𝑄𝐶(𝑡)]. Here, other detailed
variable nomenclatures and fine-tuned model parameter Updated state:
values have been given in [14]. In this FBC process, the
manipulated inputs u are fuel feed 𝑄𝐶 [kg/s], primary air flow ̂z+𝑘 = ̂z−𝑘 + 𝐾𝑘 𝛾𝑘 . (13)
𝐹1 [Nm3 /s], and secondary air flow 𝐹2 [Nm3 /s]; the controlled
variables are power 𝑃, bed temperature 𝑇𝐵 , and freeboard Updated covariance:
oxygen content 𝐶𝐹 ; freeboard temperature 𝑇𝐹 is also a
measurable output in addition to the 3 controlled variables. 𝑃𝑘+ = (𝐼 − 𝐾𝑘 𝐻𝑘 ) 𝑃𝑘− , (14)
Hereby a canonical nonlinear model can be established from
(1)–(6): where the superscripts − and + represent the values before
and after measurement correction, respectively. 𝐹𝑘 and 𝐻𝑘 are
ẋ= 𝑓 (x, u) , the state transition and observation matrices by linearizing 𝑓𝑒
(7) and ℎ𝑒 at each time step.
y = ℎ (x) , However, in most cases, especially for industrial fault
diagnostics, the EKF has the following flaws:
where x = [𝑊𝐶 𝐶𝐵 𝐶𝐹 𝑇𝐵 𝑇𝐹 𝑃]𝑇 , u = [𝑄𝐶 𝐹1 𝐹2 ]𝑇 , and
y = [𝑇𝐵 𝑃 𝑇𝐹 𝐶𝐹 ]𝑇 . (i) poor robustness against model mismatches;
(ii) sensitivity to the statistics of the initial states and
3. Strong Tracking Filter Based noise;
State Estimation (iii) weak tracking ability to the suddenly changing states.
3.1. Extension and Discretization. If soot formation or erosion All these drawbacks will be more prominent especially
occurs in water wall tube, the corresponding heat transfer when filter approaches steady, as shown in the next subsec-
coefficient will change due to variation of thermal conduction tion. The essential reason accounting for the phenomenon
resistance. However, it is impossible to obtain the heat is that the optimal Kalman gain is actually calculated by
transfer coefficient ℎ𝐵 by measurement. We can estimate the open-loop method in spite of updating process in state
variation of ℎ𝐵 by using methods based on joint state and correction. According to the original paper [10] regarding
parameter estimation. Considering the influence of noise, linear filtering, the predicted covariance and Kalman gain
and assuming ℎ𝐵 as an extended state, the augmented model both depend on the model and initial parameter settings of
can be discretized as 𝑃0 , 𝑄𝑘 , and 𝑅𝑘 . The Kalman gain 𝐾𝑘 will approach zero after
long-time steadiness and then EKF will lose tracking ability
z (𝑘 + 1) = 𝑓𝑒 (z (𝑘) , u (𝑘)) + w𝑘 , when process uncertainty occurs.
(8)
y (𝑘 + 1) = ℎ𝑒 (z (𝑘 + 1)) + k𝑘+1 , For this reason, Zhou and Frank proposed a strong
tracking filter (STF) in [12]. By introducing a diagonal matrix
where z(𝑘) = [x(𝑘) ℎ𝐵 (𝑘)]𝑇 is the augmented state by Λ 𝑘 to (10),
assuming ℎ𝐵 (𝑘 + 1) = ℎ𝐵 (𝑘). Thereby, functions 𝑓𝑒 and ℎ𝑒
can be derived from (7) by Euler methods. w𝑘 and v𝑘 are the 𝑃𝑘− = Λ 𝑘 𝐹𝑘−1 𝑃𝑘−1
+ 𝑇
𝐹𝑘−1 + 𝑄𝑘−1 ; (15)
process and observation noises which are both assumed to be
the Kalman gain can be adjusted online to maintain the
zero mean multivariate Gaussian noises with covariances 𝑄𝑘
strong tracking ability of filters. The suboptimal fading factors
and 𝑅𝑘 , respectively.
Λ 𝑘 can be obtained recursively by solving the following
equations:
3.2. Basic Principals of STF. It is well known that the extended
Kalman filter (EKF) can be used [15] for the joint estimation 𝑇
𝐸 [(z𝑘+1 − ̂z+𝑘+1 ) (z𝑘+1 − ̂z+𝑘+1 )] = min,
of the systems described by (8), which can be summarized as (16)
the following formulas.
𝐸 [𝛾𝑇𝑘+1 𝛾𝑘+1+𝑗 ] = 0; 𝑗 = 1, 2, . . . .
Predicted state:
̂z−𝑘 = 𝑓𝑒 (̂z+𝑘−1 , u𝑘−1 ) . (9) The second equation of (16) is named orthogonality principle,
whose physical meaning is that the residual error series
Predicted covariance: should be made mutually orthogonal at each step, so that
the rich information in the residual error series could be
𝑃𝑘− = 𝐹𝑘−1 𝑃𝑘−1
+ 𝑇
𝐹𝑘−1 + 𝑄𝑘−1 . (10) extracted. For deduction details, see [12].
220
200
180
160
0.1
140
(Nm3 /Nm3 )
120
(kg)
100
80 0.05
60
40
20
0 0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000
(s) (s)
(a) Fuel inventory [kg] (b) Bed O2 content [Nm3 /Nm3 ]

1100 0.07
1050 0.065
1000 0.06
(Nm3 /Nm3 )
(K)
950 0.055
900 0.05
850 0.045
800 0.04
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000
(s) (s)
(c) Bed temperature [K] (d) Freeboard O2 content [Nm3 /Nm3 ]
950 26
945 25.5
940 25
935 24.5
(MW)
(K)
930 24
925 23.5
920 23
915 22.5
910 22
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000
(s) (s)
State STF State STF

Measurement EKF Measurement EKF
(e) Freeboard temperature [K] (f) Thermal power [MW]
Figure 2: Simulation comparison of estimated states.

Soot formation 1 𝑁 ̂+ 2
𝜎ℎ2𝐵 2 (𝑘) = ∑ [ℎ (𝑘 − 𝑗) − 𝜇ℎ𝐵 (𝑘)] ,
Erosion 𝑁 − 1 𝑗=1 𝐵
Actuator FBC plant Sensor 𝜎ℎ2𝐵 1 (𝑘) 𝜎ℎ2𝐵 2 (𝑘)

𝑑 (𝑘) = − ln − 1,
𝜎02 𝜎02
Reference (18)
QC P
F1 Multivariable TB where 𝑁 is the preselected data window and 𝑑 is named
MPC detection parameter. When the boiler operates well, 𝑑 is
close to zero. As soon as the fault occurs, 𝑑 will be soaring
F2 CB
PI sensitively. When a threshold 𝛽0 is defined, the strategy of
fault detection is, thus, obtained:
STF 𝑑 (𝑘) > 𝛽0 , (19)
Fault detection Fault diagnosis where 𝛽0 can be selected by operating experience. With
MBA smaller 𝛽0 , smaller faults can be detected, but more false
alarms occur. On the other hand, with larger 𝛽0 , only relative
Figure 3: The structure of closed-loop fault detection and diagnosis. larger fault can be detected, and missing alarms will increase.
4.2. Closed-Loop Structure of Fault Diagnosis. In [16],

3.3. Open-Loop Simulation and Comparison. In this part, the authors proposed a multivariable coordinated control
an open-loop simulation on FBC plant (7) was conducted method of FBC boiler based on LSSVM-GPC, which can
without joint estimation. In the simulation, EKF and STF control output power and bed temperature well by regulating
shared the same set of filter parameters with initial states fuel feed and primary air flow. Here, a PI controller was
deviating from the actual value. The simulation results are applied in the secondary air flow-freeboard oxygen content
shown in Figure 2. In simulating process, the input variable loop. Based on the above discussion, a closed-loop fault
(fuel feed 𝑄𝐶) increased by 25% at 𝑡 = 1000 s; the state detection and diagnosis strategy was developed under the
variable (fuel inventory 𝑊𝐶) dropped suddenly at 𝑡 = 2000 s. control framework, as shown in Figure 3, where the strong
In addition, there is a mutation in heat transfer coefficient ℎ𝐵 tracking filter was used to estimate state variables and heat
at 𝑡 = 3500 s. transfer coefficient dually based on (8).
As shown in Figure 2, the adjective “strong” in STF
implies (i) faster rate of convergence in the presence of initial
error (see Figure 2(a)), (ii) stronger tracking ability to the 4.3. Numerical Simulation. The simulation time is 14000 s. A
abrupt changing states regardless of dynamic or stationary load-up command was given with setpoints of 𝑃 and 𝑇𝐵 rising
fashion, and (iii) better robustness to modeling error (Figures to 30 MW and 850∘ C, respectively, while the setpoint of 𝐶𝐵
2(c), 2(d), and 2(e), titles: “freeboard” and “temperature”). was kept constant.
Suppose soot was deposited gradually in water wall at
𝑡 = 2000 s and then was cleaned up by soot blower at
4. FDD of Water Wall 𝑡 = 7000 s. After 1000 seconds, tube erosion of water wall
occurred due to severe attrition. Let Λ 𝑘 = 𝜆 𝑘 𝐼7 ; that is, the
4.1. Strategy of Fault Detection. Once the erosion or soot
STF based on multiple fading factors deteriorates to a single
formation occurs, it will grow more and more serious. Hence,
fading factor which also has good tracking ability. The closed-
it is necessary to detect the fault in time. Assume the fault is a
loop simulation results were shown in Figures 4–6.
drift-type process. While the boiler is running at normal state,
It can be seen from Figure 4 that STF can track all the
the heat transfer parameter is
state variables with almost no errors under the condition
ℎ𝐵 (𝑘) ∼ 𝑁 (ℎ𝐵0 , 𝜎02 ) , (17) of joint estimation while EKF is more sensitive to model
mismatch (see Figures 4(a) and 4(b)). Figure 5(a) shows the
where ℎ𝐵0 is the normal operating value and 𝜎02 is the overwhelming superiority of STF in tracking time-varying
reasonable variation which is acceptable for engineering. The heat transfer coefficient with unknown changing laws while
modified Bayes’ algorithm is adopted for fault detection. the EKF can be used to estimate constant parameters only.
Define Figure 5(b) shows that the fading factor 𝜆 𝑘 can be increased
rapidly once model mismatch happens. Thus the Kalman gain
1 𝑁 ̂+ can be adjusted in real time, which accounts for the strong
𝜇ℎ𝐵 (𝑘) = ∑ℎ (𝑘 − 𝑗) , tracking ability essentially.
𝑁 𝑗=1 𝐵
As shown in Figure 6, the detection parameter 𝑑 is
hypersensitive to water wall fault, which grows exponentially
1 𝑁 ̂+ 2
𝜎ℎ2𝐵 1 (𝑘) = ∑[ℎ (𝑘 − 𝑗) − ℎ𝐵0 ] , once fault happens. The incipient fault can be detected at an
𝑁 − 1 𝑗=1 𝐵 early stage. For example, the soot formation fault is detected at
800
0.055
700
0.05
600 0.045
(Nm3 /Nm3 )
0.04
(kg)
500
0.035
400 0.03
300 0.025
0.02
200
0.015
100 0.01
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000
(s) (s)
(a) Fuel inventory [kg] (b) Bed O2 content [Nm3 /Nm3 ]
1300 0.05
1250
0.04
1200
0.03
(Nm3 /Nm3 )
1150
(K)
1100 0.02
1050
0.01
1000
0
950
900 −0.01
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000
(s) (s)
(c) Bed temperature [K] (d) Freeboard O2 content [Nm3 /Nm3 ]
1200 35
1150
1100 30
(MW)
(K)
1050
1000 25
950
900 20
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000
(s) (s)
State STF State STF

Measurement EKF Measurement EKF
(e) Freeboard temperature [K] (f) Thermal power [MW]
Figure 4: States estimation of closed-loop simulation.

240 60
W/(m2 ·K)
220 40
Tube attrition
200
20
180 Soot deposition Soot blowing
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 0

2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000
(s)
(s)
Actual
𝜆
EKF
STF
(a) Heat transfer coefficient estimation [W/(m2 ⋅K)] (b) Fading factor
Figure 5: Heat transfer coefficient estimation.
104 diagnosis and fault-tolerant control by incorporating other

common faults, such as sensor and actuator faults.
103 Conflict of Interests

Threshold 𝛽0
102
Acknowledgment
d
101 This work has been supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (nos. 51176086 and 51076071).
100 References
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000
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most common faults of FBC boiler, it is urgent to investigate 680–687, 2006.
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to the estimated heat transfer coefficient, the soot formation fine particles in a fluidized bed with bimodal particles: influence
and erosion can be detected based on the modified Bayes’ of particle density and size ratio,” Korean Journal of Chemical
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approach is feasible and effective. The line of research will [9] T.-W. Kim, J.-H. Choi, D. W. Shun, S.-S. Kim, S. D. Kim, and
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vol. 178, no. 3, pp. 143–150, 2007.
[10] R. E. Kalman, “A new approach to linear filtering and prediction
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[11] L. Ljung, “Asymptotic behavior of the extended Kalman filter as
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[13] E. Ikonen and U. Kortela, “Dynamic model for a bubbling
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/395057
Research Article
Application of D-S Evidence Fusion Method in the Fault
Detection of Temperature Sensor
Zheng Dou,1 Xiaochun Xu,1 Yun Lin,1 and Ruolin Zhou2

1
College of Information and Communication Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Room 148, Building 21,
145 Nantong Street, Harbin, Heilongjiang 150001, China
2
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Western New England University, Springfield, MA, USA
Correspondence should be addressed to Yun Lin; linyun@hrbeu.edu.cn
Received 20 January 2014; Accepted 2 April 2014; Published 23 April 2014
Copyright © 2014 Zheng Dou et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
Due to the complexity and dangerousness of drying process, the fault detection of temperature sensor is very difficult and dangerous
in actual working practice and the detection effectiveness is not satisfying. For this problem, in this paper, based on the idea of
information fusion and the requirements of D-S evidence method, a D-S evidence fusion structure with two layers was introduced
to detect the temperature sensor fault in drying process. The first layer was data layer to establish the basic belief assignment function
of evidence which could be realized by BP Neural Network. The second layer was decision layer to detect and locate the sensor fault
which could be realized by D-S evidence fusion method. According to the numerical simulation results, the working conditions of
sensors could be described effectively and accurately by this method, so that it could be used to detect and locate the sensor fault.
1. Introduction the D-S evidence theory can provide an interesting operator

to integrate multiple information acquired from different data
Information fusion is a useful technique to integrate het- sources. Finally, the decision on optimal hypothesis choice
erogeneous data from different information sources. By can be made in a rational and flexible manner.
increasing comprehensiveness while decreasing uncertainty In drying industry process, the supervision on working
of information, information fusion can be used to improve conditions of sensors is very important and difficult, and
the quality of decision using the redundancy and com- its role is to detect, locate, and isolate the fault sensor as
plementariness of different information sources. As one of quickly and accurately as possible. But, due to the complexity
the most important methods in information fusion, the of sensor and the uncertainty of working environment,
Dempster-Shafer evidence theory (D-S theory) [1, 2], which is the monitoring data is usually uncertain, incomplete, or
an improvement of the Bayesian theory, has been widely used imprecise, which leads to the reduction of accuracy rate.
in information systems [3–11]. A significant improvement of Therefore, in this paper, a two-layer information fusion
the D-S approach over traditional probabilistic approach is structure based on BP Neural Network and D-S evidence
that it allows for the allocation of a probability mass to sets fusion method was presented for the supervision on working
or intervals and can handle both stochastic uncertainty and conditions of sensor in drying industry process. Firstly,
subjective uncertainty. The D-S evidence theory is a flexible according to the monitoring data obtained from different
and powerful mathematical tool for handling uncertain, sensor sources, BP Neural Network was used to establish
incomplete, and imprecise information for at least the fol- the basic belief assignment function of evidence for every
lowing three reasons. Firstly, by representing the imprecision single sensor source. Then, the D-S evidence combination
and uncertainty of a body of knowledge via the notion rule was used to fuse those evidences. Finally, according to
of evidence, belief can be committed to a singleton or a the fusion result, the working conditions of sensor could be
compound set. Secondly, the evidence combination rule of described effectively and accurately. In this fusion process,
on the one hand, the BP Neural Network could provide the claim that a particular element of 𝜃 belongs to the set 𝐴 but
ability of self-learning, self-adaptation, and fault tolerance; on not to a particular subset of 𝐴. Any subset 𝐴 of 𝑃(𝜃) satisfying
the other hand, the D-S evidence method could express and that 𝑚(𝐴) > 0 is called a focal element,and 𝐶 = ⋃𝑚(𝐴) ≠0 𝐴 is
handle the uncertain, incomplete, and imprecise information. called a kernel element of mass function 𝑚 in 𝜃.
Therefore, this method could further improve the accuracy
and robustness of sensor monitoring system, which was Belief and Plausibility Functions. The belief function Bel is
proved by the numerical simulation results. defined as
Bel (𝐴) = ∑ 𝑚 (𝐵) . (5)
2. Preliminaries 𝐵⊆𝐴
2.1. Dempster-Shafer Evidence Theory. The mathematical ba- The plausibility function Pl is defined as
sis of evidence theory, which was introduced by Dempster [1]
and extended by Shafer [2], pays attention to the question of Pl (𝐴) = ∑ 𝑚 (𝐵) , (6)
belief in the proposition systems. “Belief ” in a proposition is 𝐵∩𝐴 ≠0
not the same as the “chance” of the proposition being true.
When forming propositions, evidence can be considered as Pl (𝐴) = 1 − Bel (𝐴) Pl (0) = 0. (7)
a similar way, and the Dempster-Shafer (D-S) theory pays
The belief function Bel(𝐴) measures the total amount of
attention to “evidence,” “weights of evidence,” and “belief
probability that must be distributed among the elements of
in evidence.” Obviously, the belief structure in the evidence
𝐴. It reflects inevitability and signifies the total degree of
theory conforms with the Bayesian Probability Model [2], and
belief of 𝐴, which constitutes a lower limit function on the
thus the evidence theory can be viewed as a generalization
probability of 𝐴. On the other hand, the plausibility function
and improvement of the classic probability theory. Because
Pl(𝐴) measures the maximal amount of probability that can
of its ability in dealing with uncertainty and imprecision
be distributed among the elements of 𝐴, which describes the
problems, the D-S theory can be widely used in many fields
total belief degree related to 𝐴 and constitutes an upper limit
[3–11]. Formally, the evidence theory concerns with the
function on the probability of 𝐴. The relationship between
following preliminary notations.
Bel(𝐴) and Pl(𝐴) is shown in Figure 1, and the interval
Framework of Discernment. Firstly, evidence theory supposes [Bel(𝐴), Pl(𝐴)]is named as belief interval.
a set of hypotheses 𝜃 as the framework of discernment, which
Rule of Evidence Combination. Suppose 𝑚1 and 𝑚2 are
can be defined as follows:
two mass functions formed based on the information from
𝜃 = {𝐻1 , 𝐻2 , . . . , 𝐻𝑁} , (1) two different information sources in the same frame of
discernment 𝜃 and that Dempster’s rule of combination (also
where the set 𝜃 is composed of 𝑁 exclusive and exhaustive called orthogonal sum), noted by 𝑚 = 𝑚1 ⊕𝑚2 , is the first one
hypotheses. In this paper, it represents the temperature within the framework of evidence theory which can combine
sensors. Assume the power set 𝑃(𝜃) is composed of the 2𝑁 two BPA 𝑚1 and 𝑚2 to yield a new BPA:
propositions of 𝜃 as follows:
∑𝐵∩𝐶=𝐴 𝑚1 (𝐵) ⋅ 𝑚2 (𝐶)
2𝜃 = {0, {𝐻1 } , {𝐻2 } , . . . , {𝐻𝑁} , {𝐻1 ∪ 𝐻2 } , 𝑚 (𝐴) = ,
1−𝑘
(2) (8)
{𝐻1 ∪ 𝐻3 } , . . . , {𝐻1 ∪ 𝐻2 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ∪ 𝐻𝑁}} , 𝑘 = ∑ 𝑚1 (𝐵) ⋅ 𝑚2 (𝐶) ,
𝐵∩𝐶=0
where 0 denotes the empty set. Then, the subset containing
only one element is called singleton. where 𝑘 represents a basic probability mass associated with
conflicts among the sources of evidence. Here, 𝑘 can be
Mass Functions, Focal Elements, and Kernel Elements. When determined by summing the products of mass functions of all
the framework of discernment is determined, the mass pairwise sets without intersection and it is often interpreted
function 𝑚 can be defined as a mapping of the power set 𝑃(𝜃) as a measure of conflict between the data sources. The larger
to a number between 0 and 1, which is shown as follows: the value of 𝑘 is, the more conflicting the sources are and the
𝑚 : 𝑃 (𝜃) 󳨀→ [0, 1] , (3) less informative their combination is.
and it also satisfies the following conditions: 2.2. BP Neural Network Theory. The BP Neural Network
[12, 13] is one of the most important and popular techniques
∑ 𝑚 (𝐴) = 1, in the field of Neural Network, and it is also a kind of
𝐴⊂𝑃(𝜃) (4) supervised learning neural networks, the principle behind
𝑚 (0) = 0. which involves using the steepest gradient descent method
to get any small approximation. A general model of the BP is
The mass function 𝑚 is also called the basic probability shown in Figure 2.
assignment (BPA) function, and 𝑚(𝐴) represents the propor- In Figure 2, there are three layers in BP Neural Network
tion of all relevant and available evidences that supports the (BPNN): input layer, hidden layer, and output layer. Two
Plausible
interval
Supporting Uncertainty Rejecting

interval interval interval
0 Bel(A) Pl(A) 1
Figure 1: Schematic diagram of Bel(𝐴) and Pl(𝐴).
Hidden layer
Input layer Output layer

x1 w1 y1
x2 w2
.. .. .. .. ..
. . . . .
xn wn Black box (cell body) ym
Figure 2: Structure of the BP Neural Network.
nodes of each pair of adjacent layers are directly connected, to 3. The Fault Detection Model Based on
form a link. Each link has a weighted value representing the D-S Evidence Theory
correlation between two nodes. Assuming there are 𝑛 input
neurons, then the weighted values can be updated using a 3.1. Detection Model of Sensor Fault. As discussed above,
training process described by the following equations in two the D-S evidence theory has a strong ability to deal with
steps. uncertain, incomplete, and imprecise information. However,
there is no general method to calculate BPA in D-S evidence
(1) Hidden Layer Stage. The outputs of all neurons in the theory. Therefore, in this paper, a structure of three layers is
hidden layer can be calculated as follows: proposed to detect, locate, and isolate the fault sensor, which
is shown in Figure 3.
𝑛
The first layer is data layer, which is used to gather and
net𝑗 = ∑V𝑖𝑗 𝑥𝑖 𝑗 = 1, 2, . . . , 𝑚,
𝑖=0
acquire data. Here, it is supposed that there are 𝑁 sensors for
(9)
supervising the drying industry process.
𝑦𝑗 = 𝑓𝐻 (net𝑗 ) 𝑗 = 1, 2, . . . , 𝑚, The next two layers are very important, so they are
described in detail in the following parts.
where V𝑖𝑗 are the weights of neurons, net𝑗 is the activation
value of the 𝑗th node, 𝑦𝑗 is the output of the hidden layer, 3.2. Description of Data Layer. The second layer is data-
and 𝑓𝐻 is called as the activation function of a node, which is fusion layer, which is also called data preprocessing. In this
usually a sigmoid function described as follows: part, BP Neural Network is used to get BPA of evidence,
because it has many advantages such as robustness for
1
𝑦𝑗 = 𝑓𝐻 (net𝑗 ) = . (10) uncertain model, strong matching for nonlinear model, short
1 + exp (−net𝑗 ) training period, high accuracy of values, and easily-adjusted
network. The data-fusion layer is a two-input and one-
(2) Output Layer Stage. The outputs of all neurons in the output process. Two-input is the supervising data provided
output layer can be calculated as follows: by sensors 𝑖 and 𝑗, and one-output is 𝑚𝑖𝑗 = ({OK𝑖 , OK𝑗 }),
abbreviated as 𝑚𝑖𝑗 = (OK), which means “the sensors 𝑖 and
𝑚
𝑗 are working well.” If the number of sensors is 𝑁, and the
Output = 𝑓O ( ∑ 𝜔𝑗𝑘 𝑦𝑗 ) , (11) 2
output number of BP Neural Network is 𝐶𝑁 .
𝑗=0
where 𝜔𝑗𝑘 are the weights value of output and 𝑓O is the acti- 3.3. Description of Decision Layer. The third layer has actually
vation function, which is usually a line function. All weights united different frameworks of discernment. The inputs
are initially assigned with random values and modified by the are the outputs of the first layer, and the prior knowl-
delta rule according to the data of learning samples. edge acquired from different sensors is used to calculate
Fusion
Sensor 1 BPNN output
Drying industry filed Sensor 2 BPNN Normalization

D-S
Decision
evidence
. . . result
.. .. .. fusion
Sensor n BPNN
Data acquisition Data preprocessing Decision making
Figure 3: Detection model of sensor fault.
the evidence on the different frameworks of discernment. as residual generation methods or multivariate statistical
However, according to the requirements of evidence the- methods, can also be used.
ory, the combination rule is true only under the unified Supposing 𝑅𝑘 is the refinement operation from 𝜃𝑖𝑗 to 𝜃𝑖𝑗𝑘
frameworks of discernment. Therefore, in the second layer, and 𝜃𝑖𝑗𝑘 is the Cartesian product of 𝜃𝑖𝑗 and 𝜃𝑖𝑘 , then the
the different frameworks of discernment must be united. combination rule of 𝑚𝑖𝑗 and 𝑚𝑖𝑘 is intersection operation rule
As well known, it is possible to combine the two evidences described as follows:
within the different frameworks of discernment 𝜃 and 𝜃󸀠 ,
because they are compatible. In order to combine and 𝑚𝑖𝑗 (𝐴) ⊕ 𝑚𝑖𝑘 (𝐵) = 𝑚𝑖𝑗𝑘 (𝐶)
merge these evidences, the relationships between 𝜃 and 𝜃󸀠
must be defined. There are two operations, refinement and ∀ (𝐴, 𝐵) ∈ (2𝜃𝑖 ×𝜃𝑗 , 2𝜃𝑖 ×𝜃𝑘 ) ,
coarsening [14–16], which can express the correspondences
in the form of compatibility rules. In this paper, the BPAs 𝐶 ∈ 2𝜃𝑖 ×𝜃𝑗 ×𝜃𝑘 ,
defined on different framework of discernment are united
into a common framework of discernment by the refinement 𝑚𝑖𝑗 (𝐴) ⊕ 𝑚𝑖𝑘 (𝐵) = 𝑚𝑖𝑗𝑘 [𝑅𝑘 (𝐴) ∩ 𝑅𝑗 (𝐵)] ,
operation, and the BPA of each sensor defined on its own
framework of discernment is calculated by the coarsening 𝑅𝑘 (𝐴) ∩ 𝑅𝑗 (𝐵) = ( ⋃ [{𝐴, 𝑋}]) ∩ ( ⋃ [{𝐵, 𝑋}]) .
operation. In fact, a refinement operation unifies compatible 𝑋∈𝜃𝑘 𝑋∈𝜃𝑗
elements of 𝜃󸀠 to an element of 𝜃, and a coarsening operation
(14)
is the antagonist relation.
A basic probability assignment of sensor 𝑆𝑖 is defined Supposing there are 𝑀 sensors in practice, then there are
on the set 𝜃𝑖 = {OK𝑖 , KO𝑖 }, where OK𝑖 means “sensor 𝑖 is 𝐶𝑀2
outputs data preprocessed by BPNN. When it is refine-
working well” and KO𝑖 means “sensor 𝑗 is faulty.” Meantime, ment operation, the two different frameworks of discernment
this framework of discernment is defined as 𝜃𝑖𝑗 , which is the must be compatible. For example, 𝑚𝑖𝑗 and 𝑚𝑖𝑘 can be refined,
Cartesian product of 𝜃𝑖 and 𝜃𝑗 : but 𝑚𝑖𝑗 and 𝑚𝑘𝑙 cannot be refined. Therefore, there are in
2 2
𝜃𝑖𝑗 = ({OK𝑖 , OK𝑗 } , {OK𝑖 , KO𝑗 } , {KO𝑖 , OK𝑗 } , {KO𝑖 , KO𝑗 }) . total 𝐶𝑀 𝐶𝑀−2 /2(𝑀 > 3) kinds of combination modes which
(12) cannot be refined.
Supposing 𝑆𝑖 is the coarsening operation from 𝜃𝑖𝑗𝑘 to 𝜃𝑖
Therefore, 𝑚𝑖𝑗 is defined on the set of 𝜃𝑖𝑗 : and 𝑁𝑖𝑗 and 𝑁𝑖𝑘 are the kernels of 𝑚𝑖𝑗 and 𝑚𝑖𝑘 , ∃(𝐴, 𝐵) ∈
(𝑁𝑖𝑗 , 𝑁𝑖𝑘 ), then
𝑚𝑖𝑗 | 2𝜃𝑖 ×𝜃𝑗 󳨀→ [0, 1] ,
𝑆𝑖 [𝑅𝑘 (𝐴) ∩ 𝑅𝑗 (𝐵)] ⊂ 𝑃𝜃𝑖𝑗𝑘 → 𝜃𝑖 (𝐷) , (15)
𝑚𝑖𝑗 ({OK𝑖 , OK𝑗 }) = 𝑑 (𝑉𝑖 , 𝑉𝑗 ) ,
𝑚𝑖𝑗 ({OK𝑖 , KO𝑗 } ∪ {KO𝑖 , OK𝑗 } ∪ {KO𝑖 , KO𝑗 }) where 𝐷 ∈ 2𝜃𝑖 and
= 1 − 𝑑 (𝑉𝑖 , 𝑉𝑗 ) , 𝑚𝑖 (𝐷) = ∑ 𝑚𝑖𝑗𝑘 ({𝐴, 𝐵, 𝐶}) . (16)

(13) 𝐵∈2𝜃𝑗 ,𝐶∈2𝜃𝑘
where 𝑑(𝑉𝑖 , 𝑉𝑗 ) represents a normalized distance between Because the combination operation performs all intersec-
sensor data 𝑉𝑖 and 𝑉𝑗 . Of course, the function 𝑑, such tions within focal elements of each refined belief assignment,
Table 1: Fault preprocessing result of BP Neural Network.
𝑚12 (𝐴) 𝑚13 (𝐴) 𝑚14 (𝐴) 𝑚23 (𝐴) 𝑚24 (𝐴) 𝑚34 (𝐴)
Fault decision result 0.215 0.213 0.219 0.946 0.281 0.276
Table 2: Fault decision result of D-S evidence fusion.

Belief interval of evidence
Combination mode
[Bel1 Pl1 ] [Bel2 Pl2 ] [Bel3 Pl3 ] [Bel4 Pl4 ]
𝑚12 ⊕ 𝑚13 [0.306 0.183] [0.278 0.948] [0.352 0.753]
𝑚12 ⊕ 𝑚14 [0.382 0.348] [0.244 0.818] [0.244 0.303]
𝑚12 ⊕ 𝑚23 [0.201 0.156] [0.193 0.947] [0.284 0.788]
𝑚12 ⊕ 𝑚24 [0.397 0.282] [0.910 0.896] [0.215 0.240]
𝑚13 ⊕ 𝑚14 [0.188 0.258] [0.749 0.828] [0.278 0.232]
𝑚13 ⊕ 𝑚23 [0.489 0.427] [0.268 0.872] [0.291 0.920]
𝑚13 ⊕ 𝑚34 [0.293 0.374] [0.810 0.865] [0.417 0.348]
𝑚14 ⊕ 𝑚24 [0.201 0.338] [0.881 0.948] [0.263 0.361]
𝑚14 ⊕ 𝑚34 [0.352 0.400] [0.936 0.979] [0.338 0.374]
𝑚23 ⊕ 𝑚24 [0.834 0.750] [0.953 0.848] [0.489 0.427]
𝑚12 ⊕ 𝑚13 [0.865 0.876] [0.809 0.750] [0.415 0.352]
𝑚12 ⊕ 𝑚13 [0.822 0.920] [0.788 0.850] [0.395 0.343]
Evidence fusion results [0.023 0.041] [1.000 1.000] [1.000 1.000] [0.067 0.079]
Fault diagnosis results Sensors 1 and 2 are fault, Sensors 3 and 4 are not working well.
it must guarantee that all possible intersection operations BPAs are fused by using evidence theory combination rule to
should have been done. The intersection operations between get the new intervals [Bel(OK), Pl(OK)] shown in Table 2.
evidence sources can be expressed only needing to declare the According to Table 2, through analyzing every pairwise
reference set of the corresponding belief assignments, so it is combination, it can be concluded that the difference of upper
very easy to add new evidence sources (new sensors) without and lower limits of belief interval [Bel(OK), Pl(OK)] is very
affecting existing functions. significant, which shows the great uncertainty of sensor state.
Now, it is possible to get the belief interval of each Therefore, the results of those pairwise combinations cannot
sensor by (5) and (6), which can be described as belief inter- be used to decide the sensor state.
val [Bel(OK𝑖 ), Pl(OK𝑖 )]. And then, the new belief interval In order to fully exploit the maximum of available
[Bel(OK𝑖 ), Pl(OK𝑖 )]combine can be calculated by using (8). information and reduce the uncertainty of sensor state,
Thus, the working state of every sensor can be known. the results of those pairwise combinations should be fur-
ther fused by evidence combination rule. The new interval
[Bel(OK), Pl(OK)] is shown as the font of bold italic in
4. Numerical Simulation Analysis in Table 2.
Drying Industry Process For example, the fusion result of sensor one is [0.026,
0.041]; that is to say, the sum of belief degree of all pieces of
Supposing there are four temperature sensors evidence that precisely support the proposition “sensor one is
𝜃 = {𝐻1 , 𝐻2 , 𝐻3 , 𝐻4 } to supervise the drying process working well” is 0.026 and precisely support the proposition
and the sampling data of every single sensor is the input of “sensor one is fault” is 1 − 0.026 = 0.974, so the fusion
BP Neural Network, then there are 𝐶42 = 6 outputs, which result indicates that “sensor one is fault.” Similarly, the sum of
are 𝑚12 = (OK), 𝑚13 = (OK), 𝑚14 = (OK), 𝑚23 = (OK), belief degree of the proposition “sensor two is working well”
𝑚24 = (OK), and 𝑚34 = (OK). Because of the limitation of is 1.0000 and that of the proposition “sensor two is fault” is
space, the preprocessing result of BP Neural Network and 1−1.0000 = 0.0000, so the fusion result indicates that “sensor
part of intermediate result will be given directly in Table 1 two is working well.” To sum up, sensors one and four are
without detailed description. fault, and sensors two and three are working well.
According to the discussion in Sections 3.2 and 3.3, there
are 𝐶62 = 15 kinds of combination modes, but 𝐶42 𝐶4−2 2
/2 = 3 5. Conclusions
kinds of combination modes cannot be refined. Therefore,
there are 15 − 3 = 12 kinds of combination modes that can be In this paper, a modular and generic framework for multiple
refined. Furthermore, according to the method presented in fault detection and isolation of sensors was presented with a
Section 3.3, each two preprocessing results are firstly operated two-layer structure. In data layer, through fully exploiting the
by refinement, then the refinement results are operated by sensor data, the data preprocessing could be realized by BP
coarsening to get the BPA of each sensor, and finally those Neural Network to overcome the disadvantages caused by the
change of input sensor data and calculate the BPA of evidence. Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks, vol. 2013, Article ID
In decision layer, a modular and generic framework of sensor 652051, 12 pages, 2013.
network for multiple fault detection was presented, and the [9] F. Browne, N. Rooney, W. Liu et al., “Integrating textual analysis
different but compatible frameworks of discernment were and evidential reasoning for decision making in engineering
united without affecting the existing relationship, according design,” Knowledge-Based Systems, vol. 52, pp. 165–175, 2013.
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Conflict of Interests 789–803, 2013.
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All the authors declared that there was no conflict of interests exhaustive frames of discernment: plausibilities correction
regarding the publication of this paper. methods,” International Journal of Approximate Reasoning, vol.
18, no. 1-2, pp. 1–19, 1998.
Acknowledgments [15] J.-P. Steyer, L. Lardon, and O. Bernard, “Sensors network diag-
nosis in anaerobic digestion processes using evidence theory,”
This work was supported by the Nation Nature Sci- Water Science and Technology, vol. 50, no. 11, pp. 21–29, 2004.
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Nature Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province of networks and evidence theory in fault diagnosis of equipments,”
China (no. QC2012C069), and the Fundamental Research Computer Engineering and Applications, vol. 22, pp. 13–219,
Funds for the Central Universities (nos. HEUCF130810 and 2004.
HEUCF130817).
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/435697
Research Article
Mixed Convection Unsteady Stagnation-Point Flow
towards a Stretching Sheet with Slip Effects
Hui Chen1,2
1
School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, Fujian 350108, China
2
The State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power Transmission and Control, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310027, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Hui Chen; felixceng@fzu.edu.cn
Received 29 January 2014; Accepted 30 March 2014; Published 17 April 2014
Copyright © 2014 Hui Chen. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
The paper studies the unsteady mixed convection flow of an incompressible viscous fluid about a stagnation point on a stretching
sheet in presence of velocity and thermal slips. The governing equations are transformed into the ordinary differential equations
by using similarity transformations. The transformed equations are solved numerically by an efficient shooting method. The
characteristics of the flow and heat transfer features for governing parameters are analyzed and discussed for both the assisting
and opposing flows. It is found that dual solutions exist for certain range of buoyancy parameter 𝜆 which again depend on the
unsteadiness parameter 𝛼 and the slip parameters (i.e., 𝛿 and 𝛾). The numerical results show that the increase of unsteadiness
parameter and the slip effects cause increment in the existence range of similarity solution. The effects of unsteadiness parameter,
the velocity ratio parameter, and the velocity and thermal slip parameters on the velocity and temperature distributions are analyzed
and discussed.
1. Introduction also investigated an unsteady flow near a stagnation point on

a stretching sheet in the presence of a time-dependent free
The stagnation-point flow due to a stretching sheet has stream. Some important properties of unsteady flows on a
received much attention because of its important practical stretching sheet were described by Bachok et al. [16], Ishak
applications in industry and practical applications, such as et al. [17], and Hayat et al. [18].
extrusion of polymers, glass fiber, the cooling of metal- The mixed convection in stagnation flow is a topic of
lic plate, and the aerodynamics. As a hot topic in fluid significance in fluid mechanics when the buoyancy forces
mechanics, the two-dimensional stagnation flow was first due to the temperature difference between the surface and
studied by Hiemenz [1]. The result has been later extended the free stream become large, in the sense that both the
to axisymmetric case by Homann [2] and improved by flow and thermal fields are greatly affected by the buoyancy
Howarth [3]. Following these works, various aspects of forces. Much interest has been given to the free and forced
stagnation-point flow and heat transfer have been studied convection stagnation-point flows of a viscous fluid. Devi
and many literatures have been generated on this problem et al. [19] studied the unsteady laminar mixed convection
[4–11]. The flow becomes time dependent in certain aspects, in two-dimensional stagnation-point flows around heated
but the physical situation described in the above studies is surfaces by taking both cases of an arbitrary wall temperature
under the condition of a steady state. Consequently, it is and arbitrary surface heat flux variations. The unsteady
necessary to consider the unsteadiness of the flow. Nazar et mixed convection flow of a micropolar fluid was studied
al. [12] considered an unsteady boundary layer flow in the by Lok et al. [20], where they found the smooth transition
region of the stagnation point on a stretching sheet, while from the initial unsteady-state flow to the final steady-state
Bhattacharyya [13, 14] investigated the unsteady stagnation- flow. Recently, Ishak et al. [21] reported the existence of
point flow over a shrinking sheet. Sharma and Singh [15] dual solutions for both assisting and opposing flows of an
electrically conducting fluid past a vertical permeable flat 𝑇𝑤 have been chosen in order to transform the governing
plate. Hayat et al. [22] investigated the effects of mixed partial differential equations into a set of ordinary differential
convection unsteady stagnation-point flow of viscous fluid equations, thereby facilitating the exploration of the effects
with variable free stream velocity. of the controlling parameters. It should be noticed that the
In all the above studies, the assumption of the flow field expressions for 𝑢𝑤 , 𝑢𝑒 , and 𝑇𝑤 are valid for time 𝑡 < 1/𝑐, and
obeys the conventional no-slip condition at the boundary. 𝑎, 𝑏, 𝑐 have dimension time−1 .
However, the assumption of the conventional no-slip con- Using the boundary layer approximations, the governing
dition at the boundary is not true and should be replaced equations for this problem are
by partial slip boundary condition in certain situations [25].
With a slip at the wall boundary, the flow behavior and 𝜕𝑢 𝜕V
+ = 0, (1)
the shear stress in the fluid are quite different from those 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦
in the no-slip cases. Wang [26] gave an exact solution of
the Navier-Stokes equations for the flow due to a stretching 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑢𝑒 𝜕𝑢 𝜕2 𝑢
+𝑢 +V = + 𝑢𝑒 𝑒 + ] 2 + 𝑔𝛽 (𝑇 − 𝑇∞ ) ,
boundary with slip. Later, he [27] considered the effect of 𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦 𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦
stagnation slip flow on the heat transfer from a moving (2)
plate. Ariel et al. [28, 29] studied the effects of slip on the
flow of an elastic-viscous fluid with some other physical 𝜕𝑇 𝜕𝑇 𝜕𝑇 𝜕2 𝑇
features. Many researchers have also investigated the slip +𝑢 +V =𝑘 2, (3)
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦 𝜕𝑦
flows in different configurations recently [30–35]. It can be
pointed out here that less work has been done on the mixed where 𝑢 and V are the velocities in the 𝑥 and 𝑦 directions,
convection flow with slip effect at the boundary. Cao and ] is the kinematic viscosity, 𝑔 is the acceleration due to
Baker [36] considered the slip effects on the mixed convective gravity, 𝛽 is the thermal expansion coefficient, 𝑇 is the fluid
flow and heat transfer from a vertical plate and reported temperature, and 𝑘 is the thermal diffusivity. The boundary
the local nonsimilarity solutions. Mukhopadhyay [37, 38] conditions with partial slip are given by
investigated effects of slip on unsteady mixed convective flow
and heat transfer past a stretching surface and a porous 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑇
V = 0, 𝑢 = 𝑢𝑤 + 𝐿] , 𝑇 = 𝑇𝑤 + 𝑀 at 𝑦 = 0,
stretching surface. Bhattacharyya et al. [39] studied the mixed 𝜕𝑦 𝜕𝑦 (4)
convective flow adjacent to a vertical permeable stretching
sheet in porous medium with slip effects. The similarity 𝑢 = 𝑢𝑒 , 𝑇 = 𝑇∞ as 𝑦 󳨀→ ∞.
solution of the mixed convection boundary layer flow near
the stagnation-point on a vertical surface with the slip effect Here 𝐿 = 𝑙√1 − 𝑐𝑡 and 𝑀 = 𝑚√1 − 𝑐𝑡 are the velocity slip
was studied by Aman et al. [40]. Very recently, Nik Long factor and the thermal slip factor and 𝑙 and 𝑚 are the initial
et al. [41] studied mixed convection boundary layer caused values of velocity and thermal slip factors, respectively.
by time-dependent velocity and the surface temperature in To obtain the similarity solution, we now introduce the
the two-dimensional unsteady stagnation-point flow over a following similarity transformations:
stretching vertical sheet with the no-slip boundary condition.
Motivated by the above studies, in this paper we inves- 𝑏 𝑏]
tigate the behaviour of the mixed convection unsteady 𝜂 = 𝑦√ , 𝜓 = 𝑥𝑓 (𝜂) √ ,
] (1 − 𝑐𝑡) 1 − 𝑐𝑡
stagnation-point flow towards a stretching sheet with slip (5)
effect on the boundary. The momentum and energy equations 𝑇 − 𝑇∞
are solved numerically by a shooting method. The effects of 𝜃= ,
𝑇𝑤 − 𝑇∞
the key parameters on the flow and heat transfer characteris-
tics are analyzed and discussed. To the best of our knowledge, where 𝜓 is the steam function which automatically assures
this problem has not been studied before. mass conservation (1). The velocity components are obtained
as
𝜕𝜓 𝑏𝑥 󸀠
2. Flow Analysis 𝑢= = 𝑓 (𝜂) ,
𝜕𝑦 1 − 𝑐𝑡
Consider an unsteady two-dimensional flow of a viscous (6)
and incompressible fluid in the vicinity of a stagnation- 𝜕𝜓 𝑏]
point towards a vertical stretching sheet. The sheet stretching V=− = −𝑓 (𝜂) √ .
𝜕𝑥 1 − 𝑐𝑡
velocity is 𝑢𝑤 = 𝑎𝑥/(1 − 𝑐𝑡) where 𝑐 is a parameter showing
the unsteadiness of the problem and 𝑎 is a constant with Substituting (5) into (2) and (3), we get
𝑎 > 0 for a stretching sheet. The free stream velocity is
𝑢𝑒 = 𝑏𝑥/(1 − 𝑐𝑡), where 𝑏 > 0 is the strength of the stagnation 𝜂𝑓󸀠󸀠
flow. The surface temperature 𝑇𝑤 of the stretching sheet varies 𝑓󸀠󸀠󸀠 + 𝑓𝑓󸀠󸀠 − 𝑓󸀠2 + 𝛼 (1 − 𝑓󸀠 − ) + 𝜆𝜃 + 1 = 0,
2
with the distance 𝑥 as 𝑇𝑤 = 𝑇∞ + 𝑇0 𝑥/(1 − 𝑐𝑡)2 , where (7)
𝑇∞ is the constant free stream temperature with 𝑇0 ≥ 0. 𝜃󸀠󸀠 + Pr (𝑓𝜃󸀠 − 𝑓󸀠 𝜃) −
Pr𝛼
(𝜂𝜃󸀠 + 4𝜃) = 0,
The particular forms of the above expressions for 𝑢𝑤 , 𝑢𝑒 , and 2
Table 1: Values of 𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) and −𝜃󸀠 (0) for different values of Pr when Table 2: Values of 𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) and −𝜃󸀠 (0) for different values of Pr when
𝛿 = 𝛾 = 0, 𝛼 = 0, 𝜀 = 1, and 𝜆 = 1 for assisting flow. 𝛿 = 𝛾 = 0, 𝛼 = 0, 𝜀 = 1, and 𝜆 = −1 for opposing flow.
Ishak et al. [23] Pal [24] Present work Ishak et al. [23] Pal [24] Present work
Pr Pr
𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) −𝜃󸀠 (0) 𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) −𝜃󸀠 (0) 𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) −𝜃󸀠 (0) 𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) −𝜃󸀠 (0) 𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) −𝜃󸀠 (0) 𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) −𝜃󸀠 (0)
0.72 0.3645 1.0931 0.36449 1.09331 0.36449 1.09311 0.72 −0.3852 1.0293 −0.38519 1.02925 −0.38519 1.02925
6.8 0.1804 3.2902 0.18042 3.28957 0.18042 3.28957 6.8 −0.1832 3.2466 −0.18323 3.24609 −0.18323 3.24608
20.0 0.1175 5.6230 0.11750 5.62014 0.11750 5.62013 20.0 −0.1183 5.5923 −0.11831 5.58960 −0.11831 5.58959
40.0 0.0873 7.9463 0.08724 7.93831 0.08724 7.93830 40.0 −0.0876 7.9227 −0.08758 7.91491 −0.08758 7.91489
60.0 0.0729 9.7327 0.07284 9.71801 0.07284 9.71800 60.0 −0.0731 9.7126 −0.07304 9.69818 −0.07304 9.69817
80.0 0.0640 11.2413 0.06394 11.21875 0.06394 11.21873 80.0 −0.0642 11.2235 −0.06408 11.20118 −0.06408 11.20117
100.0 0.0578 12.5726 0.05773 12.54113 0.05773 12.54109 100.0 −0.0579 12.5564 0.05783 12.52519 −0.05783 12.52514
where 𝛼 = 𝑐/𝑏 is the unsteadiness parameter, Pr = ]/𝑘 𝛿 = 0, 𝛾 = 0, 𝜀 = 1, Pr = 0.72

1.5
is the Prandtl number, 𝜆 is the buoyancy or mixed convection 1
parameter defined as 𝜆 = Gr𝑥 /Re2𝑥 with Gr𝑥 = 𝑔𝛽(𝑇𝑤 − 0.5
𝑇∞ )𝑥3 /]2 being the local Grashof number, and Re𝑥 = 𝑢𝑒 𝑥/] 0
is the local Reynolds number. It should be noticed that 𝜆 = −0.5 𝛼 = 0, 0.1, 0.2
f󳰀󳰀 (0)
𝑔𝛽𝑇0 /𝑏2 is a constant with 𝜆 > 0 and 𝜆 < 0 corresponding −1
−1.5 𝜆c1 = (−5.21845, −2.55419)
to assisting flow and opposing flow, respectively. The corre- 𝜆
−2
𝜆 c2 = (−4.81669, −2.43041)
sponding boundary conditions (4) become −2.5 𝜆 𝜆c2 c3 𝜆c3 = (−4.43942, −2.31178)
c1
−3
𝑓 (0) = 0, (8) −6 −5 −4 −3 −2 −1 0 1 2 3 4
𝜆
𝑓󸀠 (0) = 𝜀 + 𝛿𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) , (9)
First solution branch
𝜃 (0) = 1 + 𝛾𝜃󸀠 (0) , (10) Second solution branch
Figure 1: Variation of 𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) with 𝜆 for different values of 𝛼 under

𝑓󸀠 (∞) = 1, 𝜃 (∞) = 0, (11) no-slip boundary condition.
where 𝛿 = 𝑙√𝑏] and 𝛾 = 𝑚√𝑏/] are the dimensionless

velocity and thermal slip parameters, respectively, and 𝜀 =
𝑎/𝑏 is the ratio of stretching parameter and free steam velocity an improved shooting method described by Zheng et al.
parameter. [42]. The results show the influences of some important
The physical quantities of interest are the skin friction nondimensional parameters on the feature of the flow and
coefficient 𝐶𝑓 and the local Nusselt number Nu𝑥 , which are the heat transfer characteristics. In order to validate the
defined as numerical method used in this study and to judge the
𝜏 𝑥𝑞𝑤 accuracy of the present analysis, the present values of the skin
𝐶𝑓 = 2𝑤 , Nu𝑥 = , (12) friction coefficient 𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) and the local Nusselt number −𝜃󸀠 (0)
𝜌𝑢𝑒 /2 𝜅 (𝑇𝑤 − 𝑇∞ )
for different values of Pr are compared with those obtained by
where the surface shear stress 𝜏𝑤 and the surface heat flux 𝑞𝑤 Ishak et al. [23] and Pal [24] when 𝛿 = 0 and 𝛾 = 0 (absence of
are given by the slip effect), 𝛼 = 0 (the steady-state flow), 𝜀 = 1, and 𝜆 = ±1
for assisting and opposing flow. The quantitative comparisons
𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑇 are shown in Tables 1 and 2 and found to be in very good
𝜏𝑤 = 𝜇( ) , 𝑞𝑤 = −𝜅( ) . (13) agreement.
𝜕𝑦 𝑦=0 𝜕𝑦 𝑦=0
The skin friction coefficient, local Nusselt number, veloc-
Using the similarity transformations (5) and the relation (13) ity, and temperature profiles are shown in Figures 1, 2, 3, 4,
into (12), we get 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. Figures 1 and 2 show the variation
of skin friction coefficient 𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) and local Nusselt number
1 Nu𝑥 −𝜃󸀠 (0) with 𝜆 for the unsteadiness parameter 𝛼 = 0, 0.1, 0.3
𝐶 √Re𝑥 = 𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) , = −𝜃󸀠 (0) , (14)
2 𝑓 √Re𝑥 in the absence of slip when the velocity ratio parameter 𝜀 = 1
and the Prandtl number Pr = 0.72. Moreover, the variations
with Re𝑥 = 𝑢𝑒 𝑥/] being the local Reynolds number. of 𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) and −𝜃󸀠 (0) in the presence of slip (i.e., 𝛿 = 0.2, 𝛾 = 1)
are, respectively, shown in Figures 3 and 4.
3. Results and Discussion It is seen from Figures 1–4 that the dual solutions exist for
the buoyancy opposing flow (𝜆 < 0), whereas the solution is
The nonlinear ordinary differential (7) subject to the bound- unique for the assisting flow (𝜆 > 0). It is worth mentioning
ary conditions (8)–(11) have been numerically solved using that −𝜃󸀠 (0) > 0 for all values of the parameters as shown
𝛿 = 0, 𝛾 = 0, 𝜀 = 1, Pr = 0.72 𝛿 = 0.2, 𝛾 = 1, 𝜀 = 1, Pr = 0.72

0.6
1.2 0.55
1 0.5
𝜆c1 𝜆c1 𝜆c2
𝜆c2 𝛼 = 0, 0.1, 0.2 0.45 𝛼 = 0, 0.1, 0.2
−𝜃󳰀 (0)
0.8 𝜆c3
−𝜃󳰀 (0)
𝜆c3 0.4
0.6 𝜆c1 = (−5.21845, 0.85603) 0.35
𝜆c1 = (−7.77900, 0.45254)
𝜆c2 = (−4.81669, 0.79493) 0.3
0.4 𝜆c2 = (−6.96597, 0.43487)
𝜆c3 = (−4.43942, 0.73066) 0.25 𝜆c3 = (−6.21016, 0.41651)
0.2 0.2
−6 −5 −4 −3 −2 −1 0 1 2 3 4 −8 −6 −4 −2 0 2 4
𝜆 𝜆
First solution branch First solution branch

Second solution branch Second solution branch
Figure 2: Variation of −𝜃󸀠 (0) with 𝜆 for different values of 𝛼 under Figure 4: Variation of −𝜃󸀠 (0) with 𝜆 for different values of 𝛼 under
no-slip boundary condition. slip boundary condition.
𝛿 = 0.2, 𝛾 = 1, 𝜀 = 1, Pr = 0.72, 𝜆 = −5
1
𝛿 = 0.2, 𝛾 = 1, 𝜀 = 1, Pr = 0.72 𝛼 = 0, 0.1, 0.2
0.8
0.5
0.6
0
f󳰀 (𝜂)
0.4
𝛼 = 0, 0.1, 0.2 0.2
−0.5
𝛼 = 0, 0.1, 0.2
f󳰀󳰀 (0)
0
−1
𝜆c1 = (−7.77900, −1.59889) −0.2
−1.5 𝜆c2 𝜆c3 𝜆c2 = (−6.96597, −1.52421)
𝜆c1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
𝜆c3 = (−6.21016, −1.44160)
−2 𝜂
−8 −6 −4 −2 0 2 4
𝜆 First solution branch
Second solution branch
Second solution branch Figure 5: Influence of unsteady parameter 𝛼 on velocity profiles
𝑓󸀠 (𝜂).
Figure 3: Variation of 𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) for different values of 𝛼 under slip
boundary condition.
In Figures 5–8, velocity profiles 𝑓󸀠 (𝜂) and temperature

profiles 𝜃(𝜂) are shown for different values of the unsteadiness
in Figures 3 and 4, which means that the heat is transferred parameter 𝛼 and velocity ratio parameter 𝜀, respectively, in
from the hot surface to the cool fluid. In the dual solutions presence of slip (𝛿 = 0.2, 𝛾 = 1) for both the first and second
range, we identify the first solution and second solution in solution branches. It is seen from Figures 5 and 7 that, for
the following discussion by the principle that the first solution the first solution branch, the velocity 𝑓󸀠 (𝜂) increases with
has the higher values of 𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) and −𝜃󸀠 (0) for a given 𝜆 than unsteadiness parameter 𝛼 or the velocity ratio parameter 𝜀
the second solution. It is observed that no solutions exist and this implies an accompanying reduction of the thickness
when 𝜆 < 𝜆 𝑐 < 0, where 𝜆 𝑐 is the critical value for which of the momentum boundary layer. The opposite trend can be
(7) have no solutions. Further, these figures show that the observed for the second solution branch. From Figures 6 and
solutions could be obtained for all values of 𝜆 > 0 (assisting 8, it is observed that the temperature 𝜃(𝜂) decreases with the
flow), while for 𝜆 < 0 (opposing flow), solutions exist only increase of 𝛼 or 𝜀 for the first solution branch while a different
when 𝜆 𝑐 < 𝜆 < 0. Based on our computations, we find trend is observed for the second solution branch.
that 𝜆 𝑐 = −4.43942, −4.81669, −5.21845, respectively, for 𝛼 = The samples of the 𝑓󸀠 (𝜂) and 𝜃(𝜂) for the selected values
0, 0.1, 0.2 under nonslip condition shown in Figures 1 and 2, of the slip parameters are investigated in Figures 9–12. The
and 𝜆 𝑐 = −6.21016, −6.96597, −7.77900, respectively, for 𝛼 = effect of velocity slip parameter 𝛿 is shown in Figures 9
0, 0.1, 0.2 under slip condition shown in Figures 3 and 4. Thus, and 10, while the influence of thermal slip parameter 𝛾 is
it can be concluded that the solution domain expands as the shown in Figures 11 and 12. It is clear that effects of the two
unsteadiness parameter 𝛼 increases. Moreover, the velocity type slips on velocity and temperature profiles are opposite.
and thermal slip cause more increment in the existence range For the first solution branch, an increase in velocity slip
of similarity solution. It is also noteworthy that the impact of parameter 𝛿 would decrease 𝑓󸀠 (𝜂) and increase 𝜃(𝜂), while an
𝛼 on −𝜃󸀠 (0) in Figures 2 and 4 is more pronounced than on increase in thermal slip parameter 𝛾 would increase 𝑓󸀠 (𝜂) and
the 𝑓󸀠󸀠 (0) in Figures 1 and 3. decrease 𝜃(𝜂). For the second solution branch, the velocity
𝛿 = 0.2, 𝛾 = 1, 𝜀 = 1, Pr = 0.72, 𝜆 = −5 𝛿 = 0.2, 𝛾 = 1, 𝛼 = 0.1, Pr = 0.72, 𝜆 = −3

0.7 0.8
0.6 0.7
0.5 0.6
0.4 0.5
𝛼 = 0, 0.1, 0.2 𝜀 = 0, 0.5, 1.0
𝜃(𝜂)
𝜃(𝜂)
0.3 0.4
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.1
𝛼 = 0, 0.1, 0.2 0.1
0 𝜀 = 0, 0.5, 1.0
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
𝜂 𝜂
First solution branch First solution branch

Second solution branch Second solution branch
Figure 6: Influence of unsteady parameter 𝛼 on temperature profiles Figure 8: Influence of velocity ratio parameter 𝜀 on temperature
𝜃(𝜂). profiles 𝜃(𝜂).
𝛿 = 0.2, 𝛾 = 1, 𝛼 = 0.1, Pr = 0.72, 𝜆 = −3

𝛼 = 0.1, 𝛾 = 1, 𝜀 = 1, Pr = 0.72, 𝜆 = −5
1 𝜀 = 0, 0.5, 1.0
1 𝛿 = 0, 0.2, 0.5
0.8
0.8
0.6
0.6
0.4
f󳰀 (𝜂)
0.4
f󳰀 (𝜂)
0.2
𝜀 = 0, 0.5, 1.0 0.2 𝛿 = 0, 0.2, 0.5
0
0
−0.2
−0.4 −0.2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
𝜂
𝜂
Figure 7: Influence of velocity ratio parameter 𝜀 on velocity profiles
Figure 9: Influence of velocity slip parameters 𝛿 on velocity profiles
𝑓󸀠 (𝜂).
𝑓󸀠 (𝜂).
and temperature profiles (𝑓󸀠 (𝜂) and 𝜃(𝜂)) show the opposite governing equations are reduced to the ordinary differential
trend. equations by the similarity transformation and then numer-
It is evident from Figures 5–12 that the first solution ically solved to obtain the influence of key parameters on
displays the thinner boundary layer thickness compared the skin friction coefficient, the local Nusselt number, the
with the second solution. From Figures 5, 7, 9, and 10, it velocity, and temperature profiles. The existence and duality
is interesting to note that for the second solution branch of solutions are displayed in Figures 1–4 with the buoyancy
the value of 𝑓󸀠 (𝜂) initially decreases with 𝜂 to a negative parameter 𝜆, and the range of 𝜆 for which the similarity
value and for small 𝜂 it starts to increase and ultimately it solution exists increases with the unsteadiness parameter 𝛼.
becomes the positive value 1. Thus the velocity profiles exhibit Moreover, the velocity and thermal slip parameters cause
reverse flow (𝑓󸀠 (𝜂) < 0) near the wall (𝜂 = 0). Moreover, more increment in the existence range of similarity solution.
the samples of velocity and temperature profiles presented The effects of the unsteadiness parameter 𝛼, velocity ratio
in Figures 5–12 show that the boundary conditions (11) are parameter 𝜀, velocity slip parameter 𝛿, and thermal slip
asymptotically satisfied, which supports the validity of the parameter 𝛾 on the velocity and temperature profiles are
obtained numerical results. shown in Figures 5–12. It is noticed that the reverse flow
occurs near the sheet. Different flow behavior is observed
with the first and second solution branches.
4. Conclusions
In this paper, we have studied the mixed convection unsteady Conflict of Interests
boundary layer flow and heat transfer about a stagnation-
point towards a stretching sheet in the presence of both The author declares that there is no conflict of interests
velocity and thermal slip conditions at the boundary. The regarding the publication of this paper.
𝛼 = 0.1, 𝛾 = 1, 𝜀 = 1, Pr = 0.72, 𝜆 = −5 Acknowledgments

0.7
0.6 This work is supported by the National Natural Science
0.5 Foundation of China (Grant no. 51305080), Fujian Provincial
0.4 𝛿 = 0, 0.2, 0.5 Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 2012J05089),
and Visiting Scholar Foundation of Key Lab in University
𝜃(𝜂)
0.3
(Grant no. GZKF-201217).
0.2
0.1
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/861708
Research Article
Effects of Wall Shear Stress on MHD Conjugate
Flow over an Inclined Plate in a Porous Medium with
Ramped Wall Temperature
Arshad Khan,1 Ilyas Khan,2 Farhad Ali,1 and Sharidan Shafie1

1
Department of Mathematical Sciences, Faculty of Science, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia,
(UTM) 81310 Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia
2
College of Engineering Majmaah University, P.O. Box 66, Majmaah 11952, Saudi Arabia
Correspondence should be addressed to Sharidan Shafie; sharidan@utm.my
Received 3 December 2013; Accepted 22 February 2014; Published 2 April 2014
Copyright © 2014 Arshad Khan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
This study investigates the effects of an arbitrary wall shear stress on unsteady magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flow of a Newtonian
fluid with conjugate effects of heat and mass transfer. The fluid is considered in a porous medium over an inclined plate with ramped
temperature. The influence of thermal radiation in the energy equations is also considered. The coupled partial differential equations
governing the flow are solved by using the Laplace transform technique. Exact solutions for velocity and temperature in case of both
ramped and constant wall temperature as well as for concentration fields are obtained. It is found that velocity solutions are more
general and can produce a huge number of exact solutions correlative to various fluid motions. Graphical results are provided for
various embedded flow parameters and discussed in detail.
1. Introduction as the axial coordinate using an implicit finite difference

scheme. The results of an experimental study on natural
The study of the natural convection heat transfer from convection between inclined plates were presented by [6].
different geometries of the surfaces has received much atten- MHD natural convection from a nonisothermal inclined
tion in recent years both analytically and experimentally. surface with multiple suction/injection slots embedded in a
Amongst them a very little attention has been given to the thermally stratified high porosity medium has been studied
problem of natural convection over an inclined plate as by [7]. A numerical solution of the transient free convection
shown in Figure 1. Free convection heat transfer from an MHD flow of an incompressible viscous fluid past a semi-
inclined surface has important role in making engineering infinite inclined plate with variable surface heat and mass flux
devices and natural environment. Natural convection over is presented by [8]. Unsteady free convection flow of water
an inclined plate was first studied experimentally by Rich at its maximum density past a semi-infinite inclined plate
[1]. A solution for the boundary layer on a horizontal plate with variable surface temperature of the plate was studied
showing that if the plate is heated and faces downwards or by [9]. An investigation deals with study of laminar natural
is cooled and faces upwards was presented by Stewartson convection flow of a viscous fluid over a semi-infinite flat
[2]. Free convection heat transfer from an isothermal plate plate inclined at a small angle to the horizontal with internal
with arbitrary inclination was investigated by [3]. Chen et heat generation and variable viscosity was presented by [10].
al. [4] have obtained a numerical solution for the problem Pressure effects on unsteady free convection and heat transfer
of natural convection over an inclined plate with variable flow of an incompressible fluid past a semi-infinite inclined
surface temperature. Ganesan and Ekambavanan [5] solved plate with impulsive and uniformly accelerated motion were
the unsteady natural convection boundary layer flow over a analyzed by [11]. Chemical reaction effects on MHD free
semi-infinite inclined plate with the wall temperature varying convection flow through a porous medium bounded by
an inclined surface were studied by [12]. An analysis to g

study the heat and mass transfer characteristics of natural
convection flow along horizontal and inclined plates with
variable surface temperature/concentration or heat/mass flux x∗
under the combined buoyancy effects of thermal and mass
diffusion was presented by [13]. A steady two dimensional
MHD free convection and mass transfer flow past an inclined
semi-infinite surface in the presence of heat generation has B0 Tw∗
been studied numerically in [14]. A two-dimensional steady Momentum
boundary layer
MHD mixed convection and mass transfer flow over a semi- ∗
Cw
infinite porous inclined plate in the presence of thermal
Thermal
radiation with variable suction and thermophoresis has been boundary layer
analyzed numerically by [15]. Heat and mass transfer of an Concentration
incompressible viscous fluid past a semi-infinite inclined 𝛼
boundary layer
surface with first-order homogeneous chemical reaction by z∗ Porous medium
Lie group analysis had been presented by [16]. Recently, ∗
the exact analysis of combined effects of radiation and T∞ ∗
C∞
chemical reaction on the MHD free convection flow of an y ∗
electrically conducting incompressible viscous fluid over an
inclined plate embedded in a porous medium was studied Figure 1: Physical configuration of the problem.
by [17]. The inherent irreversibility and thermal stability in a
gravity driven temperature dependent variable viscosity thin
liquid film along an inclined heated plate with convective
cooling were investigated by Makinde [18]. The inherent
irreversibility in hydromagnetic boundary layer flow of vari- in the literature. The results for velocity, temperature, and
able viscosity fluid over a semi-infinite flat plate under the concentration profiles are plotted graphically and discussed
influence of thermal radiation and Newtonian heating was for the embedded flow parameters.
analyzed by [19]. Saha et al. [20] investigated that a natural
convection boundary layer adjacent to an inclined semi-
infinite plate subject to a temperature boundary condition
which follows a ramped function up until some specified time 2. Mathematical Formulation
and then remains constant. Saha et al. [21] also performed a
scaling analysis for the transient boundary layer established Let us consider the unsteady MHD free convection flow
adjacent to an inclined flat plate following a ramp cooling of an incompressible viscous fluid over an infinite inclined
boundary condition. Recently, Ismail et al. [22] conducted the plate. The physical configuration of the problem is shown in
combined effects of heat and mass transfer on unsteady MHD Figure 1. The 𝑥-axis is taken along the plate and the 𝑦-axis
free convection flow in a porous medium past an infinite is taken normal to it. Initially, both the plate and fluid are
inclined plate with ramped wall temperature. Fetecau et al. at stationary conditions with the constant temperature 𝑇∞
[23] investigated free convection flow near a vertical plate that and concentration 𝐶∞ . After time 𝑡 = 0+ , the plate applies
applies arbitrary shear stress to the fluid when the thermal a time dependent shear stress 𝑓(𝑡) to the fluid along the 𝑥-
radiation and porosity effects are taken into consideration. axis. Meanwhile, the temperature of the plate is raised or
However, from the literature, it is found that no study has lowered to 𝑇∞ +(𝑇𝑤 −𝑇∞ )(𝑡/𝑡0 ) when 𝑡 ≤ 𝑡0 , and, thereafter,
been presented to investigate the unsteady MHD conjugate for 𝑡 > 𝑡0 , is maintained at constant temperature 𝑇𝑤 and
flow of an incompressible viscous fluid in a porous medium concentration is raised to 𝐶𝑤 . The radiation term is also
past over an inclined plate with ramped temperature in the considered in the energy equation. However, the radiative
presence of radiation under the boundary condition of wall heat flux is considered negligible in 𝑥-direction compared
shear stress. to 𝑦-direction. We assume that the flow is laminar and the
Therefore, the aim of the present investigation is to pro- fluid is grey absorbing-emitting radiation but no scattering
vide exact solutions for MHD conjugate flow of a Newtonian medium. Using Boussinesq’s approximation and neglecting
fluid past an infinite plate that applies arbitrary shear stress the viscous dissipation, the equations governing the flow are
to the fluid. More exactly, we consider the inclined plate given by [22]
situated in the (𝑥, 𝑧) plane of a Cartesian coordinate system
𝑂𝑥𝑦𝑧, the domain of the flow is the porous half-space 𝑦 >
0, and the arbitrary shear stress on the plate is given by
𝑓(𝑡)/𝜇, where 𝑓(𝑡) is an arbitrary function and 𝜇 is the 𝜕𝑢 𝜕2 𝑢
= ] 2 + 𝑔𝛽𝑇 (𝑇 − 𝑇∞ ) cos (𝛼)
viscosity. Closed form solutions of the initial and boundary 𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑦
value problems that govern the flow are obtained by means of (1)
2
the Laplace transform. Some special cases are extracted from ] 𝜎𝐵
+ 𝑔𝛽𝐶 (𝐶−𝐶∞ ) cos (𝛼)− 𝑢− 0 𝑢; 𝑦, 𝑡 > 0,
the general solutions together with some limiting solutions 𝐾 𝜌
𝜕𝑇 𝜕2 𝑇 𝜕𝑞 where Pr, ], and 𝑁𝑟 are defined by

𝜌𝐶𝑝 =𝑘 2 − 𝑟 𝑦, 𝑡 > 0, (2)
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑦 𝜕𝑦
𝜇𝐶𝑝 3
𝜕𝐶 𝜕2 𝐶 𝜇 16𝜎𝑇∞
=𝐷 2 𝑦, 𝑡 > 0, (3) Pr = , ]= , 𝑁𝑟 = . (8)
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑦 𝑘 𝜌 3𝑘𝑘𝑅
where 𝑢, 𝑇, 𝐶, ], 𝜌, 𝑔, 𝛽𝑇 , 𝛽𝐶, 𝐾, 𝜎, 𝐵0 , 𝐶𝑝 , 𝑘, 𝑞𝑟 , and 𝐷 are By introducing the following dimensionless variables

the velocity of the fluid in 𝑥-direction, its temperature and
concentration, the kinematic viscosity, the constant density,
the gravitational acceleration, the heat transfer coefficient, 𝑡0 𝑇 − 𝑇∞
the mass transfer coefficient, the permeability of the porous 𝑢∗ = 𝑢 √ , 𝑇∗ = ,
] 𝑇𝑤 − 𝑇∞
medium, the electric conductivity of the fluid, the applied
magnetic field, the heat capacity at constant pressure, the 𝐶 − 𝐶∞ 𝑦
𝐶∗ = , 𝑦∗ = , (9)
thermal conductivity, the radiative heat flux, and mass dif- 𝐶𝑤 − 𝐶∞ √]𝑡0
fusivity.
𝑡 𝑡0
The corresponding initial and boundary conditions are 𝑡∗ = , 𝑓∗ (𝑡∗ ) = 𝑓 (𝑡0 𝑡∗ ) ,
𝑡0 𝜇
𝑢 (𝑦, 0) = 0, 𝑇 (𝑦, 0) = 𝑇∞ ,
𝐶 (𝑦, 0) = 𝐶∞ ; ∀𝑦 ⩾ 0, into (1), (3) and (7) and eleminating the star notations, we get
𝜕𝑢 (0, 𝑡) 𝑓 (𝑡)
= , 𝐶 (0, 𝑡) = 𝐶𝑤 ; 𝑡 > 0, 𝜕𝑢 𝜕2 𝑢
𝜕𝑦 𝜇 = + Gr𝑇 cos 𝛼 + Gm𝐶 cos 𝛼 − 𝐾𝑝 𝑢 − 𝑀𝑢, (10)
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑦2
𝑡 (4)
𝑇 (0, 𝑡) = 𝑇∞ + (𝑇𝑤 − 𝑇∞ ) , 0 < 𝑡 < 𝑡0 , 𝜕𝑇 𝜕2 𝑇
𝑡0 Preff = 2, (11)
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑦
𝑇 (0, 𝑡) = 𝑇𝑤 ; 𝑡 ≥ 𝑡0 ,
𝜕𝐶 1 𝜕2 𝐶
𝑢 (∞, 𝑡) = 0, 𝑇 (∞, 𝑡) = 𝑇∞ , = , (12)
𝜕𝑡 Sc 𝜕𝑦2
𝐶 (∞, 𝑡) = 𝐶∞ ; 𝑡 > 0.
where Preff = Pr/(1 + 𝑁𝑟 ) is the effective Prandtl number [24,
The radiation heat flux under Rosseland approximation for (10)] and
optically thick fluid [24–26] is given by
4𝜎∗ 𝜕𝑇4 𝑔𝛽𝑇 (𝑇𝑤 − 𝑇∞ ) ] 𝑔𝛽𝑐 (𝐶𝑤 − 𝐶∞ ) ]

𝑞𝑟 = − , (5) Gr = , Gm = ,
3𝑘𝑅 𝜕𝑦 𝑈03 𝑈03
where 𝜎∗ and 𝑘𝑅 is the Stefan-Boltzman constant and the 𝜎𝐵02 𝑡0 ] ]𝑡0 ]

𝑀= , Sc = , 𝐾𝑝 = , 𝑡0 = ,
mean absorption coefficient, respectively. We can see from (5) 𝜌 𝐷 𝐾 𝑈02
that the radiation term is nonlinear. Recently David Maxim (13)
Gururaj and Anjali Devi [27] used nonlinear radiation
effects and studied MHD boundary layer flow with forced
are the Grashof number, modified Grashof number, mag-
convection past a nonlinearly stretching surface with variable
netic parameter, Schmidt number, the inverse permeability
temperature. Therefore, we follow David Maxim Gururaj
parameter for the porous medium, and the characteristic
and Anjali Devi [27] and assume that the temperature
time, respectively.
differences within the flow are sufficiently small; that is, the
The corresponding dimensionless initial and boundary
difference between the fluid temperature and the free stream
conditions are
temperature is negligible, so that (5) can be linearized by
expanding 𝑇 into the Taylor series about 𝑇∞ , which after
neglecting higher order terms takes the form 𝑢 (𝑦, 0) = 0, 𝑇 (𝑦, 0) = 0, 𝐶 (𝑦, 0) = 0; ∀𝑦 ≥ 0,
𝜕𝑢 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨
𝑇4 ≈ 4𝑇∞
3 4
𝑇 − 3𝑇∞ . (6) 󵄨 = 𝑓 (𝑡) , 𝑇 (0, 𝑡) = 𝑡; 0 < 𝑡 ≤ 1,
𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑦=0
Substituting (6) into (5) and then putting the obtained result (14)
in (2), we get 𝑇 (0, 𝑡) = 1; 𝑡 > 1,
𝐶 (0, 𝑡) = 1, 𝐶 (∞, 𝑡) = 0, 𝑇 (∞, 𝑡) = 0,
𝜕𝑇 𝜕2 𝑇
Pr = ] (1 + 𝑁𝑟 ) 2 ; 𝑦, 𝑡 > 0, (7)
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑦 𝑢 (∞, 𝑡) = 0; 𝑡 > 0.
3. Solution of the Problem which upon inverse Laplace transform gives

In order to solve (10)–(12) under conditions (14), we use the
Laplace transform technique and get the following differen- 𝑦√Sc
tial equations: 𝐶 (𝑦, 𝑡) = erf 𝑐 ( ), (24)
2√𝑡
𝜕2 𝑢̄(𝑦, 𝑞) 𝜕𝐶 (𝑦, 𝑡) 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 √Sc

𝑞𝑢̄
(𝑦, 𝑞) = + Gr𝑇̄
(𝑦, 𝑞) cos (𝛼) 󵄨󵄨
󵄨 =− , (25)
𝜕𝑦2 𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨𝑦=0 √𝜋𝑡
+ Gm𝐶̄
(𝑦, 𝑞) cos (𝛼) − 𝐾𝑝 𝑢̄
(𝑦, 𝑞) − 𝑀𝑢̄
(𝑦, 𝑞) ,
(15) that is the corresponding mass transfer rate also known as
Sherwood number.
1 𝜕 𝑇̄
2
(𝑦, 𝑞) The solution of (15) under boundary conditions (18) gives
𝑇̄
(𝑦, 𝑞) = , (16)
Preff 𝑞 𝜕𝑦2
𝑎1 √𝑞
1 𝜕 𝐶̄
2
(𝑦, 𝑞) 𝑢̄
(𝑦, 𝑞) = 𝑒−𝑦√𝑞+𝐻1
𝐶̄
(𝑦, 𝑞) = , (17) 𝑞2 (𝑞 − 𝑎2 ) √𝑞 + 𝐻1
Sc𝑞 𝜕𝑦2
𝑎1 √𝑞𝑒−𝑞 𝐹 (𝑞)
with boundary conditions − 𝑒−𝑦√𝑞+𝐻1 − 𝑒−𝑦√𝑞+𝐻1
𝑞2 (𝑞−𝑎2 ) √𝑞+𝐻1 √𝑞+𝐻1
1
𝐶̄
(∞, 𝑞) = 0, 𝐶̄
(0, 𝑞) = , 𝑇̄
(∞, 𝑞) = 0, 𝑎3 𝑎 𝑒−𝑞
𝑞 − 𝑒−𝑦√𝑞Preff + 2 3 𝑒−𝑦√𝑞Preff
𝑞2 (𝑞 − 𝑎2 ) 𝑞 (𝑞 − 𝑎2 )
(𝑦, 𝑞) 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨
𝜕𝑢̄
𝑢̄
(∞, 𝑞) = 0, 󵄨󵄨 = 𝐹 (𝑞) , 𝑎4 √𝑞 𝑎6
𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑦=0
(18) + 𝑒−𝑦√𝑞+𝐻1 − 𝑒−𝑦√𝑞Sc ,
𝑞 (𝑞−𝑎5 ) √𝑞+𝐻1 𝑞 (𝑞 − 𝑎5 )
1−𝑒−𝑞 (26)
𝑇 (0, 𝑞) = .
𝑞2
which upon inverse Laplace transform gives
Solving (16) in view of (18), we get
1 𝑒−𝑞 𝑢 (𝑦, 𝑡) = 𝑢𝑐 (𝑦, 𝑡) + 𝑢𝑚 (𝑦, 𝑡) , (27)

𝑇̄
(𝑦, 𝑞) = 2 𝑒−𝑦√𝑞Preff − 2 𝑒−𝑦√𝑞Preff , (19)
𝑞 𝑞
where
which upon inverse Laplace transform gives
𝑇 (𝑦, 𝑡) = 𝑓 (𝑦, 𝑡) − 𝑓 (𝑦, 𝑡 − 1) 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1) , (20) 𝑢𝑐 (𝑦, 𝑡)
𝑡 𝑒𝑎2 (𝑡−𝑠) erf (√𝑎2 (𝑡 − 𝑠)) 2√𝑡 − 𝑠

where = 𝑎1 ∫ ( − )
3/2 √𝜋𝑎2
0 (𝑎2 )
Pr 𝑦2 √Preff 𝑦
𝑓 (𝑦, 𝑡) = ( eff + 𝑡) erf 𝑐 ( ) 2
2 2√𝑡 𝑒−𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
× 𝑑𝑠
(21) √𝜋𝑠
Pr 𝑡 −Preff 𝑦2
− √ eff 𝑦 exp ( ), −𝐻 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠 2
𝜋 4𝑡
[ 𝑎1 𝑡−1 (2√𝑡 − 1 − 𝑠) 𝑒 1
+ ∫ 𝑑𝑠]
𝑎2 𝜋 0 √𝑠
𝜕𝑇 (𝑦, 𝑡) 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 2√Preff [ ]
󵄨󵄨 = (√𝑡 − √𝑡 − 1𝐻 (𝑡 − 1)) , (22)
𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨󵄨𝑦=0 √𝜋 × 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1)
𝑡−1
is the corresponding heat transfer rate also known as Nusselt 𝑎1 2
number. Here erf(⋅) and erf 𝑐(⋅) denote the error function −[ 3/2
∫ ((𝑒𝑎2 (𝑡−1−𝑠)−𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠 erf
(𝑎2 ) √𝜋 0
and complementary error function of Gauss.
Solution of (17) using boundary conditions from (18)
yields × (√𝑎2 (𝑡 − 1 − 𝑠)))
1 −𝑦√Sc𝑞 −1
𝐶 (𝑦, 𝑞) = 𝑒 , (23) × (√𝑠) ) 𝑑𝑠]
𝑞
× 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1) is not equal to one, we make Preff = 1 into (11), use a similar

procedure as discussed above, and obtain
𝑡 𝑒𝑎5 (𝑡−𝑠) erf (√𝑎5 (𝑡 − 𝑠)) 2√𝑡 − 𝑠
+ 𝑎4 ∫ ( − )
0 √𝑎5 √𝜋𝑎2 −𝑎14 𝑎14 𝑒−𝑞
𝑢̄
(𝑦, 𝑞) = 𝑒−𝑦√𝑞+𝐻1 + 𝑒−𝑦√𝑞+𝐻1
2 𝑞3/2 √𝑞 + 𝐻1 3/2
𝑞 √𝑞 + 𝐻1
𝑒−𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
× 𝑑𝑠 𝐹 (𝑞) 𝑎14 −𝑦√𝑞 𝑎14 𝑒−𝑞 −𝑦√𝑞
√𝜋𝑠 − 𝑒−𝑦√𝑞+𝐻1 + 𝑒 − 𝑒
√𝑞 + 𝐻1 𝑞2 𝑞2
𝑎 Pr 𝑦2 𝑦√Preff
+ 3 (𝑡 + eff ) erf 𝑐 ( ) 𝑎4 √𝑞 𝑎6
𝑎2 2 2√𝑡 + 𝑒−𝑦√𝑞+𝐻1 − 𝑒−𝑦√𝑞Sc .
𝑞 (𝑞−𝑎5 ) √𝑞+𝐻1 𝑞 (𝑞 − 𝑎5 )
𝑎3 𝑦√Preff √𝑡 −𝑦2 Preff /4𝑡 𝑎3 𝑦√Preff (30)
− 𝑒 + 2 erf 𝑐 ( )
𝑎2 √𝜋 𝑎2 2√𝑡
By taking inverse Laplace transform, we find that
𝑎2 𝑡+𝑦√Preff 𝑎2
𝑎3 𝑒 𝑦√Preff
− erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎2 𝑡) 2𝑎14 𝑡 √𝑡 − 𝑠𝑒−𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
2
2𝑎22 2√𝑡 𝑢 (𝑦, 𝑡) = − ∫ 𝑑𝑠

𝜋 0 √𝑠
𝑎3 𝑒𝑎2 𝑡−𝑦√Preff 𝑎2 𝑦√Preff
− 2
erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎2 𝑡) 2𝑎14 𝑡−1 √𝑡 − 1 − 𝑠𝑒−𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
2
2𝑎2 2√𝑡 +( ∫ 𝑑𝑠) 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1)

𝜋 0 √𝑠
𝑎3 Pr 𝑦2 𝑦√Preff
− ((𝑡 − 1) + eff ) erf 𝑐 ( ) 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1) 𝑡 𝑒𝑎5 (𝑡−𝑠) erf (√𝑎5 (𝑡 − 𝑠))
𝑎2 2 2√𝑡 − 1 2√𝑡 − 𝑠
+ 𝑎4 ∫ ( − )
0 √𝑎5 √𝜋𝑎2
𝑎3 𝑦√Preff √𝑡 − 1 −𝑦2 Preff /4(𝑡−1)
+ 𝑒 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1) 2
𝑎2 √𝜋 𝑒−𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
× 𝑑𝑠
𝑎3 𝑦√Preff 𝑎 𝑦√Sc √𝜋𝑠
− 2
erf 𝑐 ( ) 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1) + 6 erf 𝑐 ( )
𝑎2 2√𝑡 − 1 𝑎5 2√𝑡 𝑦2 𝑦 𝑦√𝑡 −𝑦2 /4𝑡
+ 𝑎14 [(𝑡 + ) erf 𝑐 ( )− 𝑒 ]
2 2√𝑡 √𝜋
𝑎3 𝑒𝑎2 (𝑡−1)+𝑦√Preff 𝑎2 𝑦√Preff
+ 2
erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎2 (𝑡 − 1))
2𝑎2 2√𝑡 − 1 𝑎6 𝑒𝑎5 𝑡−𝑦√𝑎5 Sc 𝑦√Sc
− erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎5 𝑡)
× 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1) 2𝑎5 2√𝑡
𝑦2 𝑦
𝑎 𝑒𝑎2 (𝑡−1)−𝑦√Preff 𝑎2 𝑦√Preff − 𝑎14 [(𝑡 − 1 + ) erf 𝑐 ( )
+ 3 2
erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎2 (𝑡 − 1)) 2 √
2 𝑡−1
2𝑎2 2√𝑡 − 1
𝑦√𝑡 − 1 −𝑦2 /4(𝑡−1)
× 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1) − 𝑒 ] 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1)
√𝜋
𝑎6 𝑒𝑎5 𝑡−𝑦√𝑎5 Sc 𝑦√Sc
− erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎5 𝑡) 𝑎6 𝑦√Sc
2𝑎5 2√𝑡 + erf 𝑐 ( )
𝑎5 2√𝑡
𝑎6 𝑒𝑎5 𝑡+𝑦√𝑎5 Sc 𝑦√Sc 2
− erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎5 𝑡) , 1 𝑡 𝑓 (𝑡 − 𝑠) 𝑒−𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
2𝑎5 2√𝑡 − ∫ 𝑑𝑠
√𝜋 0 √𝑠
(28)
1 𝑡 𝑓 (𝑡 − 𝑠) 𝑒 −𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦2 /4𝑠 𝑎6 𝑒𝑎5 𝑡+𝑦√𝑎5 Sc 𝑦√Sc
𝑢𝑚 (𝑦, 𝑡) = − ∫ , (29) − erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎5 𝑡) ,
√𝜋 0 √𝑠 2𝑎5 2√𝑡
(31)
where
correspond to the convective and mechanical parts of veloc- cos 𝛼Gr√Preff 𝐻1 Grcos𝛼
ity. 𝑎1 = , 𝑎2 = , 𝑎3 = ,
Preff − 1 Preff −1 Preff −1
It is noted from (20) and (28) that 𝑇(𝑦, 𝑡) is valid for all
positive values of Preff while the 𝑢𝑐 (𝑦, 𝑡) is not valid for Preff = cos 𝛼Gm√Sc 𝐻1 cos 𝛼Gm
1. Therefore, to get 𝑢𝑐 (𝑦, 𝑡) when the effective Prandtl number 𝑎4 = , 𝑎5 = , 𝑎6 = ,
Sc − 1 Sc − 1 Sc − 1
cos 𝛼Gr√Pr 𝐻1 cos 𝛼Gr 𝑢 (𝑦, 𝑡)

𝑎7 = , 𝑎8 = , 𝑎9 = ,
Pr − 1 Pr − 1 Pr − 1 𝑡 −𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
2
𝑦 𝑎 𝑒
𝐾𝑝 𝐾𝑝 𝑀 = 𝑎14 erf 𝑐 ( ) − 14 ∫ 𝑑𝑠
𝑎10 = , 𝑎11 = , 𝑎12 = , √
2 𝑡 √𝜋 0 √(𝑡 − 𝑠) 𝑠
Preff − 1 Sc − 1 Preff − 1
2
𝑡 𝑒𝑎5 (𝑡−𝑠)−𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠 erf (√𝑎 (𝑡 − 𝑠))
𝑀 cos 𝛼Gr 𝑎 5
𝑎13 = , 𝑎14 = , 𝐻1 = 𝐾𝑝 + 𝑀. + 4 ∫ 𝑑𝑠
Sc − 1 𝐻1 √𝜋𝑎5 0 √𝑠
(32) 2
𝑎 𝑦√Sc 1 𝑡 𝑓 (𝑡 − 𝑠) 𝑒−𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
+ 6 erf 𝑐 ( )− ∫ 𝑑𝑠
𝑎5 2√𝑡 √𝜋 0 √𝑠
4. Plate with Constant Temperature
𝑎6 𝑎5 𝑡+𝑦√𝑎5 Sc 𝑦√Sc
Equations (20) and (27) give analytical expressions for the − 𝑒 erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎5 𝑡)
2𝑎5 2√𝑡
temperature and velocity near an inclined plate with ramped
temperature. In order to highlight the effect of the ramped 𝑎6 𝑎5 𝑡−𝑦√𝑎5 Sc 𝑦√Sc
temperature distribution of the boundary on the flow, it − 𝑒 erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎5 𝑡) .
2𝑎5 2√𝑡
is important to compare such a flow with the one near a
(37)
plate with constant temperature. It can be shown that the
temperature, rate of heat transfer, and velocity for the flow
near an isothermal plate are
5. Limiting Cases
𝑦√Preff In this section, we discuss few limiting cases of our general
𝑇 (𝑦, 𝑡) = erf 𝑐 ( ), (33) solutions.
2√𝑡
𝜕𝑇 (0, 𝑡) √Preff
=− , (34) 5.1. Solution in the Absence of Porous Effects for Ramped and
𝜕𝑦 √𝜋𝑡 Constant Wall Temperature (𝐾𝑝 → 0). Consider
𝑢𝑐 (𝑦, 𝑡)
2
𝑡 𝑒𝑎2 (𝑡−𝑠)−𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠 erf (√𝑎 (𝑡 − 𝑠)) 𝑢 (𝑦, 𝑡)
𝑎1 2
= ∫ 𝑑𝑠
𝜋𝑎
√ 2 0 √𝑠 𝑡 𝑒𝑎12 (𝑡−𝑠) erf (√𝑎12 (𝑡 − 𝑠)) 2√𝑡 − 𝑠
2
𝑎5 (𝑡−𝑠)−𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
= 𝑎1 ∫ ( 3/2
− )
𝑎4 𝑡 𝑒 erf (√𝑎5 (𝑡 − 𝑠)) 0 (𝑎12 ) √𝜋𝑎12
+ ∫ 𝑑𝑠
√𝜋𝑎5 0 √𝑠 2
𝑒−𝑀𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
× 𝑑𝑠
𝑎3 𝑎2 𝑡+𝑦√𝑎2 Preff 𝑦√Preff √𝜋𝑠
− 𝑒 erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎2 𝑡)
2𝑎2 2√𝑡 2
𝑡−1 (2√𝑡 − 1 − 𝑠) 𝑒−𝑀𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
𝑎
𝑎3 𝑎2 𝑡−𝑦√𝑎2 Preff 𝑦√Preff
(35) +[ 1 ∫ 𝑑𝑠] 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1)
− 𝑒 erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎2 𝑡) 𝑎12 𝜋 0 √𝑠
2𝑎2 2√𝑡 [ ]
𝑡−1
𝑎1 2
𝑎6 𝑎5 𝑡−𝑦√𝑎5 Sc 𝑦√Sc −[ ∫ ((𝑒𝑎12 (𝑡−1−𝑠)−𝑀𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
erf
− 𝑒 erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎5 𝑡) (𝑎12 )
3/2
√𝜋 0
2𝑎5 2√𝑡
𝑎3 𝑦√Preff 𝑎 𝑦√Sc × (√𝑎12 (𝑡 − 1 − 𝑠)))

+ erf 𝑐 ( ) + 6 erf 𝑐 ( )
𝑎2 2√𝑡 𝑎5 2√𝑡
−1
𝑎 𝑦√Sc × (√𝑠) ) 𝑑𝑠]
− 6 𝑒𝑎5 𝑡+𝑦√𝑎5 Sc erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎5 𝑡) ,
2𝑎5 2√𝑡
2 × 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1)
1 𝑡 𝑓 (𝑡 − 𝑠) 𝑒−𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
𝑢𝑚 (𝑦, 𝑡) = − ∫ 𝑑𝑠. (36)
√𝜋 0 √𝑠 𝑡 𝑒𝑎13 (𝑡−𝑠) erf (√𝑎13 (𝑡 − 𝑠)) 2√𝑡 − 𝑠
+ 𝑎4 ∫ ( − )
0 √𝑎13 √𝜋𝑎12
As previously, (36) is not valid for Preff = 1. Therefore we 2
calculate separately solution for velocity by taking Preff = 1 𝑒−𝑀𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
× 𝑑𝑠
into (11) and finally get √𝜋𝑠
𝑎3 Pr 𝑦2 𝑦√Preff 𝑎3 𝑦√Preff 𝑎 𝑦√Sc

+ (𝑡 + eff ) erf 𝑐 ( ) + erf 𝑐 ( ) + 6 erf 𝑐 ( )
𝑎12 2 2√𝑡 𝑎12 2√𝑡 𝑎13 2√𝑡
2
1 𝑡 𝑓 (𝑡 − 𝑠) 𝑒−𝑀𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠 𝑎6 𝑎13 𝑡+𝑦√𝑎13 Sc 𝑦√Sc
− ∫ 𝑑𝑠 − 𝑒 erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎13 𝑡) .
√𝜋 0 √𝑠 2𝑎13 2√𝑡
(38)
𝑎3 𝑦√Preff √𝑡 −𝑦2 Preff /4𝑡 𝑎3 𝑦√Preff
− 𝑒 + 2 erf 𝑐 ( )
𝑎12 √𝜋 𝑎12 2√𝑡
5.2. Solution in the Absence of Thermal Radiation (𝑁𝑟 →
𝑎12 𝑡+𝑦√Preff 𝑎12
𝑎3 𝑒 𝑦√Preff 0). In the absence of thermal radiation, the corresponding
− 2
erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎12 𝑡) solutions for ramped and constant wall temperature are
2𝑎12 2√𝑡 directly obtained from the general solutions (20), (22), (27),
and (33)–(36) by taking 𝑁𝑟 → 0 and replacing Preff by Pr;
𝑎3 𝑒𝑎12 𝑡−𝑦√Preff 𝑎12 𝑦√Preff
− 2
erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎12 𝑡) that is,
2𝑎12 2√𝑡
𝑢 (𝑦, 𝑡)
𝑎 Pr 𝑦2 𝑦√Preff
− 3 ((𝑡 − 1)+ eff ) erf 𝑐 ( ) 𝐻 (𝑡−1)
𝑎12 2 2√𝑡 − 1 𝑡 𝑒𝑎8 (𝑡−𝑠) erf (√𝑎8 (𝑡 − 𝑠)) 2√𝑡 − 𝑠
= 𝑎7 ∫ ( 3/2
− )
(𝑎8 ) √𝜋𝑎8
𝑎3 𝑦√Preff √𝑡 − 1 −𝑦2 Preff /4(𝑡−1) 0
+ 𝑒 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1)
𝑎12 √𝜋 2
𝑒−𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
× 𝑑𝑠
𝑎6 𝑒𝑎13 𝑡−𝑦√𝑎13 Sc 𝑦√Sc √𝜋𝑠
− erf 𝑐 ( −√𝑎13 𝑡)
2𝑎13 2√𝑡 𝑎7 𝑡−1 2√𝑡 − 1 − 𝑠𝑒−𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
2
+[ ∫ 𝑑𝑠]
𝑎3 𝑦√Preff 𝑎 𝑦√Sc 𝜋𝑎8 0 √𝑠
− 2
erf 𝑐 ( ) 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1)+ 6 erf 𝑐 ( )
𝑎12 2√𝑡 − 1 𝑎13 2√𝑡 × 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1)
𝑎3 𝑒𝑎12 (𝑡−1)+𝑦√Preff 𝑎12 𝑦√Preff 𝑡−1
+ erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎12 (𝑡 − 1)) 𝑎7
2
2𝑎12 2√𝑡 − 1 −[ 3/2
∫ ((erf (√𝑎8 (𝑡 − 1 − 𝑠))
(𝑎8 ) √𝜋 0
× 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1) 2
× 𝑒𝑎8 (𝑡−1−𝑠)−𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠 )
𝑎3 𝑒𝑎12 (𝑡−1)−𝑦√Preff 𝑎12 𝑦√Preff
+ 2
erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎12 (𝑡 − 1))
2𝑎12 2√𝑡 − 1 −1
× (√𝑠) ) 𝑑𝑠]
× 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1)
𝑎6 𝑒𝑎13 𝑡+𝑦√𝑎13 Sc 𝑦√Sc × 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1𝑠)

− erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎13 𝑡) ,
2𝑎13 2√𝑡 𝑡 𝑒𝑎5 (𝑡−𝑠) erf (√𝑎5 (𝑡 − 𝑠)) 2√𝑡 − 𝑠
+ 𝑎4 ∫ ( − )
𝑢 (𝑦, 𝑡) 0 √𝑎5 √𝜋𝑎8
2 2
𝑡 𝑒𝑎12 (𝑡−𝑠)−𝑀𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠 erf (√𝑎 (𝑡 − 𝑠)) 𝑒−𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
𝑎1 12
× 𝑑𝑠
= ∫ 𝑑𝑠
√𝜋𝑎12 0 √𝑠 √𝜋𝑠
2
𝑡 𝑒𝑎13 (𝑡−𝑠)−𝑀𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠 erf (√𝑎 (𝑡 − 𝑠)) 𝑎9 Pr𝑦2 𝑦√Pr
𝑎4 13 + (𝑡 + ) erf 𝑐 ( )
+ ∫ 𝑑𝑠 𝑎8 2 2√𝑡
√𝜋𝑎13 0 √𝑠
𝑎6 𝑎13 𝑡−𝑦√𝑎13 Sc 𝑦√Sc 2

− 𝑒 erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎13 𝑡) 1 𝑡 𝑓 (𝑡 − 𝑠) 𝑒−𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
2𝑎13 2√𝑡 − ∫ 𝑑𝑠
√𝜋 0 √𝑠
𝑎3 𝑎12 𝑡+𝑦√𝑎12 Preff 𝑦√Preff 𝑎9 𝑦√Pr√𝑡 −𝑦2 Pr/4𝑡 𝑎9 𝑦√Pr
− 𝑒 erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎12 𝑡) − 𝑒 + 2 erf 𝑐 ( )
2𝑎12 2√𝑡 𝑎8 √𝜋 𝑎8 2√𝑡
𝑎3 𝑎12 𝑡−𝑦√𝑎12 Preff 𝑦√Preff 𝑎9 𝑒𝑎8 𝑡+𝑦√Pr𝑎8 𝑦√Pr
− 𝑒 erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎12 𝑡) − erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎8 𝑡)
2𝑎12 2√𝑡 2𝑎82
2√𝑡
𝑎9 𝑒𝑎8 𝑡−𝑦√Pr𝑎8 𝑦√Pr 𝑎9 𝑦√Pr 𝑎 𝑦√Sc

− erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎8 𝑡) + erf 𝑐 ( ) + 6 erf 𝑐 ( )
2𝑎82 2√𝑡 𝑎8 2√𝑡 𝑎5 2√𝑡
𝑎9 Pr𝑦2 𝑦√Pr 𝑎6 𝑎5 𝑡+𝑦√𝑎5 Sc 𝑦√Sc

− ((𝑡 − 1) + ) erf 𝑐 ( ) 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1) − 𝑒 erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎5 𝑡)
𝑎8 2 2√𝑡 − 1 2𝑎5 2√𝑡
𝑎9 𝑦√Pr 𝑎6 𝑎5 𝑡−𝑦√𝑎5 Sc 𝑦√Sc

− erf 𝑐 ( ) 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1) − 𝑒 erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎5 𝑡)
𝑎8 2√𝑡 − 1 2𝑎5 2√𝑡
2
𝑎 𝑦√Pr√𝑡 − 1 −𝑦2 Pr/4(𝑡−1) 1 𝑡 𝑓 (𝑡 − 𝑠) 𝑒−𝐻1 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
+ 9 𝑒 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1) − ∫ 𝑑𝑠,
𝑎8 √𝜋 √𝜋 0 √𝑠
𝑎9 𝑒𝑎8 (𝑡−1)+𝑦√Pr𝑎8 𝑦√Pr 𝑦√Pr

+ erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎8 (𝑡 − 1)) 𝑇 (𝑦, 𝑡) = erf 𝑐 ( ),
2𝑎82
2√𝑡 − 1 2√𝑡
× 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1) 𝜕𝑇 (0, 𝑡) √Pr
=− .
𝜕𝑦 √𝜋𝑡
𝑎9 𝑒𝑎12 (𝑡−1)−𝑦√Pr𝑎12 𝑦√Pr
+ 2
erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎8 (𝑡 − 1)) (40)
2𝑎8 2√𝑡 − 1
× 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1) 5.3. Solutions in the Absence of Free Convection. Let us assume
that the flow is caused only due to bounding plate and the
𝑎6 𝑒𝑎5 𝑡+𝑦√𝑎5 Sc 𝑦√Sc corresponding buoyancy forces are zero equivalently it shows
− erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎5 𝑡)
2𝑎5 2√𝑡 the absence of free convection due to the differences in
temperature and mass gradients that is, the terms Gr and Gm
𝑎6 𝑦√Sc are zero. This shows that the convective parts of velocities are
+ erf 𝑐 ( ) zero in both cases of ramped wall and constant temperature
𝑎5 2√𝑡
and the flow is only governed by the mechanical part of
𝑎6 𝑒𝑎5 𝑡−𝑦√𝑎5 Sc 𝑦√Sc velocities given by (29) and (36).
− erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎5 𝑡) ,
2𝑎5 2√𝑡
5.4. Solutions in the Absence of Mechanical Effects. In this
𝑇 (𝑦, 𝑡) = 𝑓1 (𝑦, 𝑡) − 𝑓1 (𝑦, 𝑡 − 1) 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1) , case we assume that the infinite plate is in static position at
(39) every time; that is, the function 𝑓(𝑡) is zero for all values of
𝑡 and the mechanical parts for both ramped and constant
where wall temperature are equivalently zero. In such a situation, the
Pr𝑦2 √Pr𝑦 motion in the fluid is induced only due to the free convection.
𝑓1 (𝑦, 𝑡) = ( + 𝑡) erf 𝑐 ( ) Therefore, the velocities of the fluid in both cases of ramped
2 2√𝑡 and constant wall temperature are only represented by their
Pr𝑡 −Pr𝑦2 convective parts given by (28) and (36).
−√ 𝑦 exp ( ),
𝜋 4𝑡
5.5. Solution in the Absence of Magnetic Parameter (𝑀 →
𝜕𝑇 (𝑦, 𝑡) 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 2√Pr 0). It is clear from (20) and (24) that the temperature
󵄨󵄨
󵄨 = (√𝑡 − √𝑡 − 1𝐻 (𝑡 − 1)) ,
𝜕𝑦 󵄨󵄨𝑦=0 √𝜋 and concentration distributions are not influenced by the
magnetic parameter 𝑀, and the velocities with 𝑀 = 0 for
𝑢 (𝑦, 𝑡)
both ramped and constant wall temperature are given by
2
𝑎7 8
= ∫ 𝑑𝑠 𝑢 (𝑦, 𝑡)
√𝜋𝑎8 0 √𝑠
2
𝑡 𝑒𝑎10 (𝑡−𝑠) erf (√𝑎10 (𝑡 − 𝑠)) 2√𝑡 − 𝑠
𝑎4 5 = 𝑎1 ∫ ( − )
+ ∫ 𝑑𝑠 0
3/2
(𝑎10 ) √𝜋𝑎10
𝜋𝑎
√ 5 0 √𝑠
2
𝑎9 𝑎8 𝑡+𝑦√𝑎8 Pr 𝑦√Pr 𝑒−𝐾𝑝 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
− 𝑒 erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎8 𝑡) × 𝑑𝑠
2𝑎8 2√𝑡 √𝜋𝑠
2
𝑎 𝑦√Pr 𝑎 2 𝑡 − 1 − 𝑠𝑒−𝐾𝑝 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
𝑡−1 √
− 9 𝑒𝑎8 𝑡−𝑦√𝑎8 Pr erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎8 𝑡) +[ 1 ∫ 𝑑𝑠] 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1)
2𝑎8 2√𝑡 𝜋𝑎10 0 √𝑠
𝑡−1
𝑎1 𝑢 (𝑦, 𝑡)
−[ 3/2
∫ ((erf (√𝑎10 (𝑡 − 1 − 𝑠)) 2
(𝑎10 ) √𝜋 0
𝑎1 𝑡 𝑒𝑎10 (𝑡−𝑠)−𝐾𝑝 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠 erf (√𝑎 (𝑡 − 𝑠))
10
2 = ∫ 𝑑𝑠
× 𝑒𝑎10 (𝑡−1−𝑠)−𝐾𝑝 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠 ) √𝜋𝑎10 0 √𝑠
2
𝑡 𝑒𝑎11 (𝑡−𝑠)−𝐾𝑝 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠 erf (√𝑎 (𝑡 − 𝑠))
𝑎4 11
−1 + ∫ 𝑑𝑠
× (√𝑠) ) 𝑑𝑠] √𝜋𝑎11 0 √𝑠
𝑎3 𝑎10 𝑡+𝑦√𝑎10 Preff 𝑦√Preff
− 𝑒 erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎10 𝑡)
× 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1) 2𝑎10 2√𝑡
𝑡 𝑒𝑎11 (𝑡−𝑠) erf (√𝑎11 (𝑡 − 𝑠)) 2√𝑡 − 𝑠 𝑎3 𝑎10 𝑡−𝑦√𝑎10 Preff 𝑦√Preff
+ 𝑎4 ∫ ( − ) − 𝑒 erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎10 𝑡)
0 √𝑎11 √𝜋𝑎10 2𝑎10 2√𝑡
2 𝑎3 𝑦√Preff 𝑎 𝑦√Sc
𝑒−𝐾𝑝 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠 + erf 𝑐 ( ) + 6 erf 𝑐 ( )
× 𝑑𝑠 𝑎10 √
2 𝑡 𝑎11 2√𝑡
√𝜋𝑠
𝑎 𝑦√Sc
𝑎3 Pr 𝑦2 𝑦√Preff − 6 𝑒𝑎11 𝑡+𝑦√𝑎11 Sc erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎11 𝑡)
+ (𝑡 + eff ) erf 𝑐 ( ) 2𝑎11 2√𝑡
𝑎10 2 2√𝑡 2
1 𝑡 𝑓 (𝑡 − 𝑠) 𝑒−𝐾𝑝 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠
𝑎 𝑦√Preff √𝑡 −𝑦2 Preff /4𝑡 𝑎3 𝑦√Preff − ∫ 𝑑𝑠
− 3 𝑒 + 2 erf 𝑐 ( ) √𝜋 0 √𝑠
𝑎10 √𝜋 𝑎10 2√𝑡
𝑎 𝑦√Sc
2 − 6 𝑒𝑎11 𝑡−𝑦√𝑎11 Sc erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎11 𝑡) .
1 𝑡 𝑓 (𝑡 − 𝑠) 𝑒−𝐾𝑝 𝑠−𝑦 /4𝑠 2𝑎11 2√𝑡
− ∫ 𝑑𝑠
√𝜋 0 √𝑠 (41)
𝑎3 𝑒𝑎10 𝑡+𝑦√Preff 𝑎10 𝑦√Preff

− 2
erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎10 𝑡)
2𝑎10 2√𝑡
6. Special Cases
𝑎10 𝑡−𝑦√Preff 𝑎10
𝑎3 𝑒 𝑦√Preff
− 2
erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎10 𝑡) We noted that the solutions for velocity obtained in Section 3
2𝑎10 2√𝑡 are more general. Therefore, we want to discuss some special
cases of the present solutions together with some limiting
𝑎3 Pr 𝑦2 𝑦√Preff solutions in order to know more about the physical insight
− ((𝑡 − 1) + eff ) erf 𝑐 ( )
𝑎10 2 2√𝑡 − 1 of the problem. Hence, we discuss the following important
special cases in the case of ramped wall temperature whose
× 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1) technical relevance is well known in the literature. Similarly
we can discuss some special cases of constant wall tempera-
𝑎3 𝑦√Preff √𝑡 − 1 −𝑦2 Preff /4(𝑡−1)
+ 𝑒 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1) ture solutions.
𝑎10 √𝜋
6.1. Case-I: 𝑓(𝑡) = 𝑓𝐻(𝑡). In this first case we take the arbi-
𝑎 𝑒𝑎11 𝑡−𝑦√𝑎11 Sc 𝑦√Sc trary function 𝑓(𝑡) = 𝑓𝐻(𝑡), where 𝑓(⋅) is a dimensionless
− 6 erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎11 𝑡)
2𝑎11 2√𝑡 constant and 𝐻(⋅) denotes the unit step function. After time
𝑡 = 0, the infinite inclined plate applies a constant shear
𝑎3 𝑦√Preff 𝑎 𝑦√Sc stress to the fluid. The convective part of the velocity remains
− 2
erf 𝑐 ( ) 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1)+ 6 erf 𝑐 ( ) unchanged while the mechanical part takes the following
𝑎10 2√𝑡 − 1 𝑎11 2√𝑡
form:
𝑎3 𝑒𝑎10 (𝑡−1)+𝑦√Preff 𝑎10 𝑦√Preff 2
𝑓 𝑡 𝑒−𝑦 /4𝑠−𝐻1 𝑠
+ 2
erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎10 (𝑡 − 1)) 𝑢𝑚 (𝑦, 𝑡) = − ∫ 𝑑𝑠, (42)
2𝑎10 2√𝑡 − 1 √𝜋 0 √𝑠
× 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1) equivalently
𝑓 −𝑦√𝐻1 2𝑓 ∞ −𝑦2 /4𝑧2 −𝐻1 𝑧2
𝑎 𝑒𝑎10 (𝑡−1)−𝑦√Preff 𝑎10 𝑦√Preff 𝑢𝑚 (𝑦, 𝑡) = − 𝑒 + ∫ 𝑒 𝑑𝑧, (43)
+ 3 2
erf 𝑐 ( − √𝑎10 (𝑡 − 1)) √𝐻1 √𝜋 √𝑡
2𝑎10 2√𝑡 − 1
for 𝐾𝑝 ≠ 0, 𝑀 ≠0. Moreover, if we take 𝑀 = 0, (42) reduces
× 𝐻 (𝑡 − 1) to the form
𝑓 −𝑦√𝐾𝑝 2𝑓 ∞ −𝑦2 /4𝑧2 −𝐾𝑝 𝑧2
𝑎6 𝑒𝑎11 𝑡+𝑦√𝑎11 Sc 𝑦√Sc 𝑢𝑚 (𝑦, 𝑡) = − 𝑒 + ∫ 𝑒 𝑑𝑧, (44)
− erf 𝑐 ( + √𝑎11 𝑡) , √𝐾 √𝜋 √𝑡
2𝑎11 2√𝑡 𝑝
Gr = 0.5, 0.8, 1
u(y, t)
u(y, t)
Gr = 0.5, 0.8, 1
0.5
0.5
0 2 4 6 8 0 2 4 6
y y
Figure 2: Velocity profiles for Preff = 0.350 (𝑁𝑟 = 1, Pr = 0.7), Figure 3: Velocity profiles for Preff = 0.350 (𝑁𝑟 = 1, Pr = 0.7),
𝐾𝑝 = 0.7, 𝑡 = 1.2 and different values of Gr when the plate applies 𝐾𝑝 = 0.7, 𝑡 = 0.9 and different values of Gr when the plate applies a
a constant shear stress 𝑓 = −1. constant shear stress 𝑓 = −1.
which can be written in simplified form as

which is equivalent to [28, Equation (28)] with the correction
of √𝐾𝑝 . 𝑓 𝜔 𝜔 𝜋
𝑢𝑚𝑠 (𝑦, 𝑡) = exp (−𝑦√ ) cos (𝜔𝑡 − 𝑦√ + ) ,
Furthermore, in the absence of both 𝐾𝑝 = 0 and 𝑀 = 0, √𝜔 2 2 4
(42) is identical with [23, Equation (23)] (51)
𝑓 𝑡 𝑒−𝑦 /4𝑠
2
equivalent to [23, Equation (33)].
𝑢𝑚 (𝑦, 𝑡) = − ∫ 𝑑𝑠. (45)
√𝜋 0 √𝑠
6.3. Case-III: 𝑓(𝑡) = 𝑓𝑡𝑎 (𝑎 > 0). In the final case, we take
6.2. Case-II: 𝑓(𝑡) = 𝑓sin(𝜔𝑡). In the second case, we take the 𝑓(𝑡) = 𝑓𝑡𝑎 , in which the plate applies an accelerating
arbitrary function of the form 𝑓(𝑡) = 𝑓 sin(𝜔𝑡) in which the shear stress to the fluid where the mechanical part takes the
plate applies an oscillating shear stress to the fluid. Here 𝜔 following form:
denotes the dimensionless frequency of the shear stress. As 2
previously, the convective part of velocity remains the same 𝑓 𝑡 (𝑡 − 𝑠)𝑎 𝑒−𝑦 /4𝑠−𝐻1 𝑠
𝑢𝑚 (𝑦, 𝑡) = − ∫ 𝑑𝑠. (52)
whereas the mechanical part takes the form √𝜋 0 √𝑠
𝑓 𝑡 sin (𝜔𝑡 − 𝜔𝑠) 𝑒−𝑦 /4𝑠−𝐻1 𝑠

2
The corresponding solution for 𝑀 = 0, namely,
𝑢𝑚 (𝑦, 𝑡) = − ∫ 𝑑𝑠. (46)
√𝜋 0 √𝑠 2
𝑓 𝑡 (𝑡 − 𝑠)𝑎 𝑒−𝑦 /4𝑠−𝐾𝑝 𝑠
It can be further written as a sum of the steady-state and 𝑢𝑚 (𝑦, 𝑡) = − ∫ 𝑑𝑠, (53)
√𝜋 0 √𝑠
transient solutions
is identical with [28, Equation (32)].
𝑢𝑚 (𝑦, 𝑡) = 𝑢𝑚𝑠 (𝑦, 𝑡) + 𝑢𝑚𝑡 (𝑦, 𝑡) , (47) Additionally, if we take 𝐾𝑝 = 0, (53) yields
where 2
2 𝑓 𝑡 (𝑡 − 𝑠)𝑎 𝑒−𝑦 /4𝑠
𝑓 𝑡 sin (𝜔𝑡 − 𝜔𝑠) 𝑒−𝑦 /4𝑠−𝐻1 𝑠 𝑢𝑚 (𝑦, 𝑡) = − ∫ 𝑑𝑠. (54)
𝑢𝑚𝑠 (𝑦, 𝑡) = − ∫ 𝑑𝑠, √𝜋 0 √𝑠
√𝜋 0 √𝑠
(48)
𝑓 ∞ sin (𝜔𝑡 − 𝜔𝑠) 𝑒−𝑦 /4𝑠−𝐻1 𝑠
2
𝑢𝑚𝑡 (𝑦, 𝑡) = ∫ 𝑑𝑠.
√𝜋 𝑡 √𝑠 In order to understand the physical aspects of the problem,
By taking 𝑀 = 0, the steady-state component reduces to [28, the numerical results for velocity, temperature, and concen-
Equation (35)] tration are computed and plotted for various parameters of
interest such as magnetic parameter 𝑀, porosity parameter
2
𝑓 𝑡 sin (𝜔𝑡 − 𝜔𝑠) 𝑒−𝑦 /4𝑠−𝐾𝑝 𝑠 𝐾𝑝 , effective Prandtl number Preff , Grashof number Gr, mod-
𝑢𝑚𝑠 (𝑦, 𝑡) = − ∫ 𝑑𝑠. (49)
ified Grashof number Gm, dimensionless time 𝑡, Schmidt
√𝜋 0 √𝑠
number Sc, and shear stress 𝑓. The graphs for velocity are
In addition when 𝐾𝑝 = 0, physically it corresponds to the shown in Figures 2–17, where 𝑡 = 1.2 corresponds to isother-
absence of porous effects and (49) results in mal velocity and 𝑡 = 0.9 is for ramped velocity. Figures 18–21
2 are plotted to show the temperature variations for two types
𝑓 𝑡 sin (𝜔𝑡 − 𝜔𝑠) 𝑒−𝑦 /4𝑠
𝑢𝑚𝑠 (𝑦, 𝑡) = − ∫ 𝑑𝑠, (50) of boundary conditions, namely, ramped and constant wall
√𝜋 0 √𝑠 temperatures. Furthermore, Figure 22 is displayed to show
Gm = 0.5, 0.8, 1.1
u(y, t)
u(y, t)
Sc = 0.22, 0.60, 0.96

0.5
0.5
0 2 4 6 8 0 2 4 6
y y
Figure 4: Velocity profiles for Preff = 0.350 (𝑁𝑟 = 1, Pr = 0.7), Figure 7: Velocity profiles for Preff = 0.350 (𝑁𝑟 = 1, Pr = 0.7),
𝐾𝑝 = 0.7, 𝑡 = 1.2 and different values of Gm when the plate applies 𝐾𝑝 = 0.7, and 𝑡 = 0.9 and different values of Sc when the plate
a constant shear stress 𝑓 = −1. applies a constant shear stress 𝑓 = −1.
1.5
1
Gm = 0.5, 0.8, 1.1

u(y, t)
1
u(y, t)
0.5 M = 0, 1, 2
0.5
0 2 4 6
y
0 2 4 6 8
Figure 5: Velocity profiles for Preff = 0.350 (𝑁𝑟 = 1, Pr = 0.7), y
𝐾𝑝 = 0.7, and 𝑡 = 0.9 and different values of Gm when the plate
Figure 8: Velocity profiles for Preff = 0.350 (𝑁𝑟 = 1, Pr = 0.7),
applies a constant shear stress 𝑓 = −1.
𝐾𝑝 = 0.7, and 𝑡 = 1.2 and different values of 𝑀 when the plate
1 increasing Gm for both ramped temperature and isothermal

plate. Further, it can be observed that the velocity and
boundary layer thickness decrease along 𝑦 with increasing
u(y, t)
Sc = 0.22, 0.60, 0.96

distance from the leading edge. Moreover, from Figures 4
0.5
and 5, we observed that the amplitude of velocity in case of
isothermal plate is greater and converges slowly as compared
to ramped velocity. In Figures 6 and 7, the velocity profiles
are shown for different values of Schmidt number Sc. Here
0 2 4 6 8 the values of Sc are chosen 0.22, 0.60, and 0.96. to represent
y the presence of species by hydrogen, water vapor, and carbon
dioxide respectively. It is observed that the velocity decreases
Figure 6: Velocity profiles for Preff = 0.350 (𝑁𝑟 = 1, Pr = 0.7), with increasing Schmidt number. Physically, this refers to the
𝐾𝑝 = 0.7, and 𝑡 = 1.2 and different values of Sc when the plate phenomenon that increasing Schmidt number implies the
dominance of the viscous forces over the diffusional effects.
As a result, the flow will be therefore decelerated with a rise
in Schmidt number. The velocity profiles for different values
variations in fluid concentration. Figures 2 and 3 illustrate the of magnetic parameter 𝑀 are shown in Figures 8 and 9.
influence of Grashof number Gr on the velocity. It is observed The range of magnetic field is taken from 0 to 2. It is found
that velocity increases with increasing Gr. This implies that that the velocity is decreasing with increasing values of 𝑀 in
thermal buoyancy force tends to accelerate velocity for both both cases of ramped and isothermal plates. Physically, it is
ramped temperature and isothermal plates. In Figures 4 and true due to the fact that increasing values of 𝑀 causes the
5, the velocity profiles for different values modified Grashof frictional force to increase which tends to resist the fluid flow,
number Gm are shown. It is found that velocity increases on thus reducing its velocity. It is further observed that when
1
1
u(y, t)
u(y, t)
M = 0, 1, 2 t = 1.2, 1.4, 2
0.5 0.5
0 2 4 6 0 2 4 6 8 10
y y
Figure 9: Velocity profiles for Preff = 0.350 (𝑁𝑟 = 1, Pr = 0.7), Figure 11: Velocity profiles for Preff = 0.350 (𝑁𝑟 = 1, Pr = 0.7) and
𝐾𝑝 = 0.7, and 𝑡 = 0.9 and different values of 𝑀 when the plate 𝐾𝑝 = 0.7 and different values of 𝑡 when the plate applies a constant
applies a constant shear stress 𝑓 = −1. shear stress 𝑓 = −1.
0.8 1
0.6
u(y, t)
u(y, t)
t = 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 Kp = 1, 2, 3
0.4 0.5
0.2
0 1 2 3 4 5 0 2 4 6 8
y y
Figure 10: Velocity profiles for Preff = 0.350 (𝑁𝑟 = 1, Pr = 0.7) and Figure 12: Velocity profiles for Preff = 0.350 (𝑁𝑟 = 1, Pr = 0.7) and
𝐾𝑝 = 0.7 and different values of 𝑡 when the plate applies a constant 𝑡 = 1.2 and different values of 𝐾𝑝 when the plate applies a constant
shear stress 𝑓 = −1. shear stress 𝑓 = −1.
the magnetic field imposed on the flow is zero (𝑀 = 0), the

MHD effect vanishes and the flow is termed as hydrodynamic on velocity profiles are presented in Figures 16 and 17. It
flow. Physically, it is true due to the fact that increasing values is observed that the velocity is a decreasing function with
of 𝑀 causes the frictional force to increase which tends to respect to Preff . These graphical results are in accordance
resist the fluid flow, thus reducing its velocity. Figures 10 and with [28, Figure 2]. The temperature variations against 𝑦 for
11 are plotted to see the difference between the ramped and various values of effective Prandtl number are highlighted in
isothermal plate velocities. The values of 𝑡 < 1 correspond Figures 18 and 19. The significant decrease of the temperature
to ramp velocity whereas 𝑡 > 1 is for isothermal plate. It is found as a result of an increase of the effective Prandtl
is found that ramp velocity is less than isothermal plate and number. The fluid temperature decreases from maximum at
converges faster. Further velocity in both cases increases with the boundary to a minimum value as far from the plate in
increasing time. The effects of inverse permeability parameter both cases of ramped and constant temperature. In Figures
𝐾𝑝 on the velocity profiles are presented in Figures 12 and 20 and 21, we have shown the temperature variations for
13. It is found that velocity decreases with increasing 𝐾𝑝 two types of boundary conditions ramped and constant plate
in both cases of ramp and isothermal plate. Physically, it is temperatures. It is noted that the fluid temperature is greater
due to the fact that increasing permeability of the porous in the case of isothermal plate than in the case of ramped
medium increases the resistance and consequently velocity temperature at the plate. This should be expected since, in
decreases. This observation is an excellent agreement with the the latter case, the heating of the fluid takes place more
previous study [28, Figure 3]. The effects of the shear stress gradually than in the isothermal case [29]. Moreover, with
𝑓 induced by the bounding plate on the nondimensional increasing time, the temperature is found to increase in
velocity profiles are shown in Figures 14 and 15. The velocity both cases of ramped and constant wall temperature. The
of fluid is found to decrease with increasing 𝑓 in both cases concentration profiles for different values of Schmidt number
of ramped velocity and isothermal plate. Graphical results Sc are shown in Figure 22. It is clear from this figure that the
to show the influence of the effective Prandtl number Preff concentration profiles and the concentration boundary layer
0.8 1
0.6
u(y, t)
Preff = 0.35, 3.50, 50
u(y, t)
Kp = 1, 2, 3
0.4 0.5
0.2
0 2 4 6 0 2 4 6 8
y y
Figure 13: Velocity profiles for Preff = 0.350 (𝑁𝑟 = 1, Pr = 0.7) and Figure 16: Velocity profiles for 𝐾𝑝 = 0.7 and 𝑡 = 1.2 and different
𝑡 = 0.9 and different values of 𝐾𝑝 when the plate applies a constant values of Preff when the plate applies a constant shear stress 𝑓 = −1.
shear stress 𝑓 = −1.
Preff = 0.35, 3.50, 50

0.8 u(y, t) 0.5
0.6 f = −0.15, −0.45, −0.75

u(y, t)
0.4
0.2 0 2 4 6
y
Figure 17: Velocity profiles for 𝐾𝑝 = 0.7 and 𝑡 = 0.9 and different
0 2 4 6 8 values of Preff when the plate applies a constant shear stress 𝑓 = −1.
y

𝐾𝑝 = 0.7, and 𝑡 = 1.2 and different values of constant shear stress 𝑓.
8. Conclusions
0.8
The purpose of this work was to analyze the unsteady MHD
free convection flow of an incompressible viscous fluid over
0.6
an infinite inclined plate with ramped wall temperature and
u(y, t)
f = −0.15, −0.45, −0.75 applies an arbitrary shear stress to the fluid. Exact solutions
0.4 for velocity, temperature (for both cases of ramped and
constant wall temperature), and concentration are obtained
0.2 using the Laplace transform technique and expressed in
terms of the complementary error function. They satisfy all
imposed initial and boundary conditions. These solutions are
0 2 4 6 plotted in various figures for different parameters of interest.
y The following conclusions are extracted from this study.

𝐾𝑝 = 0.7, and 𝑡 = 0.9 and different values of constant shear stress 𝑓. (i) The velocity of the fluid 𝑢(𝑦, 𝑡) can be written as a sum
of its convective and thermal components.
(ii) For the velocity solution in which the plate applies

an oscillating shear stress to the fluid 𝑓(𝑡) =
𝑓 sin(𝜔𝑡), the mechanical part can be further written
thickness decrease with increasing values of Sc. Physically, it as a sum of the steady-state and transient solutions.
is true, since increase of Sc means decrease of molecular diffu-
sivity which results in a decrease of concentration boundary (iii) The concentration boundary layer thickness
layer. decreases with increasing values of Sc.
0.8 0.8
0.6 0.6
T(y,, t)
T(y,, t)
Preff = 0.35, 3.50, 50 t = 1.2, 1.5, 2
0.4 0.4
0.2 0.2
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8
y y
Figure 18: Temperature profile for 𝑡 = 1.2 and different values of Figure 21: Temperature profiles for Preff = 0.350 (𝑁𝑟 = 1, Pr = 0.7)
Preff . and different values of 𝑡.
0.8
0.6 0.8
Preff = 0.35, 3.50, 50
T(y,, t)
0.6
0.4
C(y,, t)
Sc = 0.2, 0.5, 0.8
0.4
0.2
0.2
0 2 4 6 8
y 0 2 4 6 8
y
Figure 19: Temperature profile for 𝑡 = 0.9 and different values of
Preff . Figure 22: Concentration profiles for 𝑡 = 1.2 and different values of
Sc.
0.8
0.6
T(y,, t)
t = 0.2, 0.5, 0.9

0.4 Acknowledgment
The authors would like to acknowledge MOE and Research
0.2
Management Centre—UTM for the financial support
through vote numbers 04H27, and 4F255 for this research.
0 1 2 3 4 5
y References
Figure 20: Temperature profiles for Preff = 0.350 (𝑁𝑟 = 1, Pr = 0.7) [1] B. Rich, “An investigation of heat transfer from an inclined flat
and different values of 𝑡. plate in free convection,” Transactions of the ASME, vol. 75, pp.
489–499, 1953.
[2] K. Stewartson, “On the free convection from a horizontal plate,”
Zeitschrift für Angewandte Mathematik und Physik, vol. 9, no. 3,
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/924960
Research Article
An Optimization Model Based on Electric Power Generation in
Steel Industry
Jing-yu Liu and Jiu-ju Cai

School of Materials & Metallurgy, Northeastern University, Shenyang, Liaoning 110819, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Jing-yu Liu; hst ljy@163.com
Received 18 January 2014; Accepted 1 March 2014; Published 30 March 2014
Copyright © 2014 J.-y. Liu and J.-j. Cai. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
Electric power is an important energy in steel industry. Electricity accounts for roughly 20% to 30% of the gross energy consumption
and costs about 10% of the gross cost of energy. In this paper, under the premise of ensuring the stability of energy supply and the
normal production safety, the mathematical programming method and the dynamic mathematical optimization model were used
to set up the surplus gas in the optimal allocation among the buffer users and steam production dispatching for the production
equipment. The application of this optimization model can effectively improve the energy efficiency and the accuracy of power
generation, making full use of secondary energy and residual heat. It also can realize the rationalization of the electricity production
structure optimization which can effectively reduce the flare of the gas and steam on one hand, and save energy and decrease
production cost on the other.
1. Introduction plant. Zhou [4] presented the low-pressure saturated steam

generation engineering of Shougang Qian’an Iron&Steel Co.,
From the viewpoint of socioeconomic role of steel enterprises Ltd, discussed effective modes of utilizing residual steam of
in the future, the manufacturing process of steel plants metallurgic enterprises and better economic benefit. Fan [5]
should fulfill three principal functions: (1) the function of presented a few relatively mature technical schemes in electric
steel product manufacturing; (2) the function of energy power generation with residual heat as well as technical and
conversion; (3) the function of waste treatment and recycling economic analyses and cases. Li et al. [6] stated that by build-
[1, 2]. Integrated iron and steel enterprises (IISEs) need ing the distributed power generation, the residual heat and
large amount of electricity power which causes higher cost. energy can be recovered, transported, and reused as close as
IISEs have a lot of residual heat and energy used for power possible, and so, as to make the electric power self-support. It
generation. Carrying out scientific and reasonable electricity can be concluded that the electric power self-support or even
production and outsourcing strategy has a very important outer supply can be completely realized through residual heat
significance for steel enterprises to implement the mission of and energy recovered by distributed power generation. Yang
saving energy and emission reduction, minimizing the cost et al. [7] provided the optimal economic management models
and improving the efficiency. Many researchers and schol- of autonomous power plant (APP) and large consumer
ars have studied the electric power system (EPS) network holding APP, respectively, offered the optimal production and
of the IISEs. They have achieved many fruits but mostly distribution plan of APP and the optimal power purchasing
focusing on technology of electrical power generation [3– scheme of large consumer after administering peak-valley
6] and electrical power dispatching [7–9] of IISEs. Ding et power price by solving profit maximum function of APP and
al. [3], based on the statement of the running situation of power purchasing cost minimum function of large consumer.
different types power plants and the analyzing of economy, The optimal schemes and results offered not only assure
bring forward the influence actors and suggestions which APP and large consumer to produce and manage optimally,
should be considered during a new developing thermal power but also reduce the sell loss of grid to some extent. Huang
and Sun [8] carried out to build the simulation models and steam production scheduling between production equip-
to analyse electrical power system in steel enterprise. The ment, were discussed in this paper, researching on electric
models included consumption model, recycling model, and power reasonable production and optimization problem and
conversion transmission model, which were built upon the exploring the optimal power production and outsourcing
principles of material balance, energy balance, and logical strategies. The connotation of the power system optimization
relations held in steel production processes. The simulation has given priority to rigid user’s gas and steam demand, and
has shown that the modeling work has achieved satisfactory then has dealt with the optimal allocation among the rest of
result and hence can be expected to become a competent tool gas, steam, and electricity. Power generation efficiency and
serving for energy saving purpose. Zhang et al. [9] proposed energy balance were all needed to be solved. It was maximum
a rolling optimal scheduling algorithm, further, to deal with recovery residual heat and energy to power generation as
random error of real-time load forecast model, suggesting far as possible, self-generation increased and outsourcing
a compensated rolling optimal scheduling algorithm, and reduced, and thus saved cost of outsourcing electricity.
the algorithms were tested on real data; prospective results
were obtained. To sum up, for the consideration of coupling 2.2. Model Simplification and Assumption. In Figure 1, CCPP
relation and optimizing allocation among surplus, steam and is rigid user; CHP, CDQ, sintering residual heat, BOF
electricity had not been reported. saturated steam, rolling mill furnace residual heat gener-
The key problem of self-generating was to maximize ation are all buffer users. The steam system is not only
recovery of secondary energy to generate electricity in iron sourced from residual heat boiler, but also from the boiler-
and steel works, so coordinated optimizing among gases, steam turbine. Boiler-steam turbine produces high pressure
steam, and electricity was very important. Instead, taking steam; CCPP residual heat boiler produces high pressure
power as an energy medium, study electricity production steam and medium pressure steam; CHP residual heat boiler
dispatching optimization using the optimization theory and produces medium pressure steam and low pressure steam;
system energy saving. Under the background of energy man- CDQ residual heat boiler produces high pressure steam
agement and energy conservation, this paper was undertook and medium pressure steam; Sintering residual heat boiler
through the analysis of the power production side network produces medium pressure steam; BOF saturated steam
and purchased status of IISEs, aimed at minimizing cost and residual heat boiler produces medium and low pressure
optimal benefit of cost-effectiveness, the power production steam; Rolling mill furnace residual heat boiler produces
dynamic coupling model of surplus byproduct gas, steam was medium and low pressure steam. In order to increase capacity
established on the basis of the principle and characteristics of self-generating, the medium saturated steam of BOF and
of self-generating equipment of iron and steel enterprise the medium steam rolling mill furnace generated electricity.
[10, 11]. It has been put into practice. Its application realizes BFG: blast furnace gas, COG: coke oven gas, LDG: Linz
the reasonable and efficient utilization of original energy, Donawitz gas, CCPP: gas-steam combined cycle power plant,
secondary energy, and residual heat and energy resources, CHP: combined heat and power, TRT: blast furnace top gas
thereby enhancing power conversion efficiency. recovery turbine unit, CDQ: coke dry quenching, S1: high
pressure steam, S2: medium pressure steam, S3: low pressure
steam, BOF: basic oxygen furnace, SPPG: self-power plant
2. Mathematical Optimization Model of generation, and RHEG: residual heat and energy generating.
Power Production Electric power production side of iron and steel enter-
prises included a variety of power generation and steam
2.1. Problem Description. Iron and steel enterprise power production equipment, and its characteristic parameters were
system was divided into electric power production side different with each other and were both interrelated and
and power consumption side. The power production side influenced by the gas system and steam system causing the
included two modes of power production, namely, self-power complexity of the actual operation, which brings certain
plant generation and residual heat and energy generation. difficulties on optimization modeling. Therefore, in this
The corresponding power link and power users’ situation paper, the following assumptions were put forward for the
of electric power production side and consumption side optimization model.
is shown in Figure 1. The power system of iron and steel
enterprise was huge and complex. The sources of power, (1) In the given production conditions, gas rigid user
conversion, transmission, distribution link, and terminal consumption was constant; thus, the model only
users were numerous, and they almost involved all aspects considered the optimization and allocation of distri-
of the iron and steel production. Therefore, how to make bution between the gas in a buffer users (gas power
reasonable power production plan and purchase electricity generating equipment, steam boiler) and did not
strategy and find out the best proportion of self-generation consider optimal assignment problem of the gas in
and outsourcing electricity was particularly important to rigid users of steel production process.
ensure the normal production and safety of power supply. To (2) In the given production conditions, the steam
simplify the problem, under the circumstance of meeting the demand was considered as a constant. Thus only
demand of power, steam and gas for the normal production, optimal scheduling problems of steam in relative
with power production side as the research object, case generation and power items were studied in this
of gas optimal allocation between buffer users, rigid users, paper.
Electricity production side Steam system

Excess
BFG
S1
Power consumption
SPPG
Boiler-steam turbine
Excess
S2 Coking user
COG CCPP (rigid user)
S3
Excess CHP system Sintering user
LDG
Residual heat boiler Pellet user

Coal Self-generating
TRT Total Ironmaking user
CDQ
Steelmaking user
RHEG Outsourcing power
Residual Sintering residual heat
heat
and Rolling user
energy
resources BOF saturated steam
Energy user
Rolling mill furnace

residual heat generation Others user
Gas
Electricity
Steam
Figure 1: The schematic illustration of electrical energy system in iron and steel enterprise.
(3) Actual steel production process, boiler efficiency with 3 minutes instantaneous value in power generation plan;
boiler load changing (if this efficiency changes can thus, we chose 3 minutes in this paper, and in order to
be ignored, the more byproduct gas, the more power reflect the power network dynamical change continuously
generation), but the influence of boiler load on the and compactly (the time did not include power turn-on time
model optimization result was very small, so it was and turn-off time, and in a day work shift. The reason was that
assumed that boiler thermal efficiency of the model the data was more suitable for statistics.) The mathematical
was constant in different time, as well as equip- expression of this model was reduced a lot of form of
ment generating efficiency, residual heat recovery juxtaposed, helpful to control model scale.
efficiency, and steam turbine efficiency was constant; The model was established considering power reasonable
thus, unit system generating (thermal) efficiency also production and outsourcing, with related multicycle mixed
remained unchanging, steam turbine power gener- integer linear programming (MILP) model of gas and steam.
ation and extraction quantity also thought to be Lee et al. [12] established the MILP model of best decision
approximate was of linear relationship. outsourcing power by the method of mathematical pro-
gramming in iron and steel enterprise, the results of model
2.3. Objective Function. Owing to modeling, different time application verified its correctness and effectiveness in a few
value would cause different mathematical models; thus, we cases and obtained satisfactory energy-saving effect. Accord-
need to control time interval. The model time interval was ing to the actual demand, the objective function included
determined in a unit of time of 3 minutes. outsourcing electric cost, self-generating cost, outsourcing
Due to the output regulation limitations of the generating power coal cost, consumption gas cost, and comprehensive
set, unit output value was presented in the form of every cost of steam production and gas diffusion punishment cost
system integrated operation cost minimum. The objective Table 1: Meanings and units of variables in the model.
function expression was as follows:
Nomenclature
ele buy ele gen Subscripts
Min 𝑆 = ∑𝐶buy,𝑡 ⋅ 𝐸𝑡 + ∑∑𝐶gen,𝑚 ⋅ 𝐸𝑚,𝑡
𝑡 𝑡 𝑚 𝑡 Unit of time, h
480 𝑚 Power generation and steam production equipment
gas
+ ∑∑𝐶coal ⋅ 𝑓𝑚,𝑡 + ∫ ∑∑𝐶𝑖 ⋅ 𝐹𝑚,𝑖,𝑡 𝑑𝑡 𝑖 Kinds of gas (BFG, COG, and LDG)
𝑡 𝑚 0 𝑖 𝑚 𝑘 Kinds of steam (S1, S2, and S3)
480 480 Variables
𝑠𝑡𝑒
+∫ ∑∑𝐶𝑚,𝑘 ⋅ 𝑄𝑚,𝑘,𝑡 𝑑𝑡 + ∫ ∑𝐶𝑖Gas ⋅ 𝐹𝑖,𝑡
Gas
𝑑𝑡. 𝐶buy,𝑡
ele
Price of outsourcing electricity in 𝑡 time point, RMB/kW⋅h
0 𝑘 𝑚 0 𝑖
𝐶gen,𝑚
ele
Price of self-generation of device 𝑚, RMB/kW⋅h
(1)
𝐶coal Price of outsourcing coal, RMB/𝑡
gas
The meanings and units of every parameter in the 𝐶𝑖 Price of 𝑖 gas, RMB/m3
objective function and constraint conditions were listed in 𝐶𝑚,𝑘
ste
Cost of 𝑘 steam production device 𝑚, RMB/𝑡
Table 1. 𝐶𝑖Gas Punishment price of 𝑖 gas, RMB/m3
In the condition, the above objective function meets 𝑓𝑚,𝑡 Consumption of equipment 𝑚 in 𝑡 time point, 𝑡/h
the related constraint. The minimum value of the system 𝐹𝑚,𝑖,𝑡 Consumption of 𝑖 gas equipment 𝑚 in 𝑡 time point, m3 /h
comprehensive operation cost was obtained as the optimum 𝑄𝑚,𝑘,𝑡 Production quantity of 𝑘 steam equipment 𝑚 in 𝑡 time, 𝑡/h
value of the function. In the formula, the first item is
𝐹𝑖,𝑡Gas Emission capacity of 𝑖 gas in 𝑡 time point, m3 /h
outsourcing electricity cost, when the self-generating elec- buy
𝐸𝑡 Outsourcing electricity of 𝑡 time point, kW
tricity could not satisfy production requirements or when gen
generation set malfunction existence from the external power 𝐸𝑚,𝑡 Generation capacity of equipment 𝑚 in 𝑡 time point, kW
grid electricity outsourcing cost; the second item is self-
generating cost; the third item is purchased power coal cost,
ensuring coal-fired boilers or mixed burning gas boiler fuel (3) For gas balance constraints, consider
demand in order to maintain stable heat load; the fourth 480 480
Gas
item is equipment consumption gas cost; the fifth item is ∀𝑖, 𝑡, ∫ ∑𝐹𝑚,𝑖,𝑡 𝑑𝑡 + ∫ 𝐹𝑖,𝑡 𝑑𝑡 = 𝐵𝑖,𝑡 . (4)
comprehensive cost of steam production; the last item is the 0 𝑚 0
cost of gas radiation punishment. This paper was argued that
gas diffusion cost should be higher than normal use, so the 2.4.2. Equipment Capacity Constraints. All kinds of energy
gas punishment cost is larger (the gas diffusion refers to the conversion, storage, and consumption equipment had its
gas that injection into the atmosphere polluting environment, rated working range, and for each power generation and
but power generation with gas was not taken into account, steam production equipment working range, its upper and
because power generation was beneficial). lower limit can be set according to the actual situation.
Consider the following.
2.4. Constraint Conditions. Constraint conditions could
(1) For equipment rated generating capacity constraints,
reflect the actual operation conditions on the system require-
consider
ments and system internal relationship between various
physical quantities. Combined with actual production ∀𝑚,
gen
𝐸𝑚,𝑡 ≤ 𝐸𝑚 . (5)
situation of iron and steel enterprise, the constraints in the
model were energy demand constraints, equipment capacity
constraints, and thermal balance constraints. (2) For equipment steam production capacity con-
straints, consider the following.
2.4.1. Energy Demand Constraints. To meet these energy
demands and to guarantee normal operation of various pro- Equipment Extraction Volume Constraints. They are suitable
cesses, each production process in different period on electric for the power equipment from steam turbine extraction, such
power, steam, gas, and other secondary energy demand was as self-power station boiler and CDQ. Consider
different in IISEs. Consider the following. 480
∀𝑚, ∫ 𝑄𝑚,𝑘,𝑡 ≤ 𝐴 𝑚,𝑘 (6)
(1) For power demand constraints, consider 0
gen buy
∀𝑡, ∑ 𝐸𝑚,𝑡 + 𝐸𝑡 ≥ 𝐷𝑡ele . (2)
𝑚 Equipment Production Volume Constraint. In allusion to
the steam boilers, waste heat resource steam production
(2) For steam demand constraints, consider equipment; consider
480 480
∀𝑘, 𝑡, ∫ ste
∑𝑄𝑚,𝑘,𝑡 𝑑𝑡 ≥ 𝐷𝑘,𝑡 . (3) ∀𝑚, ∫ ∑𝑄𝑚,𝑘,𝑡 ≤ 𝐴 𝑚 . (7)
0 𝑚 0 𝑘
2.4.3. Thermal Balance Constraints. Electric power produc- boiler and coal powder boiler of mixed burning gas are the
tion was greatly influenced by gas, steam, steam coal, and most typical. Gas stove has the lowest and maximum load
residual heat resource in iron and steel enterprise, and they limitation, and gas could be only adjusted in this range.
were interrelated with and influenced by each other, so Instead, for the coal powder boiler, pulverized coal practical
through establishing approximate thermal balance relation quantity could be adjusted according to gas surplus condition
of equipment to optimal dispatching relationships were coal utility. Therefore, gas buffer user should meet the
obtained. The electric power production system consisted following constraint condition. Generally speaking, CCPP is
of self-generating station power generation equipment and one of the rigid users for the efficiency changed a lot with the
residual heat power generation equipment. Consider the load change, and its regulating range is not large. So it was
following. ruled out. Consider
min max
(1) For thermal balance constraint of self-generating link, ∀𝑚, 𝑖, 𝐹𝑚,𝑖 ≤ 𝐹𝑚,𝑖,𝑡 ≤ 𝐹𝑚,𝑖 . (12)
consider
480 2.4.6. Variable Nonnegative Constraints. Ensuring that all
gen
∀𝑚, ∑𝐸𝑚,𝑡 ⋅ ℎele + ∫ ∑𝑄𝑚,𝑘,𝑡 𝑑𝑡 ⋅ ℎ𝑘ste continuous variables were not less than zero, we can consider
𝑡 0 𝑘
buy buy
(8) 𝐸𝑚,𝑡 ≥ 0, 𝐸𝑡 ≥ 0, 𝑓𝑚,𝑡 ≥ 0, 𝐹𝑚,𝑖,𝑡 ≥ 0,
480 (13)
gas coal
= 𝜂𝑚 (∫ ∑𝐹𝑚,𝑖,𝑡 ⋅ ℎ𝑖 𝑑𝑡 + 𝑓𝑚,𝑡 ⋅ ℎ ). 𝑄𝑚,𝑘,𝑡 ≥ 0, Gas
𝐹𝑖,𝑡 ≥ 0.
0 𝑖
These constraint conditions were all related to each other.
(2) For thermal balance constraint of waste heat and
energy recovery generation link, consider 2.4.7. Parameter Definition. The meanings and units of every
480 parameter in the objective function and constraint conditions
gen
∀𝑚, ∑𝐸𝑚,𝑡 ⋅ ℎele + ∫ ∑𝑄𝑚,𝑘,𝑡 ⋅ ℎ𝑘ste 𝑑𝑡 = 𝜂𝑚 ⋅ 𝑅𝑚,𝑡 . (9) were listed in Table 2.
𝑡 0 𝑘
3. Illustrative Example
(3) For thermal balance constraint of steam boiler, con-
sider According to the power mathematical optimization model
480 480 in the above section, taking an integrated iron and steel
gas
∀𝑚, ∫ ∑𝑄𝑚,𝑘,𝑡 𝑑𝑡 ⋅ ℎ𝑘ste = 𝜂𝑚 ⋅ ∫ ∑𝐹𝑚,𝑖,𝑡 𝑑𝑡 ⋅ ℎ𝑖 . enterprise in Northern China, for example, the electric power
0 𝑘 0 𝑖 production optimization model was established on the basis
(10) of the actual power equipment situation, as shown in Figure 2.
To meet the demand of iron and steel enterprise under
In the above formulas 𝜂𝑚 is system power generation the premise of electric power production, combined with
efficiency for power generation equipment and is system production side optimization model diagram, the objective
thermal efficiency for steam production equipment; 𝑅𝑚,𝑡 function was got as follows:
represents different meanings in recycling links of residual ele buy ele gen
heat and energy resource; for example, in CDQ, sintering, Min 𝑆 = ∑𝐶buy,𝑡 ⋅ 𝐸𝑡 + ∑∑𝐶gen,𝑚 ⋅ 𝐸𝑚,𝑡 + ∑𝐶coal ⋅ 𝑓1,𝑡
converter, and heating furnace, respectively, it represents the 𝑡 𝑡 𝑚 𝑡
red coke sensible heat, sinter flue gas sensible heat, converter 480 480
gas gas
flue gas sensible heat, and heat furnace flue gas sensible heat. + (∫ ∑𝐶1 ⋅ 𝐹1,𝑔1,𝑡 𝑑𝑡 + ∫ ∑𝐶2 ⋅ 𝐹2,𝑔2,𝑡 𝑑𝑡
𝑡=0 𝑔1 𝑡=0 𝑔2
2.4.4. Relation Constraint between Steam Turbine Unit Power 480

Generation and Extraction Quantity. Steam turbine is an gas
+∫ ∑𝐶3 ⋅ 𝐹3,𝑔3,𝑡 𝑑𝑡)
important means to adjust steam and power balance in the 𝑡=0 𝑔3
system. The front of assumptions was a linear relationship
480 480
between steam turbine power generation and extraction ste ste
+ (∫ ∑𝐶1,𝑠1 ⋅ 𝑄1,𝑠1,𝑡 𝑑𝑡 + ∫ ∑𝐶2,𝑠2 ⋅ 𝑄2,𝑠2,𝑡 𝑑𝑡
quantity. Consider 𝑡=0 𝑠1 𝑡=0 𝑠2
480 480
gen gen
∀𝑚, 𝑡, ∑𝐸𝑚,𝑡 + ∫ ∑𝑞𝑘 ⋅ 𝑄𝑚,𝑘,𝑡 𝑑𝑡 = 𝐸𝑚 ⋅ 𝑎. (11) +∫ ste
∑𝐶3,𝑠3 ⋅ 𝑄3,𝑠3,𝑡 𝑑𝑡)
𝑡 0 𝑘 𝑡=0 𝑠3
Among them, 𝑞𝑘 is steam discount coefficient of power; 0 ≤ 480

𝑎 ≤ 1 is used to determine the load of steam turbine. +∫ ∑𝐶𝑖Gas ⋅ 𝐹𝑖,𝑡
Gas
𝑑𝑡.
𝑡=0 𝑖
(14)
2.4.5. Adjustment Range Constraint of Gas Buffer User. Boiler
is one of the gas buffer users in iron and steel enterprises In the formula, they are, respectively, outsourcing elec-
and its kinds are various. Among them, pure burning gas tricity cost, self-generating cost, gas radiation punishment
Coal
f1,t Outsourcing electricity

gen
F1,1,t E1,t
CHP number 1
Q3,1,t buy
F2,1,t Q2,1,t Et
LDG F3,2,t
gen
CCPP number 2 E2,t
Electricity demand
F1,2,t
Q2,2,t
F2,2,t
gen
BFG TRT number 3 E3,t
gen
E4,t
CDQ number 4 Steam system
Q2,4,t
COG S3 steam
F1,5,t Q1,5,t
Launch boiler number 5
F2,5,t
Q2,5,t
S1 steam
F1,6,t Q1,6,t
130t boiler number 6
F2,6,t Q3,6,t
S2 steam
Q2,6,t
Sintering residual heat power Egen

7,t
generation number 7
Q2,7,t
gen
E8,t
Converter saturation steam power
generation number 8
Q2,8,t
Residual heat utilization

generation of converter rolling Egen
9,t
mill heating furnace fume number 9
Q2,9,t
Power coal Electricity

BFG S1 steam
COG S2 steam
LDG S3 steam
Figure 2: Optimization model of power production side of an integrated iron and steel enterprise.
cost, equipment consumption gas cost, comprehensive cost 3.2. Model Solution and Discussion. With ILOG COLEX
of steam production, and purchased power coal cost. software, the above model can be solved by taking the related
parameters of company electric power, gas, steam data, and
3.1. Parameter Definition. Each parameter meaning and unit equipment into this model. The optimization results were
of variable in the model was listed in Table 3. shown in Figure 3 and Table 4.
Table 2: Meanings and units of variables in the model.
Capacity of CHP
generator (kW)
15000
Nomenclature 10000
5000
Subscripts 0
𝑡
120
150
180
210
240
270
300
330
360
390
420
450
480
0
30
60
90
Unit of time, h
𝑚 Power generation and steam production equipment Time
𝑖 Kinds of gas (BFG, COG, and LDG) Value of before optimization
𝑘 Kinds of steam (S1, S2, and S3) Value of after optimization
Variables Figure 3: The CHP data of power system network of an iron and
𝐶buy,𝑡
ele Price of outsourcing electricity in 𝑡 time point, steel enterprise in one day.
RMB/kW⋅h
𝐶gen,𝑚
ele
Price of self-generation of device 𝑚, RMB/kW⋅h
𝐶coal Price of outsourcing coal, RMB/𝑡 was increasing, 32160 kW, and the reason was that steam S2
gas
𝐶𝑖 Price of 𝑖 gas, RMB/m3 recovery of sintering increment of 20 t/h recycling was used
𝐶𝑚,𝑘
ste
Cost of 𝑘 steam production device 𝑚, RMB/𝑡 to generate electricity. The capacity of converter saturation
𝐶𝑖Gas Punishment price of 𝑖 gas, RMB/m3 steam power generation was increasing, 1386 kW, and the
𝐷𝑡ele
reason was that steam S2 recovery of converter increment
Power demand of 𝑡 time point, kW⋅h
of 0.83 t/h recycling was used to generate electricity. The
𝐷𝑘,𝑡
ste
𝑘 steam production demand of 𝑡 time, 𝑡/h capacity of residual heat utilization generation of converter
𝐵𝑖,𝑡 𝑖 gas surplus of 𝑡 time, m3 /h rolling mill heating furnace fume was increasing, 60 kW, and
𝐸𝑚 Rated generating capacity of equipment 𝑚, kW the reason was that steam S2 recovery of rolling mill incre-
𝐴𝑚 Steam production quantity of equipment 𝑚, 𝑡/h ment of 0.04 t/h recycling was used to generate electricity.
min
𝐹𝑚,𝑖 Adjust lower limit of equipment 𝑚 gas-fired 𝑖, m3 /h The capacity of CHP generation was increasing, 1878 kW, and
max
𝐹𝑚,𝑖
the reason was that the rest of surplus gas should have been
Adjust upper limit of equipment 𝑚 gas-fired 𝑖, m3 /h
supplied to CHP in order to maintain load demand of unit
ℎele Calorific value of the electricity, kJ/kW⋅h power and steam production and reduced heat supply. It also
ℎ𝑘ste Calorific value of 𝑘 steam, kJ/kg can be known that the cost of every day is ¥ 1166.712 thousand
gas
ℎ𝑖 Calorific value of 𝑖 gas, kJ/m3 after optimization, saving a cost of ¥ 335.199 thousand than
ℎcoal Calorific value of heating coal, kJ/kg before optimization. It is accounting for about 23.32% of
System generating (thermal) efficiency of equipment 𝑚, the cost before optimization and the optimization effect
𝜂𝑚 was obvious. It can reduce steam and surplus gas radiation
%
Caloric value of recovery of residual heat and energy quantity and increase the capacity of power generation, thus
𝑅𝑚,𝑡 saving energy. It had brought great economic benefits to this
resources of equipment 𝑚 in 𝑡 time, kJ/h
𝐸𝑡
buy
Outsourcing electricity of 𝑡 time point, kW enterprise. Consider the following.
gen Generation capacity of equipment 𝑚 in 𝑡 time point,
𝐸𝑚,𝑡 (1) Electric Power Generation and Outsourcing Analysis. The
kW
generation equipment of the model include CHP, CCPP, TRT,
𝑓𝑚,𝑡 Consumption of equipment 𝑚 in 𝑡 time point, 𝑡/h CDQ, sintering residual heat power generation, converter sat-
𝐹𝑚,𝑖,𝑡 Consumption of 𝑖 gas equipment 𝑚 in 𝑡 time point, uration steam power generation, and residual heat utilization
m3 /h generation of converter rolling mill heating furnace off-gas.
𝑄𝑚,𝑘,𝑡 Production quantity of 𝑘 steam equipment 𝑚 in 𝑡 time, From the optimization results of Table 4, it can be seen that
𝑡/h this model gave the reasonable solutions of power production
𝐹𝑖,𝑡Gas Emission capacity of 𝑖 gas in 𝑡 time point, m3 /h and the best outsourcing of company. The outsourcing price
𝐴 𝑚,𝑘 Extraction quantity of equipment 𝑚, 𝑡/h was taken for ¥ 0.5 per kW h. The optimization results
have shown that self-generation increased and outsourcing
reduced and thus saved cost of outsourcing electricity.
(In Figure 3 abscissa is the number of time unit and each
unit of time is 3 minutes, select 48 points one day). (2) Steam Production Analysis. The S2 steam of converter and
The example of IISEs datum was shown in Table 4. rolling recovery were changed in a very small way after the
Through Figure 3, it was known that there was not optimization, and yet the S2 steam of sintering recovery was
much difference before optimization and after optimization 1.5 times as much as that before the optimization. It adopted
at first, but as time went by, the datum of this enterprise the mode of “using two sets of residual heat boiler with a
power network system had larger deviation after optimization turbine generator”. The capacity of generation was 20 kW⋅h
and before optimization. Then through Table 4, it can be per ton sinter (sintering machine sets are 4 × 402 t/h). Startup
known that the capacity of CDQ generation was increasing, boiler and 130-ton boiler were full load production after
120000 kW, and the reason was that CDQ S2 extraction the optimization, and steam production amount kept rated
decrement of 70 t/h recycling was used to generate electricity. quantity, but steam ratio changed. The extraction quantity of
The capacity of sintering residual heat power generation CDQ was reduced from 100 tons to 30 tons per hour to realize
Table 3: Meanings and units of variables in the model.
Sign Meaning Unit

𝑡 Unit of time h
𝑚 Power generation and steam production equipment —
𝑠 Equipment of steam production —
S1 Equipment of steam S1 production —
g1 Equipment of BFG consumption —
g2 Equipment of COG consumption —
g3 Equipment of LDG consumption —
𝑖 Kinds of gas (BFG, COG, and LDG) —
𝑘 Kinds of steam (S1, S2,and S3) —
buy
𝐸𝑡 Outsourcing electricity capacity of 𝑡 time point kW
gen
𝐸𝑚,𝑡 Generation capacity of equipment 𝑚 in 𝑡 time point kW
𝑓1,𝑡 Power coal consumption of equipment 1# in 𝑡 time point 𝑡/h
𝐹1,g1,𝑡 BFG consumption of equipment g1 in 𝑡 time point m3 /h
𝐹2,g2,𝑡 COG consumption of equipment g2 in 𝑡 time point m3 /h
𝐹3,g3,𝑡 LDG consumption of equipment g3 in 𝑡 time point m3 /h
𝑄1,S1,𝑡 S1 steam production quantity of equipment S1 in 𝑡 time 𝑡/h
𝐹𝑖,𝑡Gas Emission capacity of 𝑖 gas in 𝑡 time point m3 /h
less extraction and more power generation. Self-generation and study, and find out power reasonable production plan
capacity was increased and outsourcing power electricity was and outsourcing strategies in iron and steel enterprise.
reduced, and then saved outsourcing electric cost of this The characteristic of the model was a coupling optimiza-
enterprise. tion model which includes comprehensive consideration of
power, gas, and steam (three kinds of energy medium of
(3) Gas Distribution Analysis. The consumption capacity iron and steel enterprise); it realized the power network
of BFG and COG was increased after optimization; the dynamic and continuity; it improved the accuracy of the
consumption of power coal was decreased 11 tons; the con- data and thus can guide iron and steel enterprise reasonable
sumption of BFG of startup boiler was reduced to 1000 m3 /h utilization of primary energy (power coal), secondary energy
and the consumption of COG of startup boiler was reduced (by-product gas), and residual heat and energy resource to
to 10.3 m3 /h, and consumption of BFG of 130-ton boiler was conduct electricity and steam production; it promoted energy
reduced to 16700 m3 /h; but the consumption of COG of 130- conservation and emission reduction, improved production
ton boiler was increased to 2281.7 m3 /h. In order to meet data accuracy of power network and saved electricity cost to
the demand of the enterprise steam, gas should have been reduce enterprise production cost.
distributed prior to rigid user CCPP, and then make two kinds
boiler product steam under full load, the rest of surplus gas
should be supplied for coal gas, CHP in order to maintain 4. Conclusion
load demand of unit power and steam production, so as to (1) Through the establishment of the electric power
realized reduce gas diffusion, self-generation increased and generation dynamical optimization model in IISEs,
outsourcing power electricity reduced, production cost of it can be known that the EPS generation optimal
enterprise reduced. dispatching was concerned with gas optimal alloca-
In allusion to a specified scale of iron and steel enter- tion between the buffer users and steam optimal pro-
prise, when using the optimal model for electric power duction in the conditions of production equipment.
production and outsourcing optimization analysis, only in Through the optimization, the best power production
the accordance with the specific configuration of power and outsourcing solutions for enterprise can be found
production side, put each power generation equipment and out.
steam production equipment into consideration, clear about
production-consumption relationship of gas, steam coal con- (2) EPS generation dynamic optimization model was
sumption, electric power, steam production, and other energy a coupling optimization model which is based on
medium, make electric power production optimization prob- power, gas, and steam which are three common
lems concretization and then specific issue in-depth analysis kinds of energy medium of iron and steel enterprise;
Table 4: Comparison of optimal results of the model.
Sign Value of before Value of after Unit

Meaning
optimization optimization
gen
𝐸1,𝑡 Capacity of CHP generation 11646 13524 kW
gen
𝐸2,𝑡 Capacity of CCPP generation 12542 12542 kW
gen
𝐸3,𝑡 Capacity of TRT generation 10983 10983 kW
gen
𝐸4,𝑡 Capacity of CDQ generation 49500 169500 kW
gen
𝐸7,𝑡 Sintering residual heat power generation 101025 133185 kW
gen
𝐸8,𝑡 Converter saturation steam power kW
11124 12510
generation
Residual heat utilization generation of
gen
𝐸9,𝑡 converter rolling mill heating furnace 950 1010 kW
fume
gen
𝐸𝑡 Total self-generating 197770 353254 kW
buy
𝐸𝑡 Outsourcing electricity 199950 44466 kW
𝑓1,𝑡 Outsourcing power coal of thermoelectric 79 68 𝑡/h
𝐹1,1,𝑡 Combust BFG of thermoelectric 340000 400000 m3 /h
𝐹1,5,𝑡 Combust BFG of startup boiler 53000 52000 m3 /h
𝐹1,6,𝑡 Combust BFG of 130-ton boiler 230000 213300 m3 /h
𝐹2,1,𝑡 Combust COG of thermoelectric 28000 30309 m3 /h
𝐹2,5,𝑡 Combust COG of startup boiler 2500 2489.7 m3 /h
𝐹2,6,𝑡 Combust COG of 130-ton boiler 1900 4181.7 m3 /h
𝐹1,𝑡
Gas
Emission capacity of BFG 2300 300 m3 /h
𝐹2,𝑡
Gas
Emission capacity of COG 7480 108 m3 /h
𝐹3,𝑡
Gas
Emission capacity of LDG 3200 350 m3 /h
𝑄1,5,𝑡 Steam S1 production of startup boiler 50 11.231 𝑡/h
𝑄1,6,𝑡 Steam S1 production of 130-ton boiler 20 58.769 𝑡/h
𝑄2,1,𝑡 Thermoelectric S2 extraction 0 0 𝑡/h
𝑄2,4,𝑡 CDQ S2 extraction 100 30 𝑡/h
𝑄2,5,𝑡 Steam S2 production of startup boiler 20 58.769 𝑡/h
𝑄2,6,𝑡 Steam S2 production of 130-ton boiler 40–50 0 𝑡/h
𝑄2,7,𝑡 Steam S2 recovery of sintering 40 60 𝑡/h
𝑄2,8,𝑡 Steam S2 recovery of converter 100 100.83 𝑡/h
𝑄2,9,𝑡 Steam S2 recovery of rolling mill 60 60.04 𝑡/h
𝑄3,1,𝑡 Thermoelectric S3 extraction 0 18.769 𝑡/h
𝑄3,6,𝑡 Steam S3 production of 130 ton boiler 220 201.23 𝑡/h
𝑆 Objective value 1501911 1166712 ¥ per day
the model can realize the power network dynamic and Acknowledgments
continuity and improve the accuracy of the data, thus
it can guide IISEs reasonable utilization of primary This research is supported by Scholarship Award for Key
energy (power coal), secondary energy (by-product Project of Chinese National Programs for Fundamental
gas), and residual heat and energy resource to con- Research Development Plan (no. 2008AA042901).
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/571354
Research Article
Identification of Shaft Centerline Orbit for
Wind Power Units Based on Hopfield Neural Network
Improved by Simulated Annealing
Kun Ren and Jihong Qu

North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Zhengzhou 450011, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Kun Ren; 86960347@qq.com
Received 3 February 2014; Accepted 23 February 2014; Published 26 March 2014
Copyright © 2014 K. Ren and J. Qu. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
In the maintenance system of wind power units, shaft centerline orbit is an important feature to diagnosis the status of the unit.
This paper presents the diagnosis of the orbit as follows: acquire characters of orbit by the affine invariant moments, take this as the
characteristic parameters of neural networks to construct the identification model, utilize Simulated Annealing (SA) Algorithm
to optimize the weights matrix of Hopfield neural network, and then some typical faults were selected as examples to identify.
Experiment’s results show that SA-Hopfield identification model performed better than the previous methods.
1. Introduction neural network is easy to fall into local optimum, so the pre-
cession rate of the diagnosis is very low.
Because of the operating environment and the structure of To improve the accuracy of the classification model, we
wind turbines are very complex. Most failures are due to the introduce the Hopfield neural network in this paper. Figure 1
vibrations. These vibrations would seriously affect the func- shows the simple structure of a neuron by calculating the
tioning of the unit and the consumption of pot life. Therefore, data, thresholds, and weights to get output data. Because of
diagnosis of the turbine vibration fault is a very necessary this nonlinear transmission capacity of neurons, neural net-
work. Common diagnostic vibration signal extracted spectral work has been widely used in pattern recognition and the
information, so the information is limited and incomplete, parameter fitting in recent years.
and sometimes there exists nonlinear relationship between Artificial neural network (ANN) is a simulation of the
the feature data. However, the axial movement of the track nervous system of the brain, including many features of the
unit is a state of the information carrier. Two drawbacks of system [7–11]. ANN is capable of learning the key information
the upstairs can be overcome, so it can reflect the fault infor- patterns within a multidimensional information domain and
mation more efficiently and accurately. therefore could be used in many applications for tracking and
Currently, the models of most researchers on Shaft Cen- prediction the complex energy systems [12–15]. The human
terline Orbit are to extract the features and then utilize some brain is a highly complex machine that can do nonlinear and
pattern recognition methods for classification References [1– parallel computing. The human brain can organize its neu-
3] presented based on the Hu invariant moments feature rons and it has a faster speed than today’s fastest computers
extraction [4–6] proposed recognition method based on BP in some particular computing (such as pattern recognition,
network. However, the above method has two problems to be perception, and motor control). Because the current system
solved, one cannot accurately describe the characteristics of and the human brain mechanism of intelligence level, and
the orbit of the centerline, and causes of the data are collected related scientific and technical level are limited, neural net-
through site acquisition card to the amount of discrete. Sec- work simulating the brain system in reasonable simplification
ondly, the initial weights and thresholds of BP neural network and abstracting methods. Therefore, the neural network is
are generated randomly; this will determine that the BP a massively parallel distribution processing system based on
x1 compare the precession between Hopfield NN and SA-

Wi1 ui Hopfield NN. Some conclusions on the consequences and
x2 further studies are discussed in Section 5.
Wi2
..
. 2. Feature Extraction of Shaft Centerline Orbit
..
. ..
. Orbit recognition problem is essentially a two-dimensional
𝜃i
pattern recognition problem, mainly relying on extracting
Win feature information to identify patterns. We use a discrete Hu
xn invariant moments [4, 20, 21] to extract the features of shaft
s orbit.
Figure 1: Structure of Neurons.
2.1. Discrete Hu Invariant Moments
a large scale of neural units. Neural network is similar to the Definition 1 (moments and central moments). Due to the
brain in two aspects: graphics measured by the acquisition card to a discrete
amount, the image of the track 𝑁 is assumed discrete points,
(1) neural network obtains the knowledge by learning (𝑥𝑖 , 𝑦𝑖 ), 𝑖 = 0, 1, . . . , 𝑁−1. Thus, discrete moments and central
from the external environment,
moments are defined in the form as follows:
(2) the strength of connection interconnection of neu- 𝑁−1
𝑝 𝑞
rons (synaptic weights) stores the acquired knowl- 𝑚𝑝𝑞 = ∑ 𝑥𝑖 𝑦𝑖 Δ𝑠𝑖 , 𝑝, 𝑞 = 0, 1, 2, . . . ,
edge. 𝑖=1
(1)
𝑁−1
Hopfield network [16–19] is a kind of interconnection 𝑝 𝑞
V𝑝𝑞 = ∑ (𝑥𝑖 − 𝑥) (𝑦𝑖 − 𝑦) Δ𝑠𝑖 , 𝑝, 𝑞 = 0, 1, 2, . . . ,
networks, and it introduces the concept of energy function
𝑖=1
which is similar to cutting Lyapunov function; the topological
structure of the neural network (represented by the connec- wherein 𝑥 = 𝑚10 /𝑚00 , 𝑦 = 𝑚01 /𝑚00 , Δ𝑠𝑖 =
tion matrix) corresponds to optimal questions (described by √(𝑥𝑖 − 𝑥𝑖−1 )2 + (𝑦𝑖 − 𝑦𝑖−1 )2 , 𝑥, 𝑦 is the centroid of image. We
the objective function) and converts it into neural network can know from the above formulas that the central moments
evolution of dynamical systems. Its evolution is a nonlinear are translation invariance.
dynamical system that can be used to describe a set of nonlin-
ear differential agenda (discrete) or differential (continuous) Definition 2 (translational invariance moment). By normal-
to describe. Stability of the system can use so-called energy ization V𝑝𝑞 can be performed with 𝑢𝑝𝑞 , which can satisfy the
function analysis. Satisfying the conditions in the energy sort graphics translation invariance; the expression is
of energy function continues to decrease during the operation V𝑝𝑞
of the network and finally reaches equilibrium at stable state. 𝑢𝑝𝑞 = 1+(𝑝+𝑞)/2 , 𝑝 + 𝑞 ≥ 2. (2)
For a nonlinear dynamical system, the state of the system V00
from the initial state after a certain evolution of the results Definition 3 (translation and rotation invariant moments).
can be summarized as follows: asymptotically stable points, Although 𝑢𝑝𝑞 satisfies translation invariance but fails to sat-
limit cycle, chaos, and state diverge. isfy the rotational invariance, Hu researched seven complete
Because the transformation function of artificial neural second-order and third-order invariant moments; Hu’s seven
network is a bounded function, the divergence will not occur invariant moments are as follows:
in the state of the system. Currently, the use of artificial neural 𝜙1 = 𝑢20 + 𝑢02 ,
networks often points to a gradual steady to solve many 2 2
problems. Considering the stable point of the system as a 𝜙2 = (𝑢20 − 𝑢02 ) + 4𝑢11 ,
memory, the processing from the beginning of evolution 2 2
𝜙3 = (𝑢30 − 3𝑢12 ) + (𝑢03 − 3𝑢21 ) ,
towards a stable state is to find the point of memory. If we
2 2
regard the stable point as a minimum of an energy function 𝜙4 = (𝑢30 + 𝑢12 ) + (𝑢03 + 𝑢21 ) ,
and regard the energy function as an objective function, then
the training process can be converted into an optimization 𝜙5 = (𝑢30 − 3𝑢12 ) (𝑢30 + 𝑢12 )
problem. Thus, the evolution of Hopfield neural network is a 2 2
× [(𝑢30 + 𝑢12 ) − 3(𝑢03 + 𝑢21 ) ] + (3𝑢21 − 𝑢03 )
computational associative memory or the process of solving (3)
2 2
optimization problems. In fact, it really does not need to be × (𝑢03 + 𝑢21 ) [(𝑢03 + 𝑢21 ) − 3(𝑢03 + 𝑢12 ) ] ,
solved, but through feedback neural networks, its properly 2 2
designed connection weights and input can be achieved. 𝜙6 = (𝑢20 − 𝑢02 ) [(𝑢30 + 𝑢12 ) − (𝑢03 + 𝑢21 ) ]
The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we briefly + 4𝑢11 (𝑢30 + 𝑢12 ) (𝑢03 + 𝑢21 ) ,
propose the method of feature extraction of shaft centerline
orbit. In Section 3, we introduce the Hopfield neural net- 𝜙7 = (𝑢03 − 3𝑢21 ) (𝑢30 + 𝑢12 )
work and Simulated Annealing algorithm. We utilize SA to 2 2
× [(𝑢30 + 𝑢12 ) − 3(𝑢03 + 𝑢21 ) ] + (𝑢30 − 3𝑢12 )
enhance the Hopfield NN on the classification precession.
2 2
In Section 4, we present the details of our experiment and × (𝑢03 + 𝑢21 ) [(𝑢03 + 𝑢21 ) − 3(𝑢30 + 𝑢12 ) ] .
Table 1: Moments of different radius.

Radius 10 20 30
𝜙1 0.3241 0.6482 0.9723
Invariant moment features 𝜙𝑖 defined by the above for- W21

mulas can accurately reflect the basic shape features of orbit. P1
For example, 𝜙1 is the degree of divergence for the axis of T1
the track metrics. The higher 𝜙1 results in the greater degree Wn1 W12 P2 T2
of divergence of trajectories; the smaller 𝜙2 is, the better
graphics symmetry, which means that 𝜙2 is the symmetry axis
..
of the track metrics. Wn2 . ..
.. .
.
2.2. Improvement of the Hu Moments. In the calculation of W1n Pn
Tn
the moments mentioned above, we find that Hu invariant
moments are not invariant completely. Take the simplest
W2n
graph circle as an example; when the radius increases, the
Input Output
torque is also increased, as shown in Table 1.
From Table 1, we can find that Hu invariant moments do
Figure 2: Structure of Hopfield neural network.
not have the retractable invariants in the discrete model. It
causes that the Hu invariant moments stretch deformation
under continuous function, so these cannot be applied in the
discrete case. R. Wong proved that the seven moments are still Institute of Technology physicist Professor J. J. Hopfield.
invariant when the scaling factor 𝜌 ≤ 2, and graphic rotation Based on the original feedback on neural networks, it added
angle 𝜃 ≤ 45∘ , the seven moments are still invariant. a concept of energy function in the network. Energy values
Let 𝑥󸀠 = 𝜌𝑥 and 𝑦󸀠 = 𝜌𝑦; we can prove that 𝑢𝑝𝑞 󸀠
= in the perception and transmission are between neurons, and
𝑝+𝑞 𝑝+𝑞 the output vector is passed through the network information
𝜌 V𝑝𝑞 /V00 = 𝜌 𝑢𝑝𝑞 by the formulas of V𝑝𝑞 . In order to
in accordance with the weight update, constant iterative
remove the 𝜌, we use the following algorithm:
solution, so that the network continues to reduce and finally
2 2
(𝜙1󸀠 ) (𝜌2 𝜙1 ) 𝜙12 reaches a stable state, the output of the optimal solution. The
𝜙1∗ = = = , basic structure of the Hopfield network is shown in Figure 2.
𝜙2󸀠 𝜌4 𝜙2 𝜙2 The network is divided into two parts of the input and
2 2 output layers, the initial input vector: 𝑃 = [𝑃1 , 𝑃2 , 𝑃3 , . . . , 𝑃𝑛 ],
(𝜙3󸀠 ) (𝜌6 𝜙3 ) 𝜙32 the output vector is 𝑇 = [𝑇1 , 𝑇2 , 𝑇3 , . . . , 𝑇𝑛 ]. The output layer
𝜙3∗ = 3
= 3
= ,
(𝜙2󸀠 ) (𝜌4 𝜙2 ) 𝜙23 feedback transports the output vector by the weight matrix
𝑊𝑖𝑗 .
2 2
(𝜙4󸀠 ) (𝜌6 𝜙4 ) 𝜙42 The main processes of the Hopfield network identification
𝜙4∗ = 3
= 3
= , model are detailed as follows.
(𝜙2󸀠 ) (𝜌4 𝜙2 ) 𝜙23
(4)
Step 1. Extract the Hu invariant moments of every image.
𝜙5󸀠 (𝜌12 𝜙5 )
𝜙
𝜙5∗ = 3
= 3
= 53 ,
(𝜙2󸀠 ) 4
(𝜌 𝜙2 ) 𝜙2
Step 2. Convert to the six improved moments.
𝜙6󸀠 (𝜌8 𝜙6 ) 𝜙6 Step 3. Construct the Hopfield Neural Network.

𝜙6∗ = 2
= 2
= ,
(𝜙2󸀠 ) (𝜌4 𝜙2 ) 𝜙22 Step 4. Identify the orbit.
𝜙7󸀠 (𝜌12 𝜙7 ) 𝜙7 It is well known that the connection weights of the neural
𝜙7∗ = 3
= 3
= . network will greatly affect the performance. In order to
(𝜙2󸀠 ) (𝜌4 𝜙2 ) 𝜙23
improve the recognition precession of the network, in the
The six invariant moments obtained by the above for- following section, we introduce the simulated annealing
mulas of edge’s features of an image can describe the shape algorithm to optimize the network.
feature of orbit accurately and achieved the relationship
between the characteristics and invariant moments. 3.2. Optimal by SA. SA algorithm [22, 23] (simulated anneal-
ing Simulated Annealing) as a heuristic search algorithm is
3. Hopfield Neural Network and widely used in a variety of combinatorial optimization prob-
Simulated Annealing lems. SA algorithm mimics the solid cooling process. It begins
in a high initial temperature 𝑇 and gradually decreased, to
3.1. Hopfield NN for Identify. Hopfield neural network is a optimize the results by iteration. Updated conditions during
feedback neural network, proposed in 1983 by the California the optimization process for the solution are the objective
Construct the Table 2: Training data of Hopfield neural network.

Hopfield NN
Category 𝜑1 𝜑2 𝜑3 𝜑4 𝜑5 𝜑6 𝜑7
1 0.34 0.1 0.01 0.02 −0.01 0 0.02
Randomly generate
1 0.32 0.09 0.02 0 −0.01 0.01 0.01
the weights
1 0.3 0.08 0.01 0.02 0 0.01 0
1 0.31 0.09 0.01 0.02 −0.01 0 0.02
Add noise to 1 0.32 0.1 0.02 0 −0.01 0.01 0.01
weight matrix 2 0.18 0.02 0.01 0.04 0 0 −0.01
2 0.14 0.01 0.03 0.01 0 0.02 −0.02
2 0.16 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.02 −0.01
Calculate precession 2 0.17 0.03 0.02 0.01 0.02 0 0
2 0.15 0.01 0 0.04 0.01 0.01 −0.01
Satisfy the 3 −0.58 0.52 4.08 3.86 15.14 −2.81 0.12
No No
Better metropolis 3 −0.59 0.55 4.11 3.74 15.52 −2.51 0.11
rule 3 −0.61 0.52 4.2 3.88 15.2 −2.98 0.13
Yes
Yes 3 −0.6 0.53 4.15 3.78 15.24 −2.67 0.11
Update the
matrix 3 −0.58 0.54 4.12 3.82 15.3 −2.78 0.12
Table 3: Test data of Hopfield neural network.

Terminate
Category 𝜑1 𝜑2 𝜑3 𝜑4 𝜑5 𝜑6 𝜑7
condition
1 0.34 0.08 0.01 0 0 0 0.01
Yes 1 0.3 0.1 0.01 0.02 −0.01 0.01 0.02
Output the 2 0.16 0.02 0.01 0.04 0 0 −0.01
optimal solution 2 0.18 0.01 0.03 0.01 0 0.02 −0.02
Figure 3: Diagram of our Identify method. 3 −0.61 0.54 4.08 3.86 15.2 −2.67 0.13
3 −0.58 0.52 4.09 3.76 15.52 −2.51 0.11
function whose value is better than the original value, or The third line is internal 8. As the third category, it gener-
satisfies the Boltzmann probability function. The algorithm ally corresponds to oil whirl fault.
steps are as follows. Figure 5 shows a part of the images to be recognized; the
seven moments of the corresponding images are shown in
Step 1. Initialize the network parameters 𝑅. Table 3.
There exists singular data from Table 3; the data
Step 2. Decrease the temperature 𝑇, the calculation of a new
called singular value relative to other data is particularly
solution of 𝑅󸀠 , calculates an evaluation function value. If the
large or very small, and the input data of Hopfield network is
relative error Δ𝑅 is less than 0, or satisfy the Boltzmann prob-
generally between −1 to 1. Therefore, the first data and a test
ability exp(Δ𝑅/𝑇), accept and update the new solution, then
sample data normalized Hopfield herein before conducting
let 𝑅 = 𝑅󸀠 .
training. Data are expressed as follows:
Step 3. Terminate the algorithm if the temperature drops 2 (𝑥 − min)
𝑥󸀠 = − 1, (5)
below the threshold, or cannot find a better solution during a max − min
large number of iterations. where max and min represented the maximum and mini-
mum values as shown in Table 3.
The solution we got by SA is the optimal weights of Hop- After processing the original data, we use the standard-
field neural network. In order to better demonstrate the algo- ized training data entry, establish the Hopfield network, and
rithm, the flow chart of our method is shown in Figure 3. utilize Simulated Annealing algorithm to optimize it. In order
to exhibit our method, the experiments are divided into four
4. Experimental Results parts:
(1) directly using the seven kinds of Hu moments to
We choose three typical axis orbit shapes as the experimental construct the Hopfield neural network,
samples, as shown in Figure 4, and their moments are calcu-
lated previously in Table 2. (2) directly using the seven kinds of Hu moments to
The first line is elliptical. It generally corresponds to construct the Hopfield neural network and using SA
unbalance fault. We mark it as the first category. to optimaze the connecting weight,
The second line is external 8. It generally corresponds to (3) using the six kinds of moments we converted to con-
no pair fault and is marked as the second category. struct the Hopfield neural network,
Figure 4: Examples of testing images.
Table 4: Precession of different method. 1

SA- Hopfield- SA-Hopfield- 0.9
Category Hopfield-Hu
Hopfield-Hu improved-Hu improved-Hu
0.8
1 2 1 1 1
1 2 2 2 1 0.7
2 2 2 2 2 0.6
Precession
2 2 2 2 2 0.5
3 3 3 3 3 0.4
3 3 3 3 3
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
1 2 3 4
Method
Figure 6: Identify precession.
From Table 4 we can clearly find that SA-Hopfield

reached the highest accuracy. Figure 6 shows the identify
precession of the four methods.
5. Conclusion
Figure 5: Examples of training images. In this paper, two-dimensional graphics and moment invari-
ants act as input feature vectors of Hopfield neural network
(4) using the six kinds of moments we converted to con- and Simulated Annealing algorithm is utilized to optimize
struct the Hopfield neural network and using SA to the weight matrix of the network. Through the simulation, the
optimize the connecting weight. experiment results show that our method performed better
than the previous method. However, there still exists some
The identify results are shown in Table 4. problem that begs further study. How to obtain the reference
samples accurately is one of the most difficulty processes. [13] H. F. Tuo, “Thermal, economic analysis of a transcritical Rank-
The feature vector under various fault states needed to get ine power cycle with reheat enhancement for a low, grade heat
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a comprehensive and clear consensus. This paper only con- pp. 857–8867, 2013.
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Mathematical Problems in Engineering

Mathematical Modeling of Heat and

Mathematical Modeling of Heat

Guest Editors: Zhijun Zhang, Hua-Shu Dou,

A Differential-Algebraic Model for the Once-Through Steam Generator of MHTGR-Based

Entropy Generation Analysis of Power-Law Non-Newtonian Fluid Flow Caused by Micropatterned

Numerical Investigation on a Prototype Centrifugal Pump Subjected to Fluctuating Rotational Speed,

Fermentation Process Modeling with Levenberg-Marquardt Algorithm and Runge-Kutta Method on

Correspondence should be addressed to Zhijun Zhang; zhjzhang@mail.neu.edu.cn

Received 29 September 2014; Accepted 29 September 2014

In “An optimization model based on electric power

Wenchao Liu1,2 and Jun Yao1

Correspondence should be addressed to Jun Yao; rcogfr upc@126.com

Received 11 May 2014; Revised 18 July 2014; Accepted 18 July 2014

Academic Editor: Jun Liu

1. Introduction Much research on these relevant moving boundary mod-

fluid flow through porous media with consideration of QPGT

injection and pumping conditions. Wang and Dusseault [28]

Equations (10)–(15) form the dimensionless mathemat- 𝜕𝑃𝐷 𝜕𝜂 1

𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 1 + 𝜆 𝐷 𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨

𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 Equations (31)–(33) and (28) together form a closed sys-

𝑦 𝜕𝜂 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝑗+1 𝑗+1

𝜆D = 0.034, 𝛼D = 0 𝜆D = 0.067, 𝛼D = 0.005 𝛼D = 0.005

pressure between the two cases considering and not con-

Computed dimensionless formation pressure distribution 𝑃𝐷 (𝑟𝐷 , 1 × 105 )

Computed dimensionless transient wellbore pressure 𝑃𝐷 (0, 𝑡𝐷 )

20.0 quickly with an increase of dimensionless time. For the cases

15 In consideration of the QPGT in the governing equation,

[38] J. Crank, Free and Moving Boundary Problems, Clarendon Press,

Correspondence should be addressed to Zhe Dong; dongzhe@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn

Received 4 April 2014; Accepted 4 August 2014

Academic Editor: Zhijun Zhang

1. Introduction reactors have become much more significant than before.

(a) IRIS (b) NuScale (c) mPower (d) SMART

Figure 1: Schematic views of some LWR-type SMRs.

(a) Reactor (b) Plant structure (c) OTSG

Figure 2: 4S nuclear energy system.

Control rod drivers

Fuel elements Pebble-bed

Figure 3: Structure of the HTR-PM plant.

Primary side Moreover, to obtain the lumped parameter model of the

Figure 4: Nodalization scheme of the OTSG. 𝑑 𝛽(𝑡)

2. Modeling Principles can be well-satisfied, where 𝑧, 𝑡 ∈ 𝑅.

The OTSG of MHTGR-based multimodular nuclear plants 3. Nonlinear Differential-Algebraic Model

and further we also suppose that respectively.

where in Figure 4. Then, by integrating (24) along 𝑥-axis and by

𝜕ℎ𝑠3 󵄨󵄨󵄨󵄨 𝑑𝑇𝑚2 𝑄𝑝2 − 𝑄𝑠2 𝑇 − 𝑇𝑚2 𝑑𝑙13

𝐸𝑠24 (x𝑠 ) x𝑚 = [𝑇𝑚2 𝑇𝑚4 ] ,

where 𝐺𝑝 is the helium flowrate, 𝐶𝑝 is the helium specific where

Case C: Step Increase in the Feedwater Flowrate at 30% RFP.

Table 1: Comparison of the steady simulation results and designed data.

Power-level/RFP 100% 90% 75% 50% 30%

Figure 5: Simulation results in case A.

Figure 6: Simulation results in case B.

Figure 7: Simulation results in case C.

plant. In the future, more simulation results of the closed-

Hua-Shu Dou,1 Gang Jiang,2 and Lite Zhang1

Correspondence should be addressed to Hua-Shu Dou; huashudou@yahoo.com

Received 6 March 2014; Accepted 11 April 2014

Academic Editor: Zhijun Zhang

1. Introduction into a vertical, 45-degree plate and a horizontal plate,

2.3. Numerical Algorithm. The governing equations (1) are

Grid (a) Grid (b)