Enhancement of 3D Mass and Heat Transfer within a Porous Ceramic Exchanger by Flow-Induced Vibration

ABSTRACT: This work investigates heat transfer enhancement for a porous ceramic heat exchanger. The effect of flow-induced vibration of exchanging air flow through porous tube banks has been tested. A numerical model able to assess the vibration effect on heat and mass transfer inside a porous ceramic exchanger has been carefully developed. A three-dimensional unstructured control volume finite element method (CVFEM) is developed to simulate the transport phenomena that arise during convective exchange. In this respect, several numerical tests have been conducted. The time evolution of temperature, liquid saturation, and pressure of the porous domain are analyzed and compared for two cases: with and without vibration. It is found that the vibration highly enhances the heat and mass transfer inside the ceramic exchanger. As a result, the gain of exchanging time to reach the thermal equilibrium between the hot air and the porous domain was 75% for the case of air vibration under sawtooth type at a frequency of fv = 5 Hz and Vmax = 10 m/s compared to nonvibrating exchange.

Automated summary

This study investigates the effect of flow-induced vibration on heat transfer enhancement in a porous ceramic heat exchanger. A numerical model is developed to assess the vibration effect on heat and mass transfer. The results of numerical tests show that vibration can highly enhance the heat and mass transfer inside the ceramic exchanger.