Single-phase fluid flow distribution and heat transfer in microstructured reactors

Single-phase microreactors and micro-heat-exchangers have been widely used in industrial and scientific applications over the last decade. In several cases, operation of microreactors has shown that their expected efficiency cannot be reached either due to non-uniform distribution of reactants between different channels or due to flow maldistribution between individual microreactors working in parallel. The latter problem can result in substantial temperature deviations between different microreactors resulting in thermal run away which could arise from an exothermicreaction. Thus advances in the understanding of heat transfer and fluid flow distribution continue to be crucial in achieving improved performance, efficiency and safety in microstructured reactors used for different applications. This paper presents a review of the experimental and numerical results on fluid flow distribution, heat transfer and combination thereof, available in the open literature. Heat transfer in microchannels can be suitably described by standard theory and correlations, but scaling effects (entrance effects, conjugate heat transfer, viscous heating, and temperature-dependent properties) have often to be accounted for in microsystems. Experiments with single channels are in good agreement with predictions from the published correlations. The accuracy of multichannel experiments is lower due to flow maldistribution. Special attention is devoted to theoretical and experimental studies on the effect of a flow maldistribution on the thermal and conversion response of catalytic microreactors. There view concludes with a set of design recommendations aimed at improving the reactor performance. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Individual and Public-Program Adaptation: Coping with Heat Waves in Five Cities in Canada

Heat Alert and Response Systems (HARS) are currently undergoing testing and implementation in Canada. These programs seek to reduce the adverse health effects of heat waves on human health by issuing weather forecasts and warnings, informing individuals about possible protections from excessive heat, and providing such protections to vulnerable subpopulations and individuals at risk. For these programs to be designed effectively, it is important to know how individuals perceive the heat, what their experience with heat-related illness is, how they protect themselves from excessive heat, and how they acquire information about such protections. In September 2010, we conducted a survey of households in 5 cities in Canada to study these issues. At the time of the survey, these cities had not implemented heat outreach and response systems. The study results indicate that individuals' recollections of recent heat wave events were generally accurate. About 21% of the sample reported feeling unwell during the most recent heat spell, but these illnesses were generally minor. Only in 25 cases out of 243, these illnesses were confirmed or diagnosed by a health care professional. The rate at which our respondents reported heat-related illnesses was higher among those with cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses, was higher among younger respondents and bore no relationship with the availability of air conditioning at home. Most of the respondents indicated that they would not dismiss themselves as

Econometric Methods and their Applications in Finance, Macro and Related Fields

The volume aims at providing an outlet for some of the best papers presented at the 15th Annual Conference of the African Econometric Society, which is one of the “chapters” of the International Econometric Society. Many of these papers represent the state of the art in financial econometrics and applied econometric modeling, and some also provide useful simulations that shed light on the models' ability to generate meaningful scenarios for forecasting and policy analysis.

Heat transport in harmonic oscillator systems with thermal baths: application to optomechanical arrays

We investigate the transport of phonons between N harmonic oscillators in contact with independent thermal baths and coupled to a common oscillator, and derive an expression for the steady state heat flow between the oscillators in the weak coupling limit. We apply these results to an optomechanical array consisting of a pair of mechanical resonators coupled to a single quantized electromagnetic field mode by radiation pressure as well as to thermal baths with different temperatures. In the weak coupling limit this system is shown to be equivalent to two mutually-coupled harmonic oscillators in contact with an effective common thermal bath in addition to their independent baths. The steady state occupation numbers and heat flows are derived and discussed in various regimes of interest.

Electron acoustic soliton energy of the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili equation in the Earth’s magnetotail region at critical ion density

The nonlinear properties of small amplitude electron-acoustic solitary waves (EAWs) in a homogeneous system of unmagnetized collisionless plasma consisted of a cold electron fluid and isothermal ions with two different temperatures obeying Boltzmann type distributions have been investigated. A reductive perturbation method was employed to obtain the Kadomstev-Petviashvili (KP) equation. At the critical ion density, the KP equation is not appropriate for describing the system. Hence, a new set of stretched coordinates
is considered to derive the modified KP equation. Moreover, the solitary solution, soliton energy and the associated electric field at the critical ion density were computed. The present investigation can be of relevance to the electrostatic solitary structures observed in various space plasma environments, such as Earth’s magnetotail region.

Comparison of DES predictions of turbulent flow and heat transfer in a 45° ribbed duct

Numerical predictions of the turbulent flow and heat transfer of a stationary duct with square ribs 45° angled to the main flow direction are presented. The rib height to channel hydraulic diameter is 0.1, the rib pitch to rib height is 10. The calculations have been carried out for a bulk Reynolds number of 50,000. The flows generated by ribs are dominated by separating and reattaching shear layers with vortex shedding and secondary flows in the cross-section. The hybrid RANS-LES approach is adopted to simulate such flows at a reasonable computation cost. The capability of the various versions of DES method, depending the RANS model, such as DES-SA, DES-RKE, DES-SST, have been compared and validated against the experiment. The significant effect of RANS model on the accuracy of the DES prediction has been shown. The DES-SST method, which was able to reproduce the correct physics of flow and heat transfer in a ribbed duct showed better performance than others.