• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제47권7호
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• pp.804-813
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• 2015

The electrical-impedance method has been widely used for void-fraction measurement in two-phase flow due to its many favorable features. In the impedance method, the response characteristics of the electrical signal heavily depend upon flow pattern, as well as phasic volume. Thus, information on the flow pattern should be given for reliable void-fraction measurement. This study proposes an improved electrical-conductance sensor composed of a three-electrode set of adjacent and opposite electrodes. In the proposed sensor, conductance readings are directly converted into the flow pattern through a specified criterion and are consecutively used to estimate the corresponding void fraction. Since the flow pattern and the void fraction are evaluated by reading conductance measurements, complexity of data processing can be significantly reduced and real-time information provided. Before actual applications, several numerical calculations are performed to optimize electrode and insulator sizes, and optimal design is verified by static experiments. Finally, the proposed sensor is applied for air-water two-phase flow in a horizontal loop with a 40-mm inner diameter and a 5-m length, and its measurement results are compared with those of a wire-mesh sensor.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• 제18권8호
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• pp.1401-1417
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• 2004

Experimental and computational studies were performed to determine the effects of different blade designs on a flow pattern inside a double-spindle counter rotating mower deck. In the experimental study, two different blade models were tested by measuring air velocities using a forward-scatter LDV system. The velocity measurements were taken at several different azimuth and axial sections inside the deck. The measured velocity distributions clarified the air flow pattern caused by the rotating blades and demonstrated the effects of deck and blade designs. A high-speed video camera and a sound level meter were used for flow visualization and noise level measurement. In the computational works, two-dimensional blade shapes at several arbitrary radial sections have been selected for flow computations around the blade model. For three-dimensional computation applied a non-inertia coordinate system, a flow field around the entire three-dimensional blade shape is used to evaluate flow patterns in order to take radial flow interactions into account. The computational results were compared with the experimental results.

• 설비공학논문집
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• 제27권2호
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• pp.75-80
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• 2015

The effect of inlet mixer geometries on the two-phase flow patterns in square micro-channel with $600{\times}600{\mu}m$ was investigated experimentally in this paper. The 4 different mixer configurations based on the Y, Impacting, and two T types (gas and liquid inlets were switched) were used. The test fluids were nitrogen and water. The liquid and gas superficial velocities were 0.01~10 m/s and 0.1~100 m/s, respectively. Several distinctive flow patterns, namely, annular, slug-annular, slug, slug-bubbly, bubbly, and churn flow could be seen. The flow pattern maps for each mixer were suggested, and it can be concluded that two-phase flow patterns are not very sensitive to the mixer geometries. But the mixing behaviors of gas and liquid for each mixer were different for slug and bubbly flow. Thus, the characteristics of slug and bubble for each case were not same.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• 제11권1호
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• pp.510-520
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• 2019

To investigate the morphology characteristics of air layer in the air cavity, a numerical method with the combination of RANS equations and VOF two-phase-flow model is proposed for a plate with air cavity. Based on the model above, the dynamic and developmental process of air layer in the air cavity is studied. Numerical results indicate that the air layer in the plate's air cavity exhibits the dynamic state of morphology and the wavelength of air layer becomes larger with the increasing speed. The morphology of air layer agrees with the Froude similarity law and the formation of the air layer is not affected by the parameters of the cavity, however, the wave pattern of the air layer is influenced by the parameters of the cavity. The stable air layer under the air cavity is important for the resistance reduction for the air layer drag reduction.

• 신재생에너지
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• 제8권3호
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• pp.6-13
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• 2012

This paper describes unsteady internal flow characteristics of a cathode air blower, used for the 1 kW fuel cell system. The cathode air blower considered in the present study is a diaphragm type blower. To analyze the flow field inside the diaphragm cavity, compressible unsteady numerical simulation is performed. Moving mesh system is applied to the numerical analysis for describing the volume change of the diaphragm cavity in time. Throughout a numerical simulation by modeling the inlet and outlet valves in a diaphragm cavity, unsteady nature of an internal flow is successfully analyzed. Variations of mass flow rate, force and pressure on the lower moving plate of a diaphragm cavity are evaluated in time. The computed mass flow rate at the same pressure and rotating frequency of a motor has a maximum of 5 percent error with the experimental data. It is found that flow pattern at the suction process is more complex compared to that at the discharge process. Unsteady nature of internal flow in the cathode air blower is analyzed in detail.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• 제39권4호
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• pp.310-317
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• 2014

Purpose: This study was conducted to analyze the air flow characteristics in a plant factory with different inlet and outlet locations using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Methods: In this study, the flow was assumed to be a steady-state, incompressible, and three-dimensional turbulent flow. A realizable k-${\varepsilon}$ turbulent model was applied to show more reasonable results than the standard model. A CFD software was used to perform the numerical simulation. For validation of the simulation model, a prototype plant factory ($5,900mm{\times}2,800mm{\times}2,400mm$) was constructed with two inlets (${\Phi}250mm$) and one outlet ($710mm{\times}290mm$), located on the top side wall. For the simulation model, the average air current speed at the inlet was $5.11m{\cdot}s^{-1}$. Five cases were simulated to predict the airflow pattern in the plant factory with different inlet and outlet locations. Results: The root mean square error of measured and simulated air current speeds was 13%. The error was attributed to the assumptions applied to mathematical modelling and to the magnitude of the air current speed measured at the inlet. However, the measured and predicted airflow distributions of the plant factory exhibited similar patterns. When the inlets were located at the center of the side wall, the average air current speed in the plant factory was increased but the spatial uniformity was lowered. In contrast, if the inlets were located on the ceiling, the average air current speed was lowered but the uniformity was improved. Conclusions: Based on the results of this study, it was concluded that the airflow pattern in the plant factory with multilayer cultivation shelves was greatly affected by the locations of the inlet and the outlet.

• 한국환경과학회지
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• 제25권7호
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• pp.1017-1028
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• 2016

Wind information is one of the major inputs for the prediction of urban air flow using computational fluid dynamic (CFD) models. Therefore, the numerical characteristics of the wind data formed at their mother domains should be clarified to predict the urban air flow more precisely. In this study, the formation characteristics of the wind data in the Seoul region were used as the inlet wind information for a CFD based simulation and were analyzed using numerical weather prediction models for weather research and forecasting (WRF). Because air flow over the central part of the Korean peninsula is often controlled not only by synoptic scale westerly winds but also by the westerly sea breeze induced from the Yellow Sea, the westerly wind often dominates the entire Seoul region. Although simulations of wind speed and air temperature gave results that were slightly high and low, respectively, their temporal variation patterns agreed well with the observations. In the analysis of the vertical cross section, the variation of wind speed along the western boundary of Seoul is simpler in a large domain with the highest horizontal resolution as compared to a small domain with the same resolution. A strong convergence of the sea breeze due to precise topography leads to the simplification of the wind pattern. The same tendency was shown in the average vertical profiles of the wind speed. The difference in the simulated wind pattern of two different domains is greater during the night than in the daytime because of atmospheric stability and topographically induced mesoscale forcing.

• 설비공학논문집
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• 제17권4호
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• pp.386-395
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• 2005

With the development of a living standard, the importance of indoor air conditioning system in all kinds of buildings and vehicles has increased. A lot of researches on energy losses in a duct and various kinds of flow pattern in branches or junctions have been carried out over many years, because the primary object of a duct system used in HVAC is to provide equal flow rate in the interior of each room by minimizing pressure drop. In this study, to get equal flow distribution in each branch, a blockage is applied to the rectangular duct system. The flow analysis for flow distribution of a rectangular duct with two branches was performed by CFD. By using SIMPLE algorithm and finite volume method, flow analysis is performed in the case of 3-D, incompressible, turbulent flow. Also, the standard $k-{\varepsilon}$ model and wall function method were used for analysis of turbulent fluid flow. The distribution diagrams of static pressure, velocity vector, turbulent energy and kinetic energy in accordance with variation of Reynolds number and blockages location in a rectangular duct show that flow distribution at duct outlets is improved by a blockage. In this rectangular duct system, mean velocity and flow rate distribution in two branch outlets are nearly constant regardless of variation of Reynolds number, and a flow pattern of the internal duct has a same tendency as well.

• 대한기계학회논문집B
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• 제31권5호
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• pp.457-466
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• 2007

A numerical and experimental study on the evaluation and the prediction of cleanliness level in the mini-environment system was carried out. Using the concept of local mean air-age (LMA) and effective flow rate, the new direct method for estimating the mini-environment was developed and compared with the previous performance index of airflow pattern characteristics. It was found out that the airflow pattern analysis is a restricted method to estimate the real performance of the mini-environment. The reason is that the airflow pattern cannot predict the effect of the increment of the ventilation rate on the cleanliness level in the mini-environment. While LMA is capable of showing the effects of the contaminant accumulation caused by turbulent intensity, eddy, and the increment of the effective flow rate. This result showed that LMA is more exact and effective performance index than the previous one like the airflow pattern characteristics.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 유체기계공업학회 2006년 제4회 한국유체공학학술대회 논문집
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• pp.407-408
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• 2006

Passenger safety is one of the most important considerations in the purchase of an automobile. A curtain-type air bag is increasingly adapted in deluxe cars for protecting passengers from the danger of side clash. Inflator housing is a main part of the curtain-type air bag system for supplying high-pressure gases to pump up the air bag-curtain. Although the inflator housing is fundamental in designing a curtain-type air bag system, flow information on the inflator housing is very limited. In this study, we measured instantaneous velocity fields of a high-speed flow ejecting from the inflator housing using a dynamic PIV system. From the velocity field data measured at a high frame-rate, we evaluated the variation of the mass flow rate with time. From the instantaneous velocity fields of flow ejecting from the airbag inflator housing in the initial stage, we can see a flow pattern of broken shock wave front and its downward propagation. The flow ejecting from the inflator housing was found to have large velocity fluctuations and the maximum velocity was about 700m/s. The velocity of high-speed flow was decreased rapidly and the duration of high-speed flow over 400m/s was maintained only to 30ms. After 100ms, there was no perceptible flow.