アシュラフル アラム

Natural convection of a low-Prandtl-number conductive fluid driven by a horizontal temperature gradient in an annular enclosure with a square cross section was investigated. The surface temperatures of the inner and outer cylinders were differentially maintained. A static magnetic field was applied in the azimuthal direction. A three-dimensional (3D) numerical simulation was performed for a part of an annulus divided into 20 or 28 equal parts. The natural convection found changes on the order of a two-dimensional (2D) steady, a 3D steady, a 3D non-half-symmetric simply periodic oscillatory, a 3D indefinite oscillatory, a 3D half-symmetric simply periodic oscillatory, and a 3D aperiodic oscillatory flow as the Hartmann number decreases. This transition pattern is identical to that as the Rayleigh number increases in the same system without a magnetic field. In high Rayleigh numbers, the transition is accompanied by an axisymmetric oscillation. A disturbance causing the transition consists of three modes as a 3D steady, a 3D half-symmetric oscillatory, and a 2D axisymmetric oscillatory mode. The Nusselt numbers in most 3D flows are smaller at low Rayleigh numbers and larger at high Rayleigh numbers than that in 2D flows at a same condition, while the kinetic energy of a 3D flow is necessarily smaller than that of a 2D flow.

Abstract In an oscillating water column (OWC) based wave energy device, a water column that oscillates due to the sea wave motion generates a bi-directional airflow in an air chamber, and finally, the bi-directional airflow driven air turbine converts the pneumatic energy into mechanical energy. The counter-rotating impulse turbine for bi-directional airflow has been proposed by M. E. McCormick of the United States Naval Academy in 1978. In a previous study, the authors investigated the effect of the turbine geometry on the performance of a counter-rotating impulse turbine for bi-directional airflow, and it was clarified that the efficiency of the turbine is higher than an impulse turbine with a single rotor for bi-directional airflow in a range of high flow coefficient. Moreover, this impulse turbine has a disadvantage that the efficiency in a range of low flow coefficient is remarkably low due to the deterioration of the flow between the two rotors. In this study, in order to make the counter-rotating impulse turbine practically compatible, the thickness of the middle vanes installed between the two rotors was changed, and the effect of the thickness on the turbine performance was investigated by the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. As a result, it was found that the efficiency of the counter-rotating impulse turbine with middle vanes increases as the thickness of the middle vanes decreased.

Wells and impulse turbines for bi-directional airflow have been proposed as typical turbines for wave energy conversion. Each of them has some advantages and disadvantages. In recent years, the authors have proposed Wells turbine with booster and a counter-rotating impulse turbine for bi-directional airflow in order to overcome their drawbacks. In this study, the starting characteristics of four types of turbines for bi-directional airflow were compared by conducting a CFD analysis under a steady flow condition.