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The annual Conference of the ''Unione Italiana di Termofluidodinamica'' (UIT) aims to promote cooperation in the field of heat transfer and thermal sciences by bringing together scientists and engineers working in related areas.

The 32nd UIT Conference was held in Pisa, from the 23rd to the 25th of June, 2014 in the buildings of the School of Engineering, just a few months after the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the first Institution of the School of Engineering at the University of Pisa.

The response was very good, with more than 100 participants and 80 high-quality contributions from 208 authors on seven different heat transfer related topics: Heat transfer and efficiency in energy systems, environmental technologies, and buildings (25 papers); Micro and nano scale thermo–fluid dynamics (9 papers); Multi–phase fluid dynamics, heat transfer and interface phenomena (14 papers); Computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer (10 papers); Heat transfer in nuclear plants (8 papers); Natural, forced and mixed convection (10 papers) and Conduction and radiation (4 papers).

To encourage the debate, the Conference Program scheduled 16 oral sessions (44 papers), three ample poster sessions (36 papers) and four invited lectures given by experts in the various fields both from Industry and from University. Keynote Lectures were given by Dr. Roberto Parri (ENEL, Italy), Prof. Peter Stephan (TU Darmstadt, Germany), Prof. Bruno Panella (Politecnico di Torino), and Prof. Sara Rainieri (Universit;aacute; di Parma).

This special volume collects a selection of the scientific contributions discussed during this conference. A total of 46 contributions, two keynote lectures and 44 papers both from oral and poster sessions, have been selected for publication in this special issue, after a second accurate revision process. These works give a good overview of the state of the art of Italian research in the field of Heat Transfer related topics at the date.

The editors of the volume would like to sincerely thank the authors for presenting their works at the conference and in this special issue. Special thanks are also due to the Scientific Committee, to all the reviewers, and to all the authors for their accurate revision process of each paper for this special issue. Special thanks go to the Organizing Committee, chaired by Prof. Paolo Di Marco.

Walter Grassi (Chairman of the Scientific Committee), Alessandro Franco, Nicola Forgione, Daniele Testi – Editors of the Special Issue

All papers published in this volume of Journal of Physics: Conference Series have been peer reviewed through processes administered by the proceedings Editors. Reviews were conducted by expert referees to the professional and scientific standards expected of a proceedings journal published by IOP Publishing.

The paper presents the research work performed at the Energy Department of the Politecnico di Torino, concerning the development of two-phase flow instrumentation and of models, based on the analysis of experimental data, that are able to interpret the measurement signals. The study has been performed with particular reference to the design of power plants, such as nuclear water reactors, where the two-phase flow thermal fluid dynamics must be accurately modeled and predicted. In two-phase flow typically a set of different measurement instruments (Spool Piece – SP) must be installed in order to evaluate the mass flow rate of the phases in a large range of flow conditions (flow patterns, pressures and temperatures); moreover, an interpretative model of the SP need to be developed and experimentally verified. The investigated meters are: Turbine, Venturi, Impedance Probes, Concave sensors, Wire mesh sensor, Electrical Capacitance Probe. Different instrument combinations have been tested, and the performance of each one has been analyzed.

This review presents the main results of the experimental campaign on passive techniques for the enhancement of forced convective single phase heat transfer in ducts, performed in the last years at the Laboratory of the Industrial Engineering Department of the University of Parma by the Applied Physics research group. The research was mainly focused on two passive techniques, widely adopted for the thermal processing of medium and high viscosity fluids, based on wall corrugation and on wall curvature. The innovative compound heat transfer enhancement technique that couples together the effect of wall curvature and of wall corrugation has been investigated as well. The research has been mainly focused on understanding the causal relationship between the heat transfer surface modification and the convection enhancement phenomenon, by accounting the effect of the fluid Prandtl number. The pressure loss penalties were also evaluated. The principal results are presented and discussed.

The syngas produced by fixed bed gasifiers contains high quantities of particulate and tars. This issue, together with its high temperature, avoids its direct exploitation without a proper cleaning and cooling process. In fact, when the syngas produced by gasification is used in an Internal Combustion engine (IC), the higher the content of tars and particulate, the higher the risk to damage the engine is. If these compounds are not properly removed, the engine may fail to run. A way to avoid engine fails is to intensify the maintenance schedule, but these stops will reduce the system profitability. From a clean syngas does not only follow higher performance of the generator, but also less pollutants in the atmosphere. When is not possible to work on the gasification reactions, the filter plays the most important role in the engine safeguard process. This work is aimed at developing and comparing different porous filters for biomass gasifiers power plants. A drum filter was developed and tested filling it with different filtering media available on the market. As a starting point, the filter was implemented in a Power Pallet 10 kW gasifier produced by the California-based company "ALL Power Labs". The original filter was replaced with different porous biomasses, such as woodchips and corn cobs. Finally, a synthetic zeolites medium was tested and compared with the biological media previously used. The Tar Sampling Protocol (TSP) and a modified "dry" method using the Silica Gel material were applied to evaluate the tars, particulate and water amount in the syngas after the filtration process. Advantages and disadvantages of every filtering media chosen were reported and discussed.

In SOFC, accurately measuring the hot-gas temperature is challenging due to low gas velocity, high wall temperature, complex flow geometries and relatively small pipe diameter. Improper use of low cost thermometry system such as standard Type K thermocouples (TC) may introduce large measurement error. The error could have a negative effect on the thermal management of the SOFC systems and consequential reduction in efficiency. In order to study the factors affecting the accuracy of the temperature measurement system, a mathematical model of a TC inside a pipe was defined and numerically solved. The model calculated the difference between the actual and the measured gas temperature inside the pipe. A statistical Design of Experiment (DOE) approach was applied to the modelling data to compute the interaction effect between variables and investigate the significance of each variable on the measurement errors. In this study a full factorial DOE design with six variables (wall temperature, gas temperature, TC length, TC diameter and TC emissivity) at two levels was carried out. Four different scenarios, two sets of TC length (6 – 10.5 mm and 17 – 22 mm) and two different sets of temperature range (550 – 650 °C and 750 – 850 °C), were proposed. DOE analysis was done for each scenario and results were compared to identify key parameters affecting the accuracy of a particular temperature reading.

Intumescent coatings are now the dominant passive fire protection materials used in industrial and commercial buildings. The coatings, which usually are composed of inorganic components contained in a polymer matrix, are inert at low temperatures and at higher temperatures, they expand and degrade to provide a charred layer of low conductivity materials. The charred layer, which acts as thermal barrier, will prevent heat transfer to underlying substrate. The thermal properties of intumescent paints are often unknown and difficult to be estimated since they vary significantly during the expansion process; for this reason the fire resistance validation of a commercial coatings is based on expensive, large-scale methods where each commercial coating-beam configuration has to be tested one by one. Adopting, instead, approaches based on a thermal modelling of the intumescent paint coating could provide an helpful tool to make easier the test procedure and to support the design of fire resistant structures as well. The present investigation is focused on the assessment of a methodology intended to the restoration of the equivalent thermal conductivity of the intumescent layer produced under the action of a cone calorimetric apparatus. The estimation procedure is based on the inverse heat conduction problem approach, where the temperature values measured at some locations inside the layer during the expansion process are used as input known data. The results point out that the equivalent thermal conductivity reached by the intumescent material at the end of the expansion process significantly depends on the temperature while the initial thickness of the paint does not seem to have much effect.

The present work aims at identifying the relative influence of GSHP subsystems (viz. ground source, earth heat exchangers, heat pump unit, pumping devices) on the overall efficiency and the limits to which technological improvements should be pushed (because, beyond these limits, only minor benefits may be achieved). To this end, an analysis of thermodynamic losses is conducted for a case study, followed by a sensitivity analysis on the heat pump unit thermal performance. Primary energy consumptions of nine configurations with different combinations of ideal and real subsystems are compared. The completely ideal system is used as the reference to normalize energy consumptions and obtain a dimensionless efficiency parameter. The results show that – when a proper design methodology is employed – the performance of the borehole heat exchangers slightly affects the overall efficiency. On the contrary, the thermal response of the ground and the thermal and hydraulic performances of the heat pump unit are key factors. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is conducted by increasing the heating and cooling efficiencies of the heat pump device.

Aim of this paper is to provide a complete characterization of the transient thermal behaviour of thermoelectric (TE) micro-coolers by solving the parabolic heat diffusion equation, through two different analytical methods, the Laplace Transform (LT) and the Separation of Variables (SOV). The results of the performed analysis show that a numerical inversion of the Laplace Transform is necessary, because the analytical-based Riemann-sum approximation does not yield temperature values at very early times. Once the temperature distribution is known in both the semiconductors of the p-n junction, the heat fluxes and the coefficient of performance (COP) of the cooler may be obtained. Then, by applying the proposed procedure to an existing micro-TE cooler, it is observed that the cooling load and the COP reach their maximum values, 2.9 W and 2, respectively, at different times, 3.4 ms vs. 1.7 ms. When a steady-state is reached, the micro-system is characterized by a cooling load of about 1.9 W with an efficiency of nearly 0.5, both in agreement with experimental and numerical data.

The correct design and optimization of complex energy systems requires the ability to reproduce the dynamic thermal behavior of each system component. In ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems, modelling the borehole heat exchangers (BHE) dynamic response is especially relevant in the development of control strategies for energy optimization purposes. Over the last years, several models have been developed but most of them are based on steady- state approaches, which makes them unsuitable for short-term simulation purposes. In fact, in order to accurately predict the evolution of the fluid temperatures due to the ON/OFF cycles of the heat pump, it is essential to correctly characterize the dynamic response of BHE for very short time periods. The aim of the present paper is to compare the performance of an analytical steady-state model, available in TRNSYS environment (Type 557), with a novel short-term dynamic model. The new dynamic model is based on the thermal-network approach coupled with a vertical discretization of the borehole which takes into account both the advection due to the fluid circulating along the U-tube, and the heat transfer in the borehole and in the ground. These two approaches were compared against experimental data collected from a real GSHP system installed at the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia. The analysis was performed comparing the outlet temperature profiles predicted by both models during daily standard ON/OFF operating conditions, both in heating and cooling mode, and the between both approaches were highlighted. Finally, the obtained results have been discussed focusing on the potential impact that the differences found in the prediction of the temperature evolution could have in design and optimization of GSHP systems.

Increasing interest in earth architecture has led to the development of new international norms regarding these structures. Although Italy has no specific legislation for this building type, both national laws for the safeguard of rural architecture and regional norms regarding the conservation of historical centers have considerably slowed down the pace of their destruction. This is particularly true for Sardinia, which maintains a conspicuous heritage of "raw earth" architecture, mostly in the old town centers of the Campidano plain and in its adjacent valley. Due to the current legislation on energy efficiency in buildings, it has become essential – particularly for the Sardinian region – to define guidelines for the improvement of energy efficiency for this existing building heritage and identify the best parameters for their energetic classification. Currently, these constructions are heavily penalized by the gap that persists between the requirements of current energy balance evaluations, calculated upon heating and domestic hot water energy demands, and the actual year-round energy performance, which also includes the summer season. Moreover, this building type has a low lifecycle environmental impact, but this aspect is not properly "rewarded" by Italian regulations. The study proposed herein firstly took into account the simulation of the thermal transient characteristics of the adobe wall (brick made of clay, earth and straw, forged with wooden molds and sun dried). Analytical calculations were performed using a transient model, assuming sinusoidal behavior of all the parameters acting on the system. The results showed a high thermal inertia of the material and a good ability in dampening the external thermal wave. Next, we conducted an internal and external environmental monitoring of an existing earthen residential building in Sardinia ("Casa Mancosu", Serramanna, VS), which provided the experimental data for the evaluation of the whole building thermo-physical behavior. The measurements were taken during the 2010 summer season; the dwelling was not cooled by an air conditioning system. Thermal comfort analyses based on these experimental data indicate that the roof is the "weak" component, creating local discomfort due to radiant asymmetry. The described methodology is expected to be applicable also to the many buildings of this geographical area similar to the examined one.

A mathematical model is applied to study the cylindrical heat pipes (HPs) behaviour when it is exposed to higher heat input at the evaporator for solar collector applications. The steady state analytical model includes two-dimensional heat conduction in the wall, the liquid flow in the wick and vapour hydrodynamics, and can be used to evaluate the working limits and to optimize the HP. The results of the analytical model are compared with numerical and experimental results available in literature, with good agreement. The effects of heat transfer coefficient, power input, evaporator length, pipe diameter, wick thickness and effective pore radius on the vapour temperature, maximum pressure drop and maximum heat transfer capability (HTC) of the HP are studied. The analysis shows that wick thickness plays an important role in the enhancement of HTC. Results show that it is possible to improve HTC of a HP by selecting the appropriate wick thickness, effective pore radius, and evaporator length. The parametric investigations are aimed to determine working limits and thermal performance of HP for medium temperature solar collector application.

In the last few years, to meet the need of build efficient homes in a short time and with maximum constructive simplification, lightweight prefabricated building systems have proved to be particularly suitable, especially in geographical areas which must deal with emergency situations (i.e., temporary housing). In this paper the winter and summer thermal performance of a building prototype, realised with modular steel framed elements, have been studied, in both winter and summer conditions. Special attention has been paid to the optimisation of the dynamic thermal performance of the multi-layered envelope structures. The dynamic thermal behaviour of the outer wall, analysed and discussed in details in the paper, shows that it is possible to improve the performance of lightweight walls by using an optimised stratigraphy characterised by an opportune sequence of resistive and capacitive layers. The influence of inner structures (partitions, floor and roof) on the building thermal behaviour has also analyzed trough the introduction of room performance indices appropriately defined. The results of the study have been discussed with special reference to the requirements fixed by the Energy Performance Buildings European Directive (EPBDs) and the resulting implementation in Italian Legislation.

An important option to transport the gas is to convert it into liquid natural gas (LNG) and convey it using insulated LNG tankers. At receiving terminals, the LNG is offloaded into storage tanks and then pumped at the required pressure and vaporized for final transmission to the pipeline. The LNG production process consumes a considerable amount of energy, while the cold availability, as also known as cold energy, has been stored in LNG. At a receiving terminal, LNG needs to be evaporated into gas at environmental temperature before fed into the gas distribution system. Seawater is commonly used for the regasification process of the LNG. In the present paper, after a general analysis of the perspectives of the various thermodynamic schemes proposed for power production from the regasification, a detailed analysis of enhanced direct expansion system is carried out in order to identify the upper level of the energy that can be recovered. The analysis outlines that power production typical of optimized ORC plant configurations (120 kJ/kg) can be obtained with direct expansion solutions.

In recent years, window-integrated solar protection systems are used and studied as a promising energy saving technology, both for cold and hot climates. In particular, smart windows, whose optical proprieties in the solar wavelength range can somehow be controlled, show interesting results, especially in reducing the air conditioning power consumption. With the improvement of nanolithography techniques as well as with the possibility of designing polarization intervals, coupled polarizing films show a good potential as a dynamic and wavelength-selective shading technology. In this paper, UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometric measurements are carried out on two polarizing technologies, Polaroid crystalline polarizer and Wire Grid broadband polarizer, in single- and double- film layout, to evaluate their optical performances, i.e. spectral transmittance, reflectance and absorptivity. The solar radiation glazing factors, according to the standard UNI EN 410, are calculated. The measured data are also analyzed in detail to emphasize the optical peculiarities of the materials under study that do not stand out from the standard parameters, as well as the specific problems that arise in spectrophotometric evaluations of polarizing films.

Precast concrete lightened sandwich panels are widely used building elements. They are made by two concrete wythes separated by a layer of lightweight material: the central layer is inhomogeneous due to the presence of concrete ribs which tie the external wythe and act as thermal bridges.

Computation of thermal transmittance of sandwich panels is clearly described in European Standards, but in many cases it requires numerical simulations to determine the linear transmittance ψ associated with lightweight material-concrete interfaces in the inhomogeneous layer. Although simple, these simulations represent a critical issue for many panel manufacturers and they would much rather prefer correlations to compute ψ.

In this work we present a correlation based on an artificial neural network (ANN) to estimate linear trasmittauce values for current Italian sandwich panel production. Five input parameters are considered: rib width, lightweight material conductivity, and thickness of the three panel layers. To obtain the data which are necessary to train and test the ANN, a fast and accurate Spectral Element Method is used to solve Laplace equation in the neighborhood of a rib. 5460 ψ values are collected which ensure an accurate network response.

An innovative transient numerical model is presented for the simulation of a solar Domestic Hot Water (DHW) system. The solar collectors have been simulated by using a zerodimensional analytical model. The temperature distributions in the heat transfer fluid and in the water inside the tank have been evaluated by one-dimensional models. The reversion elimination algorithm has been used to include the effects of natural convection among the water layers at different heights in the tank on the thermal stratification. A finite difference implicit scheme has been implemented to solve the energy conservation equation in the coil heat exchanger, and the energy conservation equation in the tank has been solved by using the finite difference Euler implicit scheme. Energy conservation equations for the solar DHW components models have been coupled by means of a home-made implicit algorithm. Results of the simulation performed using as input data the experimental values of the ambient temperature and the solar irradiance in a summer day are presented and discussed.

Energy consumption of buildings could be significantly reduced by improving the efficiency of the envelope. Currently, the estimation of the energy performance of existing buildings requires the knowledge of the overall heat transfer coefficient (U-value) of the walls. U-values can be calculated through a theoretical approach, knowing the thermal conductivity and thickness of each material that constitutes the wall stratigraphy, from project data or coring. Alternatively, U-values can be obtained experimentally, through the ISO recommended heat flow meter measurements. Although generally accepted, the heat flow meter method suffers from some disadvantages. Recently, an alternative approach based on infrared thermography (IRT) has been proposed for in situ measurements. Main advantages of this new approach are non invasivity and the possibility of inspecting relatively large areas in real time. In this paper, after a brief description of the state of the art in the field of U-value measurement by IRT, a case study is described. In particular, the results obtained by IRT on an existing building are compared with U-values given by the standard ISO calculation and heat flow meter measurements; advantages and limitations of the new method are outlined. Some suggestions for a successful exploiting of the IRT approach are also given.

In recent years the consumption of wood pellets as energy source for residential heating lias increased, not only as fuel for stoves, but also for small-scale residential boilers that, produce hot water used for both space heating and domestic hot water.

Reduction of fuel consumption and pollutant emissions (CO, dust., HC) is an obvious target of wood pellet boiler manufacturers, however they are also quite interested in producing low- maintenance appliances. The need of frequent maintenance turns in higher operating costs and inconvenience for the user, and in lower boiler efficiency and higher emissions also.

The aim of this paper is to present a theoretical model able to simulate the dynamic behavior of a pellet boiler. The model takes into account many features of real pellet boilers. Furthermore, with this model, it is possible to pay more attention to the influence of the boiler control strategy. Control strategy evaluation is based not only on pellet consumption and on total emissions, but also on critical operating conditions such as start-up and stop or prolonged operation at substantially reduced power level. Results are obtained for a residential heating system based on a wood pellet boiler coupled with a thermal energy storage.

Results obtained so far show a weak dependence of performance in terms of fuel consumption and total emissions on control strategy, however some control strategies present some critical issues regarding maintenance frequency.

Constructions built in Italy before 1945 (about 30% of the total built stock) feature low energy efficiency. Retrofit actions in this field can lead to valuable energetic and economic savings. In this work, we ran a dynamic simulation of a historical building of the University of Pisa during the heating season. We firstly evaluated the energy requirements of the building and the performance of the existing natural gas boiler, validated with past billings of natural gas. We also verified the energetic savings obtainable by the substitution of the boiler with an air-to-water electrically-driven modulating heat pump, simulated through a cycle-based model, evaluating the main economic metrics. The cycle-based model of the heat pump, validated with manufacturers' data available only at specified temperature and load conditions, can provide more accurate results than the simplified models adopted by current technical standards, thus increasing the effectiveness of energy audits.

In this work new experimental heat transfer coefficients measured during flow boiling of HFO-1234ze(E) in a horizontally-assembled square cross section microchannel having an hydraulic diameter of 1.23 mm are presented. The test runs have been performed at around 30°C saturation temperature, correspondent to 5.8 bar, with mass flux ranging between 300 kg m⁻² s⁻¹ and 500 kg m⁻² s⁻¹. As a peculiar characteristic of the present technique, the heat transfer coefficient is not measured by imposing the heat flux; instead, the boiling process is governed by controlling the inlet temperature of the heating secondary fluid. On this regard the present data is new and original since the large majority of data in the literature is taken by means of Joule effect heating. The heat transfer coefficients are compared against two predicting models available in the literature. Finally, the local heat transfer coefficients measured during flow boiling of R1234ze(E) inside the square cross section microchannel are compared against the values measured with the same refrigerant in a 0.96 mm diameter circular microchannel, with same surface roughness, with the aim of investigating the effect of channel shape on the heat transfer process.

A hybrid method dynamically coupling the direct numerical solution of the S-model kinetic equation and Navier-Stokes equations is applied to a numerical simulation of the flow through the channel of a finite length due to arbitrarily pressure ratios and for a wide range of Knudsen number. The decomposition of the physical domain into kinetic and hydrodynamic sub-domains is updated at each time step. The solution is advanced in time simultaneously in both kinetic and hydrodynamic domains: the coupling is achieved by matching half fluxes at the interface of the kinetic and Navier-Stokes domains, thus taking care of the conservation of momentum, energy and mass through the interface. Solver efficiency is increased via MPI (Message Passing Interface) parallelization. Accuracy and reliability of the method, for different decomposition criteria, are assessed via comparison with a pure kinetic solution.

Knowing the effective thermal conductivity is essential in order to design a metal foam heat transfer device. Beside the experimental characterization tests, this quantity can be deduced from empirical correlations and theoretical models. Moreover, CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) and numerical modeling in general, at the pore scale, are becoming a promising alternative, especially when coupled with a realistic description of the foam structure, which can be recovered from X-ray computed microtomography (μ-CT). In this work, a review of the most relevant correlations and models published in the literature, usable for the estimation of the effective thermal conductivity of metal foams, will be outlined. In addition, a validation of the models with the experimental values available in the literature will be presented, for both air and water as working fluids. Furthermore, the results of a strategy based on μ-CT – CFD coupling at the pore level will be illustrated.

The Darcy-Graetz problem for a channel filled by a nanofluid saturated porous medium is studied. The flow is assumed to be fully developed and described through Brinkman's model. For the model of the nanofluid, both thermophoresis and Brownian diffusion are taken into account. After an adiabatic preparation region, a boundary temperature linearly varying with the longitudinal coordinate is prescribed. A study of the thermal behaviour of the nanofluid is performed by solving numerically the fully-elliptic coupled equations, with reference both to the thermal entrance region and to the fully developed region. With reference to the fully developed region the solution has been obtained analytically, while for the thermal entrance region it has been obtained numerically, by a Galerkin finite element method implemented through the software package Comsol Multiphysics (© Comsol, Inc.). The analysis shows that, for physically interesting values of the Peclet number, the concentration field depends very weakly on the temperature distribution, for any given value assumed by the Darcy number. Indeed, since the effects of thermophoresis and Brownian diffusion are negligible, the homogeneous model could be employed effectively.

In this work a numerical analysis of heat transfer in elliptical microchannels heated at constant and uniform heat flux is presented. A gaseous flow has been considered, in laminar steady state condition, in hydrodynamically and thermally fully developed forced convection, accounting for the rarefaction effects. The velocity and temperature distributions have been determined in the elliptic cross section, for different values of aspect ratio, Knudsen number and Brinkman number, solving the Navier-Stokes and energy equations within the Comsol Multiphysics® environment. The numerical procedure has been validated resorting to data available in literature for slip flow in elliptic cross sections with B_r =0 and for slip flow in circular ducts with B_r > 0. The comparison between numerical results and data available in literature shows a perfect agreement. The velocity and temperature distributions thus found have been used to calculate the average Nusselt number in the cross section. The numerical results for Nusselt number are presented in terms of rarefaction degree (Knudsen number), of viscous dissipation (Brinkman number), and of the aspect ratio. The results point out that the thermal fluid behavior is significantly affected by the viscous dissipation for low rarefaction degrees and for aspect ratios of the elliptic cross-section higher than 0.2.

Counter current two phase flow is encountered in a wide variety of industrial applications. This paper describes the experimental results obtained in a circular column of 240 mm diameter with two inner pipes. The counter current flow studied concerns an upward flow of air and a downward flow of water at ambient temperature and pressure. The following range of operating conditions was analysed: superficial air velocities up to 23 cm/s and superficial water velocities up to – 11 cm/s, corresponding to a global air volume fractions (gas holdup) up to 29%. The experimental investigation concerned (i) flow visualization, (ii) local data from a double fibre optical probe and (iii) gas holdup measurements. The images obtained from an optical camera were used to observe the general flow patterns. The data obtained from the double fibre optical probe were used to study the local flow characteristics. In particular, the local void fractions, the bubble velocities, the bubble mean diameters and the bubble diameter distributions and are presented and discussed. The bed expansion technique was used to obtain the gas holdup measurements for every operating condition. The gas holdup measurements are discussed, compared with existing correlations and used for investigating the flow regime transitions. Finally, the gas holdup and the local void fraction measurements data are compared and used for understanding the local hydrodynamics.

Two-phase flows of viscous oil and water through singularities such as sudden area contractions/expansions have been taken into limited consideration in the relevant scientific literature. Nevertheless, they play a role of primary importance in industrial systems, for instance, but not only, in the exploitation of oil wells and pipelines. The proposed work is based on the comparison of photographic images of the flow patterns taken from three points of view, i.e. upper, lower and frontal, thanks to a couple of mirrors ±45° inclined with respect to the horizontal plane. Oil-water flow regimes have been observed both upward and downward of five horizontal test sections with diameter ratios d/D = 40/50, 30/50, 30/40, respectively. The observed structures of the oil-water interface, especially for core-annular flows, has suggested also detecting flow patterns in a 30 mm straight pipe for sake of comparison. Actually, the shape of the oil-core interface appears significantly influenced by the sharp-edged area change as well as by the expected momentum variation.

The refrigerant charge minimization as well as the use of eco-friendly fluids can be considered two of the most important targets for these applications to cope with the new environmental challenges. This paper compares the R1234yf and R134a flow boiling heat transfer and pressure drop measurements inside a small microfin tube with internal diameter at the fin tip of 3.4 mm. This study is carried out in an experimental facility built at the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale of the University of Padova especially designed to study both single and two phase heat transfer processes. The microfin tube is brazed inside a copper plate and electrically heated from the bottom. Several T -type thermocouples are inserted in the wall to measure the temperature distribution during the phase change process. In particular, the experimental measurements were carried out at constant saturation temperature of 30 °C, by varying the refrigerant mass velocity between 190 kg m⁻² s⁻¹ and 940 kg m⁻² s⁻¹, the vapour quality from 0.2 to 0.99, at different imposed heat fluxes. The two refrigerants are compared considering the values of the two-phase heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop.

Two phase flow inside minichannels is one of the most investigated research topic at present. The measurement of the flow rate parameters is fundamental to characterize the flow pattern and its evolution over time. This paper shows that an optical technique, well-known for large diameter pipes, can be applied to mini channels with a laminar mass flow rate. In particular, a Y-junction mono-fiber optic system with a chamfered tip probe has been built and tested. This method is applied to the local void fraction measurement in a copper capillary pipe with internal diameter of 2 mm and external diameter of 3.00 mm. Different probes have been developed and tested. The accuracy of the method depends on the size, the shape of the tip and on the tip distance from the pipe centre. Different distances and liquid flow rate have been tested. The two-phase flow pattern is also visualized and recorded by a high speed camera (FASTEC Troubleshooter 16000 fps) and post processed with an image analysis technique. A good agreement between the optical and the video signal has been observed.

Fuel cells are electrochemical power generation system which may achieve high energy efficiencies with environmentally friendly emissions. Among the different types, Proton Exchange Membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) seem at present one of the most promising choices. A very important component of a PEMFC is the gas diffusion layer (GDL), which has the primary role of managing water in the cell, allowing reactant gases transport to the catalyst layer while keeping the membrane correctly hydrated and preventing electrode flooding. Therefore, GDLs have to be porous and very hydrophobic. Carbon clothes or carbon papers coated with a hydrophobizing agent – typically a fluoropolymer – are used. Given the complex chemistry and morphology of the GDLs, wettability analyses on them present some critical issues when using the conventional contact angle measurement techniques. In this paper, the deposition of a drop on a GDL (produced using polytetrafluoroethylene-co-perfluoroalcoxy vinyl ether as the fluorinated polymer) was investigated by means of micro computed tomography (microCT) and numerical simulation. The microCT facility operational at the University of Bergamo was used to acquire a 3D tomography of a water drop deposed on a sample GDL. The reconstructed drop dataset allows thorough understanding of the real drop shape, of its contact area and contact line. The GDL dataset was used to create a realistic mesh for the numerical simulation of the drop deposition, which was performed using the OpenFOAM^®interFOAM solver.

The aim of the present paper is to describe the results of flow boiling heat transfer at low gravity and compare them with those obtained at earth gravity, evaluating possible differences. The experimental campaigns at low gravity have been performed during the parabolic flight campaign of October-November 2013. The paper will show the analysis of differences between the heat transfer coefficients and vapour bubble parameters at normal and at zero gravity. The results of 4.0 mm tube are presented and discussed. With respect to terrestrial gravity, heat transfer is systematically lower at microgravity in the range of the experimental conditions. Heat transfer differences for the two gravity conditions are related to the different bubble size in each of them. The size of a bubble in flow boiling is affected by the gravity level, being larger at low gravity, unless inertial forces are largely predominant over buoyancy and other forces acting on the bubble itself when detaching from a heated wall. Vapour bubble parameters (bubble diameter, bubble length, width, and nose velocity) have been measured.

The formation and evolution of free surface vortices represent an important topic in many hydraulic intakes, since strong whirlpools introduce swirl flow at the intake, and could cause entrainment of floating matters and gas. In particular, gas entrainment phenomena are an important safety issue for Sodium cooled Fast Reactors, because the introduction of gas bubbles within the core causes dangerous reactivity fluctuation. In this paper, a numerical evaluation of the gas core length in free surface vortices is presented, according to two different approaches. In the first one, a prediction method, developed by the Japanese researcher Sakai and his team, has been applied. This method is based on the Burgers vortex model, and it is able to estimate the gas core length of a free surface vortex starting from two parameters calculated with single-phase CFD simulations. The two parameters are the circulation and the downward velocity gradient. The other approach consists in performing a two-phase CFD simulation of a free surface vortex, in order to numerically reproduce the gas- liquid interface deformation. Mapped convergent mesh is used to reduce numerical error and a VOF (Volume Of Fluid) method was selected to track the gas-liquid interface. Two different turbulence models have been tested and analyzed. Experimental measurements of free surface vortices gas core length have been executed, using optical methods, and numerical results have been compared with experimental measurements. The computational domain and the boundary conditions of the CFD simulations were set consistently with the experimental test conditions.

Laminar mixed convective heat transfer in two-dimensional rectangular inclined driven cavity is studied numerically by means of a double population thermal Lattice Boltzmann method. Through the top moving lid the heat flux enters the cavity whereas it leaves the system through the bottom wall; side walls are adiabatic. The counter-slip internal energy density boundary condition, able to simulate an imposed non zero heat flux at the wall, is applied, in order to demonstrate that it can be effectively used to simulate heat transfer phenomena also in case of moving walls. Results are analyzed over a range of the Richardson numbers and tilting angles of the enclosure, encompassing the dominating forced convection, mixed convection, and dominating natural convection flow regimes. As expected, heat transfer rate increases as increases the inclination angle, but this effect is significant for higher Richardson numbers, when buoyancy forces dominate the problem; for horizontal cavity, average Nusselt number decreases with the increase of Richardson number because of the stratified field configuration.

The SPES (Selective Production of Exotic Species) experimental facility, under construction at the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) Laboratories of Legnaro, Italy, is a second generation Isotope Separation On Line (ISOL) plant for advanced nuclear physic studies. The UCx target-ion source system works at temperature of about 2273 K, producing a high level of radiation (10⁵ Sv/h), for this reason a careful risk analysis for the target chamber is among the major safety issues. In this paper, the obtained results of thermofluid-dynamics simulations of accidental transients in the SPES target cooling system are reported. The analysis, performed by using the RELAP5-3D 2.4.2 qualified thermal-hydraulic system code, proves good safety performance of this system during different accidental conditions.

In the frame of the future generation of nuclear reactors, liquid metals are foreseen to be used as a primary coolant. Liquid metals are characterized by a very low Prandtl number due to their very high heat diffusivity. As such, they do not meet the so-called Reynolds analogy which assumes a complete similarity between the momentum and the thermal boundary layers via the use of the turbulent Prandtl number. Particularly, in the case of industrial fluid-dynamic calculations where a resolved computation near walls could be extremely time consuming and could need very large computational resources, the use of the classical wall function approach could lead to an inaccurate description of the temperature profile close to the wall. The first aim of the present study is to investigate the ability of a well- established commercial code (ANSYS FLUENT v.14) to deal with this issue, validating a suitable expression for the turbulent Prandtl number. Moreover, a thermal wall-function developed at Universite Catholique de Louvain has been implemented in FLUENT and validated, overcoming the limits of the solver to define it directly. Both the resolved and unresolved approaches have been carried out for a channel flow case and assessed against available direct numerical and large eddy simulations. A comparison between the numerically evaluated Nusselt number and the main correlations available in the literature has been also carried out. Finally, an application of the proposed methodology to a typical sub-channel case has been performed, comparing the results with literature correlations for tube banks.

A model has been developed in Matlab environment for the thermal hydraulic analysis of helical coil and shell steam generators. The model considers the internal flow inside one helix and its associated control volume of water on the external side, both characterized by their inlet thermodynamic conditions and the characteristic geometry data. The model evaluates the behaviour of the thermal-hydraulic parameters of the two fluids, such as temperature, pressure, heat transfer coefficients, flow quality, void fraction and heat flux. The evaluation of the heat transfer coefficients as well as the pressure drops has been performed by means of the most validated literature correlations. The model has been applied to one of the steam generators of the IRIS modular reactor and a comparison has been performed with the RELAP5/Mod.3.3 code applied to an inclined straight pipe that has the same length and the same elevation change between inlet and outlet of the real helix. The predictions of the developed model and RELAP5/Mod.3.3 code are in fairly good agreement before the dryout region, while the dryout front inside the helical pipes is predicted at a lower distance from inlet by the model.

The present paper deals with the investigation of the evolution and consequences of a Station Black-Out (SBO) initiating event transient in the SPES3 facility [1]. This facility is an integral simulator of a small modular reactor being built at the SIET laboratories, in the framework of the R&D program on nuclear fission funded by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development and led by ENEA. The SBO transient will be simulated by using the RELAP5 and TRACE nodalizations of the SPES3 facility. Moreover, the analysis will contribute to study the differences on the code predictions considering the different modelling approach with one and/or three-dimensional components and to compare the capability of these codes to describe the SPES3 facility behaviour.

Iodine is one of the major contributors to the source term during a severe accident in a Nuclear Power Plant for its volatility and high radiological consequences. Therefore, large efforts have been made to describe the Iodine behaviour during an accident, especially in the containment system. Due to the lack of experimental data, in the last years many attempts were carried out to fill the gaps on the knowledge of Iodine behaviour. In this framework, two tests (ThAI Iod-11 and Iod-12) were carried out inside a multi-compartment steel vessel. A quite complex transient characterizes these two tests; therefore they are also suitable for thermal- hydraulic benchmarks. The two tests were originally released for a benchmark exercise during the SARNET2 EU Project. At the end of this benchmark a report covering the main findings was issued, stating that the common codes employed in SA studies were able to simulate the tests but with large discrepancies. The present work is then related to the application of the new versions of ASTEC and MELCOR codes with the aim of carry out a new code-to-code comparison vs. ThAI Iod-12 experimental data, focusing on the influence of the heat exchanges with the outer environment, which seems to be one of the most challenging issues to cope with.

The determination of the thermal conductivity of breeder materials is one of the main goal in order to find the best candidate material for the fusion reactor technology.

Experimental tests have been and will be carried out with a dedicated experimental devices, built at the Department of Civil and Industrial Engineering of the University of Pisa. The methodological approach used in doing that is characterized by two main phases strictly interrelated each other: the first one focused on the experimental evaluation of thermal conductivity of a ceramic material, by means of hot wire method, to be subsequently used in the second phase, based on the test rig method, to determine the thermal conductivity of pebble bed material. To the purpose, two different experimental devices have been designed and built. This paper deals with the first phase of the methodology.

In this framework, the equipment set up and built to perform Hot wire tests, the ceramic material (a cylinder of alumina), the experimental procedure and the measured results obtained varying the temperature, are presented and discussed. The experimental campaign has been lead from 50°C up to 400°C.

The thermal conductivity of the ceramic material at different bulk temperatures has been obtained in stationary conditions (detected on the basis of the temperature values measured during the experiment). Numerical analyses have been also performed by means of FEM code Ansys©. The numerical results were in quite good agreement with the experimental one, confirming also the reliability of code in reproducing heat transfer phenomena.

A simplified one-dimensional analytical model of radiative heat transfer in foams is presented, based on the idea of dividing the porous material into layers at the pore level and then modeling each layer of the porous material as an equivalent semi-transparent, absorbing and reflecting plane. Compared to existing models, the model proposed in this paper has the advantage of explicitly accounting for the geometry of the foam and the radiative energy fluxes, at the same time ensuring self-consistency and offering the computational lightness of analytical models, without sacrificing the mathematical simplicity of the formulation. Using a regular cubic lattice representation and assuming diffuse radiation, straightforward analytical correlations are derived to evaluate the characteristics both of single layers of foam and of finite thickness samples, accounting for various boundary conditions. The predictions of the model are in good agreement with experimental data taken from the literature.

The conversion into nanofluids is considered a suitable solution to increase the heat transfer efficiency of such fluids. Several theories with an emphasis on different thermal nanofluid mechanisms have appeared to predict enhanced conductivity measurements. There are many ways to measure the thermal conductivity of fluids. Some researchers argued that the anomalous k enhancement data are caused by inaccuracies of thermal measurement methods. In this paper, measurements on thermal conductivities of nanofluid mixtures (alumina/water) by means of two different methods are accomplished, i.e. the flash and the hot disk technique. In the first method, a NETZSCH model LFA 447 NanoFlash is employed, while in the second one a Hot Disk model TPS 2500 S is used. A comparison between the results obtained from the different measurement techniques is done. Two-step method is used to prepare nanofluids with a nanoparticles volumetric concentration from 0.1% to 4%. Each mixture, at assigned volumetric concentration, is treated with a sonicator for different times and thermal conductivity is measured in the range of temperature from 20°C to 50°C. Moreover, for assigned volumetric concentration and sonication, the stability analysis is performed and thermal conductivity measurements are carried out to determine the effect of sonication time. Results show the thermal conductivity dependence on sonication time, and an asymptotic value is evaluated for each volumetric concentration.

The effect of viscous dissipation is considered on modelling the fully-developed heat transfer in a parallel plane channel filled with a saturated porous medium. The basic Darcy's flow in a regime of forced convection is analysed insofar as the variability of fluid viscosity with temperature is taken into account. The thermal boundary conditions at the impermeable channel walls are described by assuming external convection with a constant heat transfer coefficient, viz. by imposing Robin conditions for the temperature as parametrised through the Biot number. The emergence of a singular behaviour in the basic velocity and temperature profiles is found when the Péclet number and the variable viscosity parameter are large enough as to imply a failure of the linear fluidity model. A linear stability analysis of the basic parallel flow is carried out to detect the reaction of the system to small-amplitude external perturbations. Different odd or even normal modes of the longitudinal type are studied. It is shown that no instability arises until the parametric condition for the emergence of the singularity is approached. An argument to predict the behaviour of normal modes of oblique type is eventually presented.

The present paper investigates the transition from convective to absolute instability induced by viscous dissipation. As far as the authors are aware, this is the first time such a study is reported in the literature. Its framework is provided by the Poiseuille-Darcy-Benard convection of a Newtonian fluid. We found the same behaviour observed in the absence of viscous dissipation whenever the Gebhart number is smaller than Ge < 0.95, which is the stabilising effect of the cross flow. When 0.95 < Ge < 4.31, weak cross flows still stabilise the onset of absolute instability but stronger cross flows destabilise it. For a stronger viscous dissipation, i.e. Ge > 4.31, the cross flow always destabilises this onset. The latter two conditions create a scenario where viscous dissipation is capable of inducing a transition to absolute instability in the absence of wall heating, i.e. with a zero Rayleigh number.

The present work presents an alternate method for solving the poisson equation for calculating the pressure field that appears in many discrete numerical solvers of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. The methodology is based on a pressure-correction scheme with a mixed approach that employs Integral Transform Technique for the calculation of the pressure field from a given discrete velocity field. Two solution schemes are analyzed, these being the single transformation and the double transformation. The poisson equation is solved with the two different schemes using a prescribed source term to simulate the discrete data that could arise in the solution process of the momentum equation and an numerical results are presented. An error analysis of these results show that the single-transformation scheme is computationally superior to the double transformation, and that good convergence rates can be obtained with few terms in the series. Moreover, it was also verified that the series solution employed for the Poisson equation maintains the original spatial order of the discretization.

New correlations, suitable for engineering applications, for the mean Nusselt number in the entrance region of circular tubes and square ducts with uniform heat flux boundary conditions specified at the walls are proposed. These correlations are obtained on the basis of the results of a previous parametric investigation on the effects of temperature dependent viscosity and thermal conductivity in simultaneously developing laminar flows of liquids in straight ducts of constant cross-sections. In these studies, a finite element procedure has been employed for the numerical solution of the parabolized momentum and energy equations. Viscosity and thermal conductivity are assumed to vary with temperature according to an exponential and to a linear relation, respectively, while the other fluid properties are held constant. Axial distributions of the mean Nusselt number, obtained by numerical integration from those of the local Nusselt number, are used as input data in the derivation of the proposed correlations. A superposition method is proved to be applicable in order to estimate the Nusselt number by considering separately the effects of temperature dependent viscosity and thermal conductivity. Therefore, for each of the considered cross-sectional geometries, two distinct correlations are proposed for flows of liquids with temperature dependent viscosity and with temperature dependent thermal conductivity, in addition to that obtained for constant property flows.

We consider a simplified physics of the could interface where condensation, evaporation and radiation are neglected and momentum, thermal energy and water vapor transport is represented in terms of the Boussinesq model coupled to a passive scalar transport equation for the vapor. The interface is modeled as a layer separating two isotropic turbulent regions with different kinetic energy and vapor concentration. In particular, we focus on the small scale part of the inertial range of the atmospheric boundary layer as well as on the dissipative range of scales which are important to the micro-physics of warm clouds. We have numerically investigated stably stratified interfaces by locally perturbing at an initial instant the standard temperature lapse rate at the cloud interface and then observing the temporal evolution of the system. When the buoyancy term becomes of the same order of the inertial one, we observe a spatial redistribution of the kinetic energy which produce a concomitant pit of kinetic energy within the mixing layer. In this situation, the mixing layer contains two interfacial regions with opposite kinetic energy gradient, which in turn produces two intermittent sublayers in the velocity fluctuations field. This changes the structure of the field with respect to the corresponding non-stratified shearless mixing: the communication between the two turbulent region is weak, and the growth of the mixing layer stops. These results are discussed with respect to Large Eddy Simulations data for the Planetary Boundary Layers.

Triangular enclosures are typical configurations of attic spaces found in residential as well as industrial pitched-roof buildings. Natural convection in triangular rooftops has received considerable attention over the years, mainly on right-angled and isosceles enclosures. In this paper, a finite volume CFD package is employed to study the laminar air flow and temperature distribution in asymmetric rooftop-shaped triangular enclosures when heated isothermally from the base wall, for aspect ratios (AR) 0.2 ≤ AR ≤ 1.0, and Rayleigh number (Ra) values 8 × 10⁵ ≤ Ra ≤ 5 × 10⁷. The effects of Rayleigh number and pitch angle on the flow structure and temperature distributions within the enclosure are analysed. Results indicate that, at low pitch angle, the heat transfer between the cold inclined and the hot base walls is very high, resulting in a multi-cellular flow structure. As the pitch angle increases, however, the number of cells reduces, and the total heat transfer rate progressively reduces, even if the Rayleigh number, being based on the enclosure height, rapidly increases. Physical reasons for the above effect are inspected.

This paper presents the results of an experimental study that envisaged the evaluation of the cooling capabilities of a transformer oil based magnetic nanofluid with the solid volume fraction of magnetite nanoparticles equal to 0.0162, in an AC applied magnetic field (f = 50 Hz). The heating and cooling regimes of a coil immersed in the magnetic nanofluid were compared to that corresponding to the base fluid (transformer oil). The results of our study indicate that the temperature rise rate of the magnetic nanofluid is lower than that corresponding to the transformer oil and a lower stationary temperature is obtained in the coil core, where the magnetic flux density is the largest.