•First non-contact in-situ thermal conductivity measurement of flowing fluid.•Identify experimental conditions to obtain intrinsic thermal conductivity of fluid.•Demonstrate the technique on water, ...ethanol, and two types of oils.•Measure oil from room temperature to 170 °C.
In situ thermal transport measurement of flowing fluid could be useful for the characterization and diagnosis of practical thermal systems such as fluid heat exchangers and thermal energy storage systems. Despite abundant reports on the ex-situ thermal conductivity measurement of stagnant fluids, a suitable technique for the thermal conductivity measurement of flowing fluid has been rarely reported. This paper presents the thermal conductivity measurement of flowing fluid within a pipe using a non-contact modulated photothermal radiometry (MPR) technique, where the surface of the pipe is heated by an intensity-modulated laser and the heat diffuses into the fluid with suitable modulation frequency. We design a tube section with small wall thickness suitable for the MPR measurements to maximize the sensitivity of the thermal response to the fluid properties while minimizing the lateral heat spreading effect. Intrinsic thermal conductivity of different fluids was obtained within a proper range of frequency and flow velocity where the forced convection effect is negligible. The forced convection effect became prominent at high flowing velocity and at low modulation frequency, leading to higher effective thermal conductivity of the fluid. It is found that the intrinsic thermal conductivity could be obtained when the flow velocity is less than 100 mm/sec and ReD1/2Pr1/3 < 100 for DI water and Xceltherm oil under the specified experimental conditions, where ReD is the Reynolds number and Pr is the Prandtl number.
•Non-contact technique to handle high-temperature corrosive liquids.•Frequency controlled thermal penetration depth eliminates natural convection.•Front-side sensing and vertical holder orientation ...minimize salt creeping effect.•Accurate thermal conductivity data obtained for nitrate and chloride salts.•MPR is applicable for in-situ diagnostics of high-temperature thermal system.
Molten salts are being used or explored for thermal energy storage and conversion systems in concentrating solar power and nuclear power plants. Thermal conductivity of molten salts is an important thermophysical property dictating the performance and cost of these systems, but its accurate measurement has been challenging, as evidenced by wide scattering of existing data in literature. The corrosive and conducting nature of these fluids also leads to time consuming sample preparation processes of many contact-based measurements. Here, we report the measurement of thermal conductivity of molten salts using a modulated photothermal radiometry (MPR) technique, which is a laser-based, non-contact, frequency-domain method adopted for molten salts for the first time. By unitizing the advantages of front side sensing of frequency-domain measurements and the vertical holder orientation, the technique can minimize the natural convection and salt creeping effects, thus yielding accurate molten salt thermal conductivity . The MPR technique is first calibrated using standard molten materials including paraffin wax and sulfur. It is then applied on measuring pure nitrate salts (NaNO3 and KNO3), solar salt (NaNO3–KNO3 mixture), and chloride salt (NaCl–KCl–MgCl2). The measurement results are compared with data from literature, especially those obtained from laser flash analysis (LFA). Our results demonstrate that the MPR is a convenient and reliable technique of measuring thermal conductivity of molten salts. Accurate thermal conductivity data of molten salts will be valuable in developing the next-generation high-temperature thermal energy storage and conversion systems.
A systematic study was performed to measure the effective thermal conductivity of ceramic particle beds, a promising heat transfer and thermal energy storage medium for concentrating solar power ...(CSP). The thermal conductivity of the ceramic particle beds was measured using a transient hot-wire (THW) method within a temperature range of room temperature to 700 °C, the target operating temperature of the next-generation CSP systems. Two different types of ceramic particles were examined: (1) CARBOBEAD HSP 40/70 and (2) CARBOBEAD CP 40/100 (also known as ACCUCAST ID 50) with the average particle sizes of ~405 μm and ~275 μm, respectively, and thermal conductivities ranging from ~0.25 W m−1 K−1 to ~0.50 W m−1 K−1 from 20 °C to 700 °C in both air and N2 gas. The gaseous pressure dependence of the thermal conductivity of the ceramic particle beds was also studied in the N2 environment to differentiate the contributions from gas conduction, solid conduction, and radiation. Calculations using the Zehner, Bauer, and Schlünder (ZBS) model showed good agreements with the measurements. Based on the model, it is concluded that the effective thermal conductivity of the packed particle beds is dominated by the gas conduction while the solid conduction and radiation contributes to about 20% of the effective thermal conductivity at high temperature.
•First thermal conductivity measurement of CARBOBEAD HSP 40/70 and CP 40/100 up to 700 °C.•Analysis of thermal conductivity from temperature and gaseous pressure dependence.•Quantification of relative contributions from gas, solid contacts, and radiation at various temperature.•Gaseous conduction is found to be the dominant mechanism.
In situ thermal transport measurement of flowing fluid could be useful for the characterization and diagnosis of practical thermal systems such as fluid heat exchangers and thermal energy storage ...systems. Despite abundant reports on the ex-situ thermal conductivity measurement of stagnant fluids, a suitable technique for the thermal conductivity measurement of flowing fluid has been rarely reported. Here, this paper presents the thermal conductivity measurement of flowing fluid within a pipe using a non-contact modulated photothermal radiometry (MPR) technique, where the surface of the pipe is heated by an intensity-modulated laser and the heat diffuses into the fluid with suitable modulation frequency. We design a tube section with small wall thickness suitable for the MPR measurements to maximize the sensitivity of the thermal response to the fluid properties while minimizing the lateral heat spreading effect. Intrinsic thermal conductivity of different fluids was obtained within a proper range of frequency and flow velocity where the forced convection effect is negligible. The forced convection effect became prominent at high flowing velocity and at low modulation frequency, leading to higher effective thermal conductivity of the fluid. It is found that the intrinsic thermal conductivity could be obtained when the flow velocity is less than 100 mm/sec and ReD1/2Pr1/3 < 100 for DI water and Xceltherm oil under the specified experimental conditions, where ReD is the Reynolds number and Pr is the Prandtl number.
Molten salts are being used or explored for thermal energy storage and conversion systems in concentrating solar power and nuclear power plants. Thermal conductivity of molten salts is an important ...thermophysical property dictating the performance and cost of these systems, but its accurate measurement has been challenging, as evidenced by wide scattering of existing data in literature. The corrosive and conducting nature of these fluids also leads to time consuming sample preparation processes of many contact-based measurements. Here, in this work, we report the measurement of thermal conductivity of molten salts using a modulated photothermal radiometry (MPR) technique, which is a laser-based, non-contact, frequency-domain method adopted for molten salts for the first time. By unitizing the advantages of front side sensing of frequency-domain measurements and the vertical holder orientation, the technique can minimize the natural convection and salt creeping effects, thus yielding accurate molten salt thermal conductivity . The MPR technique is first calibrated using standard molten materials including paraffin wax and sulfur. It is then applied on measuring pure nitrate salts (NaNO3 and KNO3), solar salt (NaNO3–KNO3 mixture), and chloride salt (NaCl–KCl–MgCl2). The measurement results are compared with data from literature, especially those obtained from laser flash analysis (LFA). Our results demonstrate that the MPR is a convenient and reliable technique of measuring thermal conductivity of molten salts. Accurate thermal conductivity data of molten salts will be valuable in developing the next-generation high-temperature thermal energy storage and conversion systems.
Molten salts are a leading candidate for high-temperature heat transfer fluids (HTFs) for thermal energy storage and conversion systems in concentrated solar power (CSP) and nuclear energy power ...plants. The ability to probe molten salt thermal transport properties in both stationary and flowing status is important for the evaluation of their heat transfer performance under realistic operational conditions, including the temperature range and potential degradation due to corrosion and contamination. However, accurate thermal transport properties are usually challenging to obtain even for stagnant molten salts due to different sources of errors from convection, radiation, and corrosion, let alone flowing ones. To the best of authors' knowledge, there is no available in-situ technique for measuring flowing molten salt thermal conductivity. Here, we report the first in-situ flowing molten salt thermal conductivity measurement using modulated photothermal radiometry (MPR). We could successfully perform the first in-situ thermal conductivity measurement of flowing molten \(NaCl-KCl-MgCl_2\) in the typical operating temperature (520 and 580 \(^oC\)) with flow velocities ranging from around 0.3 to 1.0 $m$$s^-1\(. The relative change of the molten salt thermal conductivity was measured. Gnielinski's correlation was also used to estimate the heat transfer coefficient h of the flowing \)NaCl-KCl-MgCl_2$ in the given experimental condition. The work showed the potential of the MPR technique serving as an in-situ diagnostics tool to evaluate the heat transfer performance of flowing molten salts and other high-temperature HTFs.
In situ thermal transport measurement of flowing fluid could be useful for the characterization and diagnosis of practical thermal systems such as fluid heat exchangers and thermal energy storage ...systems. Despite abundant reports on the ex-situ thermal conductivity measurement of stagnant fluids, a suitable technique for the thermal conductivity measurement of flowing fluid has been rarely reported. This paper presents the thermal conductivity measurement of flowing fluid within a pipe using a non-contact modulated photothermal radiometry (MPR) technique, where the surface of the pipe is heated by an intensity-modulated laser and the heat diffuses into the fluid with suitable modulation frequency. We design a tube section with small wall thickness suitable for the MPR measurements to maximize the sensitivity of the thermal response to the fluid properties while minimizing the lateral heat spreading effect. Intrinsic thermal conductivity of different fluids was obtained within a proper range of frequency and flow velocity where the forced convection effect is negligible. The forced convection effect became prominent at high flowing velocity and at low modulation frequency, leading to overestimated thermal conductivity of fluid. It is found that the intrinsic thermal conductivity could be obtained when the flow velocity is less than 100 mm/sec and ReD1/2Pr1/3 < 100 for DI water and Xceltherm oil under the specified experimental conditions, where Re_D is the Reynolds number and Pr is the Prandtl number.
Molten salts are being used or explored for thermal energy storage and conversion systems in concentrating solar power and nuclear power plants. Thermal conductivity of molten salts is an important ...thermophysical property dictating the performance and cost of these systems, but its accurate measurement has been challenging, as evidenced by wide scattering of existing data in literature. The corrosive and conducting nature of these fluids also leads to time consuming sample preparation processes of many contact-based measurements. Here, we report the measurement of thermal conductivity of molten salts using a modulated photothermal radiometry (MPR) technique, which is a laser-based, non-contact, frequency-domain method adopted for molten salts for the first time. By unitizing the advantages of front side sensing of frequency-domain measurements and the vertical holder orientation, the technique can minimize the natural convection and salt creeping effects, thus yielding accurate molten salt thermal conductivity. The MPR technique is first calibrated using standard molten materials including paraffin wax and sulfur. It is then applied on measuring pure nitrate salts (\(NaNO_3\) and \(KNO_3\)), solar salt (\(NaNO_3-KNO_3\) mixture), and chloride salt (\(NaCl-KCl-MgCl_2\)). The measurement results are compared with data from literature, especially those obtained from laser flash analysis (LFA). Our results demonstrate that the MPR is a convenient and reliable technique of measuring thermal conductivity of molten salts. Accurate thermal conductivity data of molten salts will be valuable in developing the next-generation high-temperature thermal energy storage and conversion systems.
A systematic study was performed to measure the effective thermal conductivity of ceramic particle beds, a promising heat transfer and thermal energy storage media for concentrating solar power ...(CSP). The thermal conductivity of the ceramic particle beds was measured using a transient hot-wire (THW) method within a temperature range of room temperature to 700 oC, the target operating temperature of the next-generation CSP systems. Two different types of ceramic particles were examined: (1) CARBOBEAD HSP 40/70 and (2) CARBOBEAD CP 40/100 with the average particle sizes of ~ 400 {\mu}m and ~280 {\mu}m, respectively, and thermal conductivities ranging from ~0.25 W m-1 K-1 to ~0.50 W m-1 K-1 from 20 oC to 700 oC in both air and N2 gas. The gaseous pressure dependence of the thermal conductivity of the ceramic particle beds was also studied in the N2 environment to differentiate the contributions from gas conduction, solid conduction, and radiation. Calculations using the Zehner, Bauer, and Schl\"under (ZBS) model showed good agreements with the measurements. Based on the model, it is concluded that the effective thermal conductivity of the packed particle beds is dominated by the gas conduction while the solid conduction and radiation contributes to about 20% of the effective thermal conductivity at high temperature.
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