Convective heat transfer coefficient and friction factor of a nanofluid in rectangular microchannel were measured. An integrated microsystem consisting of a single microchannel on one side and two localized heaters and five polysilicon temperature sensors along the channel on the other side were fabricated. Aluminum dioxide (Al2O3) nanofluids with various particle volume fractions were used in experiment to investigate the effect of the volume fraction of the nanoparticles to the convective heat transfer and fluid flow in microchannels. The convective heat transfer coefficient of the Al2O3 nanofluid in laminar flow regime was measured to be increased up to 15% compared to the distilled water at a volume fraction of 1.8 volume percent without major friction loss. The Nusselt number measured increases with increasing the Reynolds number in laminar flow regime. A new type of convective heat transfer correlation was proposed to correlate experimental data of heat transfer coefficient for nanofluids in microchannels.

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A MEMS-based integrated capillary-pumped loop (CPL), which can be used for cooling electronic devices such as the CPU of a personal computer or notebook, was developed. The CPL consists of an evaporator and condenser both with the same size of 30 mm × 30 mm × 5.15 mm, which were fabricated using two layers of glass wafer and one layer of silicon wafer.A key element of the CPL is that the 480 ± 15 µm thickness silicon wafer where an array of 56 × 56 cone-shaped microholes that generates the capillary forces was fabricated and inserted above the compensation cavity for liquid transportation instead of a porous wick in the evaporator. The same cone-shaped microstructure was used in the condenser to create a stable interface between the liquid and vapor phases. The CPL fabricated was tested under various conditions such as different relative heights, fill ratios and heat fluxes. The operation conditions of the CPL were varied according to the relative height and fill ratios. With an allowable temperature of 110 • C on the evaporator surfaces, the CPL can handle a heat flux of about 6.22 W cm −2 for the air-cooled condenser. Steady-state operation conditions were achieved within 10 min.

Abstract:In this study, diagnosis of a 300-MW combined cycle power plant under faulty conditions was performed using a thermoeconomic method called modified productive structure analysis. The malfunction and dysfunction, unit cost of irreversibility and lost cost flow rate for each component were calculated for the cases of pre-fixed malfunction and the reference conditions. A commercial simulating software, GateCycle TM (version 6.1.2), was used to estimate the thermodynamic properties under faulty conditions. The relative malfunction (RMF) and the relative difference in the lost cost flow rate between real operation and reference conditions (RDLC) were found to be effective indicators for the identification of faulty components. Simulation results revealed that 0.5% degradation in the isentropic efficiency of air compressor, 2% in gas turbine, 2% in steam turbine and 2% degradation in energy loss in heat exchangers can be identified. Multi-fault scenarios that can be detected by the indicators were also considered. Additional lost exergy due to these types of faulty components, that can be detected by RMF or RDLC, is less than 5% of the exergy lost in the components in the normal condition.

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