Effects of Guide Vane Placement Angle on Hydraulic Characteristics of Flow Field and Optimal Design of Hydraulic Capsule Pipelines

Abstract

With the rapid growth of agricultural trade volumes, the transportation of agricultural products has received widespread attention from society. Aiming at these problems of low transport efficiency and high transport cost in long-distance transport of agricultural products, an energy-saving and environmental-friendly transport mode of agricultural machinery-hydraulic capsule pipelines (HCPs)-was proposed. HCPs effectively solve issues like traffic congestion, energy crises, and atmospheric pollution. Published literature is mainly limited to the capsule speed and the pressure drop characteristics of the fluid within the pipelines. This research was conducted on the following four aspects of HCPs. Firstly, the structure of the carrier was improved and called a 'piped carriage'. Secondly, a coupled solution between the structural domain of the piped carriage and the fluid domain within the pipelines was numerically investigated by using the commercial CFD software ANSYS Fluent 12.0 based on the bidirectional fluid-structure interaction methods. Thirdly, the effects of guide vane placement angle on hydraulic characteristics of the internal flow field within the horizontal pipelines transporting the piped carriage were extensively evaluated. Finally, based on least-cost principle, an optimization model of HCPs was established. The results indicated that the simulated results were in good agreement with the experimental results, which further demonstrated that it was feasible to adopt the bidirectional fluid-structure interaction methods for solving the hydraulic characteristics of the internal flow field when the piped carriage was moving along the pipelines. This article will provide an abundant theoretical foundation for the rational design of HCPs and its popularization and application.

Wall Stresses in Cylinder of Stationary Piped Carriage Using COMSOL Multiphysics

“…Therefore, the velocity of the pipe flow at the coupling interface is zero. The flow distribution force on the coupling interface is integrated into a concentrated force applied on the structural nodes according to Formula (26).…”

“…u(y,z) defines its exponential velocity distribution by the measured velocity at the inlet section. u(y, z) = u p ((0.05 − y 2 + z 2 )/0.05) 1 /8 [26], where u p is the average velocity of the section in the pipe flow. The turbulence length scale L T and the turbulence intensity I T were obtained using Equations (27) and (28) respectively.…”

“…Figure 4 is the pipeline system diagram of the experiment. The pipeline system mainly consists of 5 mm thick plexiglass pipes, 15 mm thick plexiglass flanges, a water tank, a centrifugal pump, an electromagnetic flowmeter and a placement device [22,26].…”

“…height [23], the guide vane length [24,25], and the guide vane placement angle [26][27][28]. The relationship between the structural parameters and the transportation speed and energy consumption of piped carriage hydraulic transportation was explored.…”

The Wall Stress of the Capsule Surface in the Straight Pipe

“…Maolin et al [12] aimed to minimize the resistance and lift of the fixed capsule in the pipe flow, and studied the optimization of the capsule shape by using CFD. Zhang et al [13][14][15] used Fluent to study the flow-field characteristics of different structural capsules in pipeline water flow on the basis of fluid-solid coupling, and optimized capsule structure. Yang et al [16,17] explored the flow-field characteristics and influence range of capsule flow during operation.…”