Browsing by Subject "Porous medium"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Open Access
Computational modeling of vehicle radiators using porous medium approach
(InTech Open, 2017) Çetin, Barbaros; Güler, K.; Aksel, M. H.; Murshed, M. S.; Lopes, M. M.
A common tool for the determination of thermal characteristics of vehicle radiators is the experimental testing. However, experimental testing may not be feasible considering the cost and labor-time. Basic understanding of the past experimental data and analytical/ computational modeling can significantly enhance the effectiveness of the design and development phase. One such computational modeling technique is the utilization of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis to predict the thermal characteristics of a vehicle radiator. However, CFD models are also not suitable to be used as a design tool since considerable amount of computational power and time is required due to the multiple length scales involved in the problem, especially the small-scale geometric details associated with the fins. Although fins introduce a significant complexity for the problem, the repetitive and/or regular structure of the fins enables the porous medium based modeling. By porous modeling, a memory and time efficient computational model can be developed and implemented as an efficient design tool for radiators. In this work, a computational methodology is described to obtain the hydrodynamic and thermal characteristics of a vehicle radiator. Although the proposed methodology is discussed in the context of a vehicle radiator, the proposed methodology can be implemented to any compact heat exchanger with repetitive fin structures which is an important problem for many industrial applications.
Open Access
Mesoporous metallic rhodium nanoparticles
(Nature Publishing Group, 2017) Jiang B.; Li C.; Dag, Ö.; Abe, H.; Takei, T.; Imai, T.; Hossain, M. S. A.; Islam, M. T.; Wood, K.; Henzie, J.; Yamauchi, Y.
Mesoporous noble metals are an emerging class of cutting-edge nanostructured catalysts due to their abundant exposed active sites and highly accessible surfaces. Although various noble metal (e.g. Pt, Pd and Au) structures have been synthesized by hard- and soft-templating methods, mesoporous rhodium (Rh) nanoparticles have never been generated via chemical reduction, in part due to the relatively high surface energy of rhodium (Rh) metal. Here we describe a simple, scalable route to generate mesoporous Rh by chemical reduction on polymeric micelle templates [poly(ethylene oxide)-b-poly(methyl methacrylate) (PEO-b-PMMA)]. The mesoporous Rh nanoparticles exhibited a ∼1/42.6 times enhancement for the electrocatalytic oxidation of methanol compared to commercially available Rh catalyst. Surprisingly, the high surface area mesoporous structure of the Rh catalyst was thermally stable up to 400 °C. The combination of high surface area and thermal stability also enables superior catalytic activity for the remediation of nitric oxide (NO) in lean-burn exhaust containing high concentrations of O 2.
Open Access
Poly-cyclodextrin cryogels with aligned porous structure for removal of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from water
(Elsevier, 2017-08) Topuz, F.; Uyar, Tamer
Cyclodextrins (CDs) are sugar-based cyclic oligosaccharides, which form inclusion complexes with small guest molecules through their hydrophobic cavity. Here we successfully synthesized highly porous poly-cyclodextrin (poly-CD) cryogels, which were produced under cryogenic conditions by the cross-linking of amine-functional CDs with PEG-based diepoxide cross-linker. The poly-CD cryogels showed aligned porous network structures owing to the directional freezing of the matrix, of which the pore size and architecture exposed variations depending on the composition of the reactants. The cryogels were employed for the removal of genotoxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from aqueous solutions. They reached PAH sorption capacities as high as 1.25 mg PAH per gram cryogel. This high sorption performance is due to interactions between PAHs and the complete swollen network, and thus, is not restricted by interfacial adsorption. Given that the hydrophilic nature of the components, the sorption performance could only be attributed to the inclusion complex formation of CDs with PAH molecules. The poly-CD cryogels could be recycled with an exposure to ethanol and reused without any significant loss in the sorption capacity of PAHs.
Open Access
Vertical and horizontal water penetration velocity modeling in nonhomogenous soil using fast multi-output relevance vector regression
(Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Publishers, 2023-03) Vaheddost, B.; Arashloo, Shervin Rahimzadeh; Safari, MJS.
A joint determination of horizontal and vertical movement of water through porous medium is addressed in this study through fast multi-output relevance vector regression (FMRVR). To do this, an experimental data set conducted in a sand box with 300 × 300 × 150 mm dimensions made of Plexiglas is used. A random mixture of sand having size of 0.5–1 mm is used to simulate the porous medium. Within the experiments, 2, 3, 7, and 12 cm walls are used together with different injection locations as 130.7, 91.3, and 51.8 mm measured from the cutoff wall at the upstream. Then, the Cartesian coordinated of the tracer, time interval, length of the wall in each setup, and two dummy variables for determination of the initial point are considered as independent variables for joint estimation of horizontal and vertical velocity of water movement in the porous medium. Alternatively, the multi-linear regression, random forest, and the support vector regression approaches are used to alternate the results obtained by the FMRVR method. It was concluded that the FMRVR outperforms the other models, while the uncertainty in estimation of horizontal penetration is larger than the vertical one.