Course Syllabus

Course PM

MTF115, Heat Transfer, VT19 (7,5hp)

Updated on 26 November 2018

The course is given by the Department of Mechanics and Maritime Sciences

 

Schedule

https://cloud.timeedit.net/chalmers/web/public/ri6Xn0gQ4560YZQQ05Z6175Y03y60073Q5Y57Q682v575Z50.ics

 

Contact information

Examiner: Dr. Hua-Dong Yao
Teaching assistant: Sudharsan Vasudevan

 

Prerequisites

A course in fluid mechanics similar to MTF052, Fluid Mechanics.

 

Language

The written language is English. Lectures are given in English in the very likely event that there are any participants that do not understand Swedish. The project works are supervised both in Swedish and English.

 

Aims

The course gives detailed knowledge and physical understanding of the heat transfer through conduction, convection and radiation, and heat transfer in heat exchangers. The students gain knowledge of the heat transfer theory and learn engineering and numerical methods to solve heat transfer problems. The participants will develop skills in project work, oral and written presentations and in solving heat transfer problems with numerical methods using a mesh generation code and a CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) code.

 

Goals

The students will be able to:

• Derive and understand the physics of the theoretical relations in heat transfer.
• Use the simplified engineering solution methods that are used in heat transfer in order to make a quick approximation of the heat transfer for academic and industrial applications.
• Use numerical solution methods for heat transfer in order to make a detailed approximation of the heat transfer for academic and industrial applications, and to gain a physical understanding of how heat transfer occurs.
• Analyze and compare the results from different solution methods, and make a quick judgment of the validity of the results.
• Understand how the theory describes the flow and temperature distributions in academic and industrial applications.
• Do project work.
• Make an oral presentation.
• Write a good report.
• Use a mesh generation code and a CFD code.

 

Contents

The course comprises heat transfer through conduction, convection and radiation, and heat transfer in heat exchangers. Energy conservation is also a central issue, both when using engineering methods, when deriving the governing equations, and when discretizing them for numerical simulations. Energy conservation is the tool that is used to couple different heat transfer modes, or heat transfer in different spatial regions.

The heat conduction part of the course comprises one- and two-dimensional steady and transient heat conduction. We study both simple cases where analytical solutions may quite easily be derived, and cases that are more advanced where empirical correlations or numerical methods must be used.

Heat transfer through convection (both forced and natural) is a large subject. We derive and study the energy equation both for laminar and turbulent flows. A number of external configurations, like convective heat transfer for a flat plate, a cylinder, and tube bundles are studied. We also study convective heat transfer for internal configurations such as pipes and channels.

Heat exchangers are the most common industrial heat transfer devices. Specific applications may be found in air-conditioning, power production, cooling of the oil in a car etc. The course comprises parallel-flow, counter-flow, cross-flow and compact heat exchangers.

In the end of the course there is a deep treatment of thermal radiation. We define emission, absorption, radiosity etc. Thermal radiation from grey surfaces, black body radiation, view factors, radiation, absorption and reflection are some of the phenomena that are treated.

For industrially applied problems in heat transfer one must in general use numerical methods. A CFD code (Computational Fluid Dynamics) that is commonly used in industry is used in the computer exercises and in the project work to study conduction and convection. The importance of a good computational mesh is highlighted. The results are compared with analytical and empirical correlations. 

 

Structure

The entire course consists of 6 lecture blocks. Course introduction is given during the first lecture. Each subsequent lecture includes quizzes and group discussions for the material from the previous lecture. 

The theory of heat transfer is presented at the lectures and in lecture notes, and is used at the exercises to solve general problems in heat transfer. Each week there is a lecture block and two exercise blocks. At problem-solving classes we use engineering methods (by hand), and at computer classes we use numerical methods (CFD) to solve heat transfer problems. The aim of this is to give the students a deeper understanding of the assumptions made in the engineering methods, skills in using a CFD code, and a 'feeling' for how heat transfer occurs. The results from the CFD exercises should be reported in simple written reports that point out the main conclusions from those exercises. At the end of the course the physical understanding of heat transfer is improved through a laboratory work and an extended CFD project work, where the students work in groups of two. The extended project work should be reported both orally and in a written report.

By answering the provided questions correctly while you are going through the lecture notes and reading the book, you will be well prepared for the theoretical part of the written examination. The theoretical questions are chosen to help the student develop theoretical knowledge in line with the learning outcomes.

 

Literature

Obligatory literature is given below. The books can be found in Cremona and the library. 

• Incropera's Principles of Heat and Mass Transfer, Global Edition by Bergman / Lavine / Incropera / DeWitt, ISBN 978-1-119-38291-1. 
  
  • Alternatively, use one of the previous versions of the book named:
    • Principles of Heat and Mass Transfer, 7th edition, Incropera / DeWitt / Bergman / Lavine, ISBN 978-0-470-64615-1. 
    • Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer, 7th Edition, Bergman / Lavine / Incropera / DeWitt, ISBN 978-0-470-50197-9.

• The manual of the CFD software STAR-CCM+, which is integrated in the software.

• Supplementary material on the course homepage and on Wiley's homepage.

• The instruction to project works and writing reports from the general directives for Bachelor theses (kandidatarbete). 

 

Learning outcomes

Read the course plan on Studieportalen. 

For a high grade in the course all the learning outcomes should be mastered efficiently and accurately. The students will, after completing the course, be able to:

• Physically describe how heat transfer by conduction, convection and radiation takes place in 1D, 2D and 3D, and to give a qualitative description of temperature (and velocity) distributions for general cases.
• Use energy conservation to couple heat transfer by conduction, convection and radiation.
• Derive equations for heat transfer by conduction, convection and radiation.
• Discretize the equations for problem-solving by hand, and understand the foundations of the numerical tools that solve general heat transfer problems.
• Specify initial and boundary conditions and solve the equations by hand, and with the help of CFD, and compare the results from the different solution methods.
• Derive simplified equations for boundary layers, and understand how the boundary layers affect the heat transfer and near-wall fluid friction.
• Understand how turbulence affects the convective heat transfer.
• Know what dimensionless numbers are relevant for different kinds of heat transfer, and understand their physical interpretations.
• Understand what the dimensionless equations say about how heat transfer occurs and, specifically, relate the energy equation (temperature) to those for momentum (velocity).
• Realize that convection problems is all about finding the distribution of the convection coefficient (or the Nusselt number), and know which different methods that can be used to find this distribution.
• Derive simplified relations for heat transfer by conduction, convection and radiation.
• Solve engineering problems using the simplified relations, and understand the underlying physics and the assumptions made.
• Come up with engineering ideas on how to improve heat transfer characteristics, and verify them.
• Use the fundamental knowledge when doing engineering studies of complicated applications, such as heat exchangers.
• Understand and simplify real problems so that they can be solved using engineering or numerical methods.
• Use basic functionality in the mesh generation and CFD tools, and understand the basics on how to get good results from them.
• Find and use correlations and tables for heat transfer.
• Do project work.
• Write a good project report.
• Give a good oral project presentation.

 

Changes to Last-Year Course

STAR-CCM+ will replace ANSYS-ICEM and Fluent in the CFD exercises and project. This software integrates a mesh generation tool and a CFD solver. In the previous course in the last year, the mesh generation tool is ANSYS-ICEM, and the CFD solver Fluent. Extra cost was found when the whole process of a CFD simulation was manipulated with different tools for the pre-processing (mesh generation) and the processing (CFD computation). With the use of STAR-CCM+, the time cost on mesh generation tasks will be reduced. Consequently, more time can be spent on the analysis of CFD results and the understanding of physics. 

 

Grades and Examination

Course participants are gaining grades during the course classes (lectures, problem-solving and CFD exercises). The grades with 8 points in total are distributed with respect to the action parts. As illustrated in the schematic below, 1 point for 'theoreties' can be gained from discussions during lectures; 1 point from the problem-solving exercises; 1.5 point from the computer exercises; 1.5 point from the extended CFD project and corresponding presentation; 3 point from the final written examination. The credits will be weighted according to the qualitiy of the outcomes (assignment, reports, presentation, etc.). The final grade will be given by summing the above credits. However, to pass the course, the percentage of hec gained from every action part must be above 30%.

 

The exam is 5-hour long and subdivided in two parts, a theory (20 sub-points) and problem-solving (20 sub-points). To pass the course, the written examination must give at least 16 sub-points with a minimum of 5 sub-points in each of the theoretical and problem parts. The points gained from the examination will be calculated by multiplying the sum of the sub-points with a factor of 0.375. Aids in the written examination: In the theoretical part no aids are allowed, and in the problem part the course book and an approved (typgodkänd) scientific calculator are allowed. The theoretical part must be handed in before the course book and the scientific calculator are being used. An example exam is provided in Documents to show the organization of the written examination. Note that the total amount of credits will be 20+20 for the two parts instead of 40+40 in the example exam. General notes on examinations can be found here:
https://student.portal.chalmers.se/en/chalmersstudies/Examinations

Further mandatory parts:

• Computer exercise tests must be handed in time and passed by the teacher assistants. Failed tests must be re-submitted according to the instructions from the teacher assistants. Each student should hand in his/her own tests, written by himself/herself. The (absolute) deadline for each test is 2 weeks after the corresponding computer exercise.
• Written report of the project must be handed in and passed by the teacher assistants. Each group should hand in their own report, written by themselves. A contribution report should be included so that it is possible to see that both participants have contributed sufficiently. The draft report should be submitted prior the project presentation. The final report should be submitted prior the written examination.
• The group must give an oral presentation of the project work - a 10 min ppt-presentation where both participants are active.
• Alternatively to writing the project report and doing the project presentation, it is permitted to make a 5-10 min video explaining the results of the project. The format of the video presentation is free and this video might be used as an inspiring example.
• It is mandatory to attend the oral presentations. You might actually learn something from other students.