Theoretical modeling and verification of storage time of cold box based on network method of radiation heat transfer

Abstract

The storage time of cold box is an important subject. At present, the research method of the storage time is mainly an experiment, and the theoretical research is incomplete. Therefore, in this work, theoretical modeling combined with a network method of radiation heat transfer, the shape factor of heat conduction, and sensible heat of refrigerant were proposed to calculate the storage time of a cold box at various ambient temperatures and amounts of refrigerant. The experimental and simulation results were used to verify the theoretical modeling of the storage time. The influences of the sensible heat of refrigerant and radiation heat transfer in the cold box were analyzed. The stability of the theoretical modeling was studied via simulation of the different cold box and refrigerant materials. The results of the accuracy of the theoretical model confirmed that the maximum error between the theoretical and the experimental storage times is 8.45%, and the error between the theoretical and the simulation results is 7.51%, indicating that the sensible heat of refrigerant and radiation heat transfer have big impacts on the storage time. The stability of the theoretical model is confirmed under the different box and refrigerant materials, and different shapes of refrigerant. The storage time model has stability on different box materials and refrigerant materials. The theoretical model can be severed as a fundamentally guidance for the cold box production design.

Keywords:

• Cold box
• Fluent
• network method of radiation heat transfer
• shape factor
• storage time

Availability of data and materials

The datasets generated during and analyzed during the current study are not publicly available, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Competing interests

All authors certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.

Authors’ contributions

Zhiqiang Fu: Conceptualization, methodology, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Supervision. Haozhe Liu: Conceptualization, methodology, Software, Validation, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization. Liying Duan: Investigation, Visualization. Liqiang Huang: Writing – review & editing, Supervision. Yan Wang: Software, Supervision. All authors have reviewed this manuscript.

Acknowledgment

This work was thanks to Tianjin University of Science and Technology Packaging Innovation Laboratory for providing experimental equipment and site support.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Tianjin Municipal Education Commission (Grant numbers NO. 2019KJ209).