Heat exchanger network optimization has an important role in high-efficiency energy utilization and energy conservation. The thermal resistance of a heat exchanger network is defined based on its entransy dissipation. In two-stream heat exchanger networks, only heat exchanges between hot and cold fluids are considered. Thermal resistance analysis indicates that the maximum heat transfer rate between two fluids corresponds to the minimum entransy-dissipation-based thermal resistance; i.e. the minimum thermal resistance principle can be exploited in optimizing heat exchanger networks.
In terms of the analogy between mass and heat transfer phenomena, a new physical quantity, i.e. mass entransy, is introduced to represent the ability of an object for transferring mass to outside. Meanwhile, the mass entransy dissipation occurs during mass transfer processes as an alternative to measure the mass transfer irreversibility. Then the concepts of mass entransy and its dissipation are used to develop the extremum principle of mass entransy dissipation and the corresponding method for convective mass transfer optimization, based on which an Euler's equation has been deduced as the optimization equation for the fluid flow to obtain the best convective mass transfer performance with some specific constraints. As an example, the ventilation process for removing gaseous pollutants in a space station cabin with a uniform air supply system has been optimized to reduce the energy consumption of the ventilation system and decrease the contaminant concentration in the cabin. By solving the op- timization equation, an optimal air velocity distribution with the best decontamination performance for a given viscous dissipation is firstly obtained. With the guide of this optimal velocity field, a suitable concentrated air supply system with appropriate air inlet position and width has been designed to replace the uniform air supply system, which leads to the averaged and the maximum contaminant concentrations in the cabin been decreased by 75% and 60%, respectively, and the contaminant concentration near the contaminant source surface been decreased by 50%, while the viscous dissipation been reduced by 30% simultaneously.
Conservation equations for sensible and latent entransy are established for flue gas turbulent heat transfer with condensation in a tube, and the entransy dissipation expression is deduced. The field synergy equation is obtained on the basis of the extremum entransy dissipation principle for flue gas turbulent heat transfer with condensation. The optimal velocity field is numerically obtained by solving the field synergy equation. The results show that the optimal velocity field contains multiple longitudinal vortices near the tube surface. These improve the synergy not only between the velocity and temperature fields but also between the velocity and vapor concentration fields. Therefore, the turbulent heat and mass transfers are significantly enhanced.
The concepts of entransy, entransy dissipation and transfer resistance are introduced into liquid desiccant dehumidification analysis to reveal the irreversibility and moisture transfer resistance between moist air and liquid desiccant.By analyzing a typical water (vapor) transfer process coupled with heat transfer, we define the concepts of mass entransy of water and its dissipation, derive the expression of moisture transfer resistance (MTR) that reflects the irreversibility of water transfer during dehumidification processes, and also point out the relationship between MTR and dehumidification performance. With these concepts, both adiabatic and internal cooling liquid desiccant dehumidification systems with various operation conditions are analyzed and optimized. It is found that for the adiabatic dehumidification system, increasing the mass transfer coefficient leads to the reduction of MTR, and consequently, the improvement of dehumidification performance. Meanwhile, for the dehumidification system with internal cooling, in order to reduce the MTR and improve the dehumidification performance, pre-cooling should be centralized ahead of the liquid desiccant inlet when the flow rates ratio of air to desiccant is small, whereas, uniform cooling should be applied when the flow rates ratio of air to desiccant is large.
