Numerical investigation on fluid-thermal-electric performance of a thermoelectric-integrated helically coiled tube heat exchanger for coal mine air cooling
Mine cooling and refrigeration system to deal with the heat hazard is well developed, but the mine air cooler which serves as the most important terminal equipment is relatively backward. The severe heat hazard and urgent cooling demand in deep underground mines necessitate further improvement of co...
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
De Gruyter
2025-02-01
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| Series: | Open Physics |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1515/phys-2025-0123 |
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| Summary: | Mine cooling and refrigeration system to deal with the heat hazard is well developed, but the mine air cooler which serves as the most important terminal equipment is relatively backward. The severe heat hazard and urgent cooling demand in deep underground mines necessitate further improvement of cooling capacity and effectiveness under strict requirements such as being compact, portable, nontoxic, and no-pollution. The thermoelectric (TE) energy conversion technology has great potential in cooling and miniaturization applications, which can meet the strict requirements of the underground mine cooling devices. Yet, a research gap exists in integrating TE energy conversion technology with the traditional air-cooling heat exchanger to the best of our knowledge. In this work, a hybrid utilization of TE and the helically coiled tube heat exchanger (HCEX) is proposed for air cooling at the working face of underground mine. The advantage of the TE-integrated HCEX lies in the combination of the heat transfer enhancement effect by secondary flow induced inside the helically coiled tube and the solid-state Peltier cooling effect by the TE module positioned on the external shell wall of the heat exchanger, which can potentially improve the air-cooling capacity without occupying large space. A numerical simulation of the fluid-thermal-electric multiphysics field is performed to investigate the cooling rate and the effectiveness of the TE-integrated HCEX. Results show that additional cooling power can be effectively provided by TE. As the filling ratio (FR) of TE module on the external shell wall increases from 50 to 100%, the air-cooling capacity continuously increases, performing better than that of the conventional HCEX. The effect of air inlet temperature and inlet velocity on the cooling performance is investigated for the best design of the TE-integrated HCEX with FR of 100%. When the inlet temperature of air increases from 303.15 to 313.15 K under constant inlet velocity, the cooling rate increases and cooling effectiveness decreases. Also, the cooling rate increases and the cooling effectiveness decreases when the inlet velocity of air increases from 10 to 25 m s−1 under constant inlet temperature. Within the simulated range of air inlet conditions in this work, the maximum total cooling rate Q
c,total at optimal current of 6 A for the TE-integrated HCEX results in an enhancement of 49.8 to 35.0% compared to the conventional HCEX. The maximum cooling effectiveness at optimal current of 6 A is 21.73–26.49% for the TE-integrated HCEX, which is higher than the effectiveness of the conventional HCEX of 15.74–18.24%. |
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| ISSN: | 2391-5471 |