High peak, perishable energy recovery – foundation phase –

Martinez Zavala, Haydee 2022. High peak, perishable energy recovery – foundation phase –. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

Climate change negatively affects the natural environment, human society, and the worldwide economy. The primary reasons for climate change are unsustainable energy consumption and greenhouse gases emissions due to fossil fuels being the major energy resource over the past centuries. Because of the fossil fuels’ finite nature and role in the greenhouse effect and global warming, research into renewable and sustainable energy alternatives has significantly grown, becoming a topic of interest to the scientific community in recent decades. However, the contribution of renewable resources has only moderately increased each year due to increasing global energy demand and ongoing consumption as well as investment in new fossil fuels. Therefore, futuristic alternative high energy sources, such as gales, hurricanes, floods and other highly energetic meteorological phenomena, could be added to the pool of resources to support the reduction of fossil fuel consumption. The High Peak, Perishable Energies – Foundation Phase (HPPE-FP) project aims to create the fundamentals for developing new technologies for HPPE recovery. The results will support further research to enhance thermal and energy production processes, in addition to the development of industrial systems capable of decarbonising the electrical grid. One of the fundamental concepts of the HPPE-FP is the enhancement of condensation heat transfer. For this reason, the present doctoral research explores an alternative passive mechanism for surface topographical modification via fabricating microstructured surfaces in order to enhance heat transfer. This doctoral investigation is divided into four stages. The first three stages focus on designing, fabricating, and testing hydrophobic and hydrophilic microstructures/textures produced via wire electro discharge machining and laser micromachining. Stage four, based on the performance of the microstructured surfaces in the first three stages in terms of boundary layer control and thermal properties of the structured surfaces, involves designing, manufacturing, and testing novel biphilic(composed of hydrophobic and hydrophilic characteristics) microstructured surfaces to enhance condensation heat transfer for energy recovery purposes. As a result, hydrophobic, hydrophilic and biphilic wetting states were obtained by manufacturing different micro-geometries on the surface topography without the need for chemical treatments. An experimental apparatus for the condensation heat transfer evaluation was successfully designed and built. The results indicate that hydrophobic, hydrophilic and biphilic microstructured surfaces achieve up to 17.45% boundary layer thickness reduction and up to 27% drag force reduction. Regarding the thermal evaluation, hydrophobic and hydrophilic microstructured surfaces exhibit up to 30.91% enhancement, while the novel biphilic textured surfaces exhibit a considerable increase in the overall heat transfer by 56.8-62.6%, when compared to untextured surfaces.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Engineering
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Microstructured surfaces , Heat transfer , Condensation , Wettability , Micro-processing , Energy
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	24 October 2022
Last Modified:	06 Jan 2024 04:37
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/153669

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