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Direct Injection of Liquid Nitrogen Into Water for a Cryogenic Engine

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Direct Injection of Liquid Nitrogen into Water for a Cryogenic Engine by Angela Mutumba A dissertation submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Chemical Engineering) UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS School of Chemical and Process Engineering March 2019 1 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own, except where work which has formed part of jointly authored publications has been included. The contribution of the candidate and the other authors to this work has been explicitly indicated below. The candidate confirms that appropriate credit has been given within the thesis where reference has been made to the work of others. Publications in the Thesis Chapter 3: Development of a liquid nitrogen injection rig Design and development of a liquid nitrogen injection rig, Mutumba, A., Cheeseman, K., Clarke, H. and Wen, D., 2018. Design and development of a direct injection system for cryogenic engines. Cryogenics, 91, pp.77-86. My contributions towards the publication I was the lead author of this paper and the other three authors inputted ideas and offered guidance and assisted in the editing process. A copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement © The University of Leeds and Angela Mutumba. The right of Angela Mutumba to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. I Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisors, Prof. Dongsheng Wen and Dr. Henry Clarke for their support and guidance throughout the duration of the project. I would also like to express my gratitude to the Department of Mechanical Engineering for their help in the fabrication and repair some of the components of the rig. I am grateful to Dearman Company Limited and the Leeds Scholarship Foundation for their joint funding and support for this project. I extend a special thanks to Kevin Cheeseman and Adil Karakayis who provided their expertise and knowledge to the project. I would also like to extend a special thanks to Robert Harris whom without, experiments would not have been possible and was never dull. I would like to extend my gratitude to my parents; Moses and Harriet who have support me in every way possible and without whom I would not be here today. I also extend a special thank you to my partner, Ian who has provided unconditional love and enduring support during the duration of the project. Lastly, would like to thank Miss Doreen Astles for adopting me as her own and being the lovely human being that she is. I dedicate this thesis to my grandmother who always believed in me and saw the best in me. She will forever be missed but is always in my heart cheering me on. II Abstract The cryogenic engine was developed as a non-combustion zero emission engine that converts thermal energy to work by the vaporisation of liquid nitrogen using ambient heat. Its output is dependent on the heat transfer rate between liquid nitrogen and the ambient, where the efficiencies of previous designs were operated in an indirect process and heavily reliant on the performance of air heat exchangers used. The direct injection process was recently introduced to improve the heat transfer rate by directly injecting liquid nitrogen into a warmer fluid. The large temperature difference between two fluids in contact is expected to lead to rapid vaporization of liquid nitrogen, hence improving the performance of a liquid nitrogen engine. However, the feasibility of direct injection is challenged by the lack of an adequate valve system to control the delivery of the cryogen, along with a deep understanding of the heat transfer mechanism involved. To address these challenges, a fundamental study of the direct injection of liquid nitrogen into water at ambient temperature is conducted in this thesis. A static rig is designed to allow for the control of the injection process in order to investigate the influence of the injection parameters on the pressurisation rate. The injection timing and valve movement are controlled by a hydraulic actuator, which allows for synchronized injections at the desired pressure and temperature. Over 400 injections of nitrogen at different thermodynamic conditions were conducted and maximum pressurisation rates of up to 5156 bar/s were recorded for a clearance volume of 5 ml, which is 10 times greater than those found in the literature as a result of the III increased injection pressure. Based on the pressurization curve, a two-stage boiling mechanism of liquid nitrogen is inferred that occurs inside the vessel, that is, film boiling and breakup of liquid nitrogen jet into small droplets, and subsequent boiling of liquid nitrogen droplets. To further increase our understanding of these complicated processes involved, a numerical study using CFD software Fluent is conducted to simulate the jetting and boiling of a liquid nitrogen droplet in water. A heat transfer and thermodynamic analysis is conducted and the implications of the results to the engine performance and its development are discussed. Keywords: zero emission engine, cryogen, liquid nitrogen, direct injection, boiling IV CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 ............................................................................................................... 1 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1 1.1 The cryogenic engine ................................................................................. 2 1.1.1 The concept ........................................................................................ 3 1.2 The Market ................................................................................................ 6 1.3 Aim and scope of the study ........................................................................ 8 1.3.1 Objectives ........................................................................................... 9 1.3.2 Research methodology ....................................................................... 9 1.3.3 Thesis overview ................................................................................ 10 CHAPTER 2 ............................................................................................................. 12 2 Background .................................................................................................... 12 2.1 Thermodynamic principles ....................................................................... 12 2.1.1 Practical shaft work .......................................................................... 14 2.1.2 Heat transfer and pressurisation ....................................................... 17 2.2 Indirect injection engine .......................................................................... 19 2.3 Direct injection engine ............................................................................. 23 2.4 State of Art: Direct injection of liquid nitrogen ......................................... 25 2.4.1 Experimental .................................................................................... 25 2.4.2 Computational .................................................................................. 33 2.5 Chapter summary .................................................................................... 39 CHAPTER 3 ............................................................................................................. 41 3 Development of a liquid nitrogen injection rig ............................................... 41 3.1 Challenges ............................................................................................... 41 3.2 Structure of injection test rig ................................................................... 42 3.3 Test rig equipment ................................................................................... 46 3.1.1 Buffer vessel ..................................................................................... 47 3.1.2 Pressure vessel ................................................................................. 48 3.1.3 Injector ............................................................................................. 49 3.1.4 EHVA system..................................................................................... 53 3.1.5 General Instrumentation .................................................................. 57 3.1.6 Data Acquisition System ................................................................... 58 3.4 Commissioning of the test rig .................................................................. 59 3.1.7 Valve actuation ................................................................................. 59 3.1.8 Temperature..................................................................................... 64 3.1.9 Injection pressure ............................................................................. 66 3.1.10 Vessel pressure ................................................................................. 68 3.1.11 Repeatability .................................................................................... 70 3.1.12 Test rig restrictions ........................................................................... 71 3.4.1 Injected mass .................................................................................... 72 3.5 Chapter summary ...................................................................................
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