EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF TREE NETWORKS FOR MINIMAL PUMPING POWER
Price
Free (open access)
Volume
Volume 3 (2008), Issue 2
Pages
14
Page Range
135 - 149
Paper DOI
10.2495/D&NE-V3-N2-135-149
Copyright
WIT Press
Author(s)
M.S. SAYEED, I.A. AHMED, A.A. SYED, P.H. RAJU & M.S. SALMAN
Abstract
This paper presents an experimental study of constructal tree shaped networks, to optimize the fluid networks based on minimization of pumping power. We take a fresh look at the generation of architectures for fluid flow and instead of minimizing the global flow resistance we focus on minimization of pumping power. Nonsymmetric (9 outlets) and dendritic (24 outlets) architectures were investigated for both laminar and turbulent flow regimes. A significant reduction in pumping power and volume is observed, compared to conventional flow. These results emphasize the robustness of tree networks for fluid flow.
Keywords
constructal design, Gilbert–Steiner points, pumping power, tree networks