Papers by Author: Viktor Bánhidi

Abstract: In the frame of an international cooperation a 4 year long project was executed to determine thermal conductivity in metallic melts. During the project, the University of Miskolc designed and developed unique apparatus which was capable to perform measurements under microgravity conditions. The experiments were carried out at the Drop Tower „Bremen” where the conditions of reduced gravity could be provided for 4.7 s and a gravity level of 10-5g was achieved. The registered temperature distribution data of the examined melts always show a clear difference between the experiments measured in the normal and in the low gravity environment. During the evaluation of the datasets it was proven, that the well known canonical evaluations could not be used with high reliability for all the measurements, for all the materials and for all the geometry used. Besides of the understanding of the underlying physics and evaluating the measured data, the Crank-Nicolson method and error function analysis were used at the beginning, some numerical analyses were also initiated to simulate the system in FEM (Marc). The results showed acceptable results, but also pointed out a need for further study, so a detailed numerical analysis on a specialized FVM (Fluent) system was started. The code used for the numerical simulation (Fluent) was able to handle the heat conductivity, the liquid flow, the complex material parameters changes and the used geometries as well. With this technique, from the data of the drop experiments, the pure - free from the effect of the liquid flow - thermal conductivity could be separated. The results show that after these simulations, using different conditions (temperature, gravity level, etc.) for one material the same thermal conductivity value could be determined, within acceptable tolerance.

Abstract: Microgravity experiments were executed to measure the convection free, pure heat conductivity and heat diffusivity parameters in molten metals. The application of well known numerical methods to evaluate the data collected under low gravity conditions was only partially successful. None of the methods (Crank-Nicolson, error function fitting or simple FEM model) could be used over the whole measured temperature range. The purpose of this work was to alleviate the previously experienced problems by using a commercially available finite value method package on high performance computers, to simulate the coupled thermal and fluid mechanical model in order to accurately determine the heat transport properties of Ga, Sn-Bi, Sn and Zn melts, and by incorporating device geometry data, compare the results to the values gathered from short time microgravity experiments.

Abstract: The use of technologically byproduct agricultural wastes in various segments of the brick and tile industry is increasing continuously. The additives, mixed into the raw clay ignite during the firing process, adding extra thermal energy from inside the mixture decreasing the energy requirements of the manufacturing process. Added to this, through the combustion of the bio-wastes the porosity increases enhancing the thermal insulation properties of the final product. We have investigated some common, agricultural wastes to determine their effect on the thermal properties of bricks. In our experiments industry relevant amounts of additives (sawdust, rice-peel, seed-shell) were added to the basic clay composition. We have prepared mixtures with additive concentrations of 0, 4, 7 percentage by weight. The preparations of the samples were (milling, drying and firing) following industrial standard procedures. Precise thermal conductivity data were gathered from all samples using a RAPID-K type static thermal conductivity measuring instrument. Our measurements show that by increasing the amount of the organic byproducts in the clay mixture it is possible to significantly decrease their thermal conductivity, leading to an improved insulation capability of commercial brick products. On the other hand, there was only a minor reduction in the mechanical strength found during previous works. The investigated agricultural byproducts were also ranked based on their effect on the product's thermal properties. It was found that the largest decrease to the thermal conductivity was caused by the sunflower seed-shell additive. Mixing 7 % wt. seed shell to the clay, we can decrease the thermal conductivity of the fired product from 0,27 W/m·K to 0,17 W/m·K (36%). We have found that under the same conditions the sawdust caused the least improvement, only a decrease of 0,27 W/m·K to 0,23 W/m·K (16%) was measured.