Heat and Mass Transfer Research Center

Research Fields

Along the principle line of super heat transfer and advanced measurement technology, the Center focused on new types of high performance compact heat exchange equipment, advanced non-contact measurement technologies, novel thermal functional materials, research and development about Supercritical CO₂ Turbine Power Generation, the basic theory and key technology of high intensity heat transfer, and research and application of microgrooves combined phase-change thermal management and energy saving technology.

Team Building

There are 32 research staffs, including 3 professors (one “Thousand Youth Talents Program”), 3 project researchers, 11 associate professors/senior engineers, and 7 post-doctor fellows. In addition, there are 27 graduate students.

Projects and Major Achievements

In the aspect of high efficiency compact heat exchanger, the "comprehensive test platform of double circuit full temperature and full pressure supercritical carbon dioxide (SCO₂) heat exchanger" has been improved, and a number of experimental prototypes have been tested and operated continuously for a long time. The performance test of the new fin heat exchanger is completed, and the comprehensive performance is the best. Complete the design and manufacture of 300kW gas turbine regenerator, as well as the installation of gas turbine and on-line commissioning of cold side and hot side, meet the index requirements of key deployment projects of the Institute, have the acceptance conditions, and wait for acceptance.

In the aspect of thermochemical energy storage technology, a series of highquality and stable thermochemical energy storage materials, such as calcium based hollow nanorods suitable for high-temperature heat storage, magnesium based composite materials suitable for medium temperature heat storage, water and salt composite materials suitable for low-temperature heat storage, and aluminum phosphate molecular sieve, have been developed; a 10kW open valley electric energy storage system has been designed System experimental platform.

In the aspect of electronic information thermal management, we have developed a series of advanced and efficient thermal interface materials with thermal conductivity ≥ 30 W/mK, and achieved industrial mass production. We have developed a series of superconducting soaking plates with an ultimate transmission power of 850W and a superconducting loop heat pipe with an ultimate transmission power of 500W.

In the aspect of advanced non-contact measurement, a multi blade complex radiation environment simulation test-bed is established, with the maximum heating temperature of 1300 ℃; the probe of optical fiber colorimetric temperature measurement system is improved, and the test results show that the technical indicators meet the requirements of the task specification. The multipurpose self-tuning multi spectral temperature measurement technology is proposed, which is supported by the instrument development project of the Institute. In the supercritical CO₂ Brayton cycle power generation technology, the processing and performance test of the improved two-stage centrifugal compressor have been completed, and the of axial force and sealing problems have been solved. The maximum pressure ratio reaches 2.26, the outlet pressure is 17MPa, and the stable operation lasts more than 50 hours, which meets the engineering application conditions. The processing and assembly of two-stage centrifugal expander has been completed, the configuration of DSC and the development of software and hardware of control system for MWe demonstration unit have been completed, and the construction scheme of MWe demonstration unit has been designed, checked and evaluated, and construction is under way. The design of 3MWe and 10MWe level units has been completed and the 50MWe unit has been pre-studied.

For enhanced heat transfer basic theory and key technology, the demonstration project about 100MW-scale concentrated photovoltaic cold-thermal power supply was built in Hengshui. The preliminary result shows that generating efficiency is 26% and the total energy use ratio is 75%. The heat recovery project based on heat pipe array technology was completed. An intelligent control system was independently developed and designed, which can realize the multi-parameter precise control. A composite thermal protection system which was anti-insulation and thermal leading was applied to the edge of hypersonic aircraft. It initially verified the active thermal protection performance, and realized the protection of thermal loads above 2300K, 3kW, and 80W/cm². The ability reached to the international advanced level. In the field of enhanced heat transfer mechanism of open capillary micronamo grooves, the continuously well-aligned carbon nanomaterials and graphene oxide coated surfaces were developed using self-assembly methods. Furthermore, we studied the effects of nanofluid, Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) and Ferohydrodynamic (FHD) on wicking and heat transfer enhancement mechanism of the microgrooves heat sink.

In the LED lighting field, a project titled "Research on key technology of high-efficiency and high-reliability LED lamps" supported by the National Key R & D Projects goes well and has reached series of the key and advanced technologies. The research of light and heat integration for combined substrate with low expansion coefficient and high thermal conductivity and microgrooves heat sink was carried out, and the thermal resistance from the substrate to the cooler fin was significantly reduced to 0.006 ℃/W. The weight of 1000W microgrooves cooler was reduced to 7.6 kg and reaches the final target of the project. Besides, 16 applications of LED lamps have been demonstrated, and the cumulative economic benefit reaches over 830 million.

In the aspect of thermal management of high-power electronic and optoelectronic chips: An integrated thermal management system for highperformance server chips of 10kW Supercomputing Center has been developed. With a power consumption of 250W for a single chip , the chip temperature is less than 70 ℃ and the power usage effectiveness (PUE) is less than 1.07.

Technology Transfer

Over 20 projects commissioned by the enterprises were taken underway and the total contract funds are over CNY 30,000,000.

Patents and Paper

In 2020, 41 technical papers were published, among which 29 were indexed by SCI and 12 by EI. 23 patents were applied and 19 patents were authorized.

Awards

Second award of heat transfer annual symposium excellent articles were won this year.

International Cooperation and Exchanges

One researchers went to the United States to attend the Applied Energy A + B Symposium in MIT 2019.

Four researchers went to United Kingdom to attend the 16th UK Heat Transfer Conference.

The scientists from UQ &ASTRI were invited to have a two-day academic communication about supercritical SCO₂ Brayton cycle generation technology.