Abstract
Heat regenerator occupied by regenerative materials improves thermal efficiency of combustion system through the recovery of sensible heat of exhaust gases. By using one-dimensional two-phase fluid dynamics model, the unsteady thermal flow of regenerator with spherical particles, was numerically analyzed to evaluate the heat transfer and pressure losses and to derive the design parameter for heat regenerator. It is confirmed that the computational results, such as air preheat temperature, exhausted gases outlet temperature, and pressure losses, agreed well with the experimental data. The thermal flow in heat regenerator varies with porosity, configuration of regenerator and diameter of regenerative particle. As the gas velocity increases with decreasing the cross-sectional area of the regenerator, the heat transfer between gas and particle enhances and pressure losses decrease. As particle diameter decreases, the air is preheated higher and the exhaust gases are cooled lower with the increase of pressure losses. Assuming a given exhaust gases temperature at the regenerator outlet, the regenerator need to be linearly lengthened with inlet Reynolds number of exhaust gases, which is defined as a regenerator design parameter.
