Abraham Kogan

e-mail: luisa.einav@weizmann.ac.il

The Tornado Flow Configuration An Effective Method for Screening of a Solar Reactor Window
The working uid in solar receivers, utilized for effecting chemical reactions, is usually own through a sealed enclosure provided with a quartz window. When one of the reactants or products of reaction is a powder, care must be taken to prevent contact of the incandescent powder particles with the window, in order to obviate its destruction by overheating. Attempts made in the past to screen the window against particle deposition by a curtain of an auxiliary gas stream showed that very substantial ow rates of auxiliary gas (3080% of the main stream ow rate) were necessary for perfect window screening. The heat absorbed by the auxiliary gas stream represented a major loss of energy. In an effort to reduce the auxiliary stream ow rate to a minimum, a certain ow pattern akin to the natural tornado phenomenon has recently been developed in our laboratory. It enabled effective reactor window screening by an auxiliary gas ow rate less than 5% of the main gas ow rate. The tornado effect is discussed and demonstrated by a smoke ow visualization technique. DOI: 10.1115/1.1487882

Meir Kogan
Solar Research Facilities Unit, Weizmann Institute of Science, P.O. Box 26, Rehovot 76100, Israel

Introduction

In many volumetric solar receivers used for effecting chemical reactions, the working uid must be contained within a sealed enclosure provided with a window transparent to incident solar radiation. This situation arises whenever the reactor is designed to operate at a pressure different from atmospheric pressure. Moreover, even with solar reactors operating at atmospheric pressure, the reactor enclosure must be sealed by a transparent window whenever it is necessary to prevent air from interfering with the chemical process or to prevent hazardous chemicals from escaping into the atmosphere. In some reactions that make use of solar energy, the reactants or the products of reaction contain a solid phase component in the form of a powder suspension. The irradiated powder particles can be incandescent. If allowed to come into direct contact with the transparent quartz window, they could blend with it, forming hot spots at its surface. To prevent the destruction of the window by local overheating, it is necessary to prevent the solid particles from contacting the window surface. The use of a curtain of an auxiliary gas ow in the vicinity of the inner surface of the reactor window has been suggested in the past as a means for screening the window against contact with the main uid ow inside the reactor. Two typical designs based on this notion will be mentioned here by way of illustration. Litterst 1 performed experimental work with a circulating uidized bed equipped with a transparent window for admission of concentrated solar radiation. To protect the window from contact with hot powder particles, the window was removed from the main stream in the uidized bed by mounting it on a T-branch of the uidized bed column, and compressed air was injected through radially positioned tubes near the inner surface of the window. It was estimated that input of screening air necessary for adequate protection of the window should be 3050% of the main stream. More recently, Steinfeld et al. 2 developed a solar reactor in which ZnO reacts with natural gas, producing Zn and synthetic gas. It consists of an insulated cylindrical cavity that contains a circular, windowed, aperture to let in concentrated solar energy.
Contributed by the Solar Energy Division of the THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS for publication in the ASME JOURNAL OF SOLAR ENERGY ENGINEERING. Manuscript received by the ASME Solar Energy Division October 2000; nal revision, October 2001. Associate Editor: R. Hogan.

Particles of ZnO, conveyed in a ow of natural gas, are continuously injected into the reactor cavity via a tangential inlet port located at the back of the cavity. Inside the reactors cavity, the gas particle stream forms a vortex ow that progresses towards the front following a helical path. The chemical products, Zn vapor and syngas, continuously exit the cavity via a tangential outlet port located at the front of the cavity, behind the aperture. In front of the 6-cm aperture, the cavity receiver was equipped with a diverging conical aluminum funnel, so that the window could be mounted 7 cm in front of the focal plane, where radiation intensity is about 10 times smaller and dust deposition is unlikely to occur. The window is actively cooled and kept clear of particles by

Fig. 1 Reactor model M1; ow visualization test

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means of an auxiliary ow of gas, which is injected tangentially and radially at the window and aperture planes, respectively. Using computational uid dynamics to calculate particle trajectories for different geometries and ow boundary conditions, optimization was accomplished for minimizing the auxiliary ow

while keeping the window clear of particles. In the optimized result, the auxiliary gas ow rate amounted to 83% of the main gas ow rate.

2 Summary of Preliminary Work at the Weizmann Institute of Science

A preliminary reactor model M1 was tested at the Solar Research Facilities Unit of the Weizmann Institute of Science. It consists of a cylindrical Pyrex vessel divided by an annular partition into a reaction zone and a narrow buffer zone near the top of the vessel Fig. 1 . A main stream of gas ows into the reaction zone, while an auxiliary gas stream is directed into the buffer zone. The auxiliary stream discharges from the buffer zone through the annular partition into the reaction zone, where it mixes with the main stream. The gas mixture leaves the reactor through a port at the bottom of the reactor. A series of ow visualization tests was performed with reactor M1. One of the two gas streams was made visible by charging it with a heavy smoke, while the other gas stream was left in its natural transparent condition. In all the ow visualization tests performed with reactor M1, the main gas stream entered into the cylindrical reaction zone tangentially, generating in it a whirling gas ow. In some of the tests, the auxiliary stream was introduced into the buffer zone also tangentially, in order to induce a whirling motion concurrent with the motion of the main stream and to facilitate their smooth merging. In other tests, the auxiliary stream entered the buffer zone radially. These tests demonstrated that it is possible to completely eliminate the main gas from the buffer zone by using an auxiliary gas stream, owing at a rate of about 30% of the main gas ow rate. Surprisingly, the introduction of the auxiliary stream radially into the buffer zone gave somewhat better results than those ob-

Fig. 2 Reactor model M2b-CPC assembly

Fig. 3 Impeller-like disk

Fig. 4 Reactor model M2a

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tained in tests with a whirling auxiliary ow. This unexpected result became clear only during our recent work, as it will be explained below.

Design of Reactor Model M2

Following the preliminary ow visualization tests performed with reactor model M1, we proceeded with the design of reactor model M2, which was intended to address simultaneously a number of separate technical issues and to solve them in a coherent way: The piping for admission of the main stream methane and of the auxiliary gas stream should be designed in a compact way, in order to avoid obstacles in the path of propagation of the concentrated radiation that fans out from the Compound Parabolic Concentrator CPC , through the quartz window, into the reactor chamber. For the same reason, the quartz window must be installed in the immediate vicinity of the CPC. It should be clamped and sealed between the CPC structure and the reactor metal casing. The quartz window should be cooled in order to remove heat of absorption. The main gas stream should be introduced preferably into the reaction chamber in a direction away from the window, in

Fig. 5 M2b ow pattern; smoke-charged radial auxiliary ow 2 LM

Fig. 6 Planar laser beam optical conguration

Fig. 7 Flow pattern of Fig. 5 visualized by laser cross-section illumination; smoke-charged radial auxiliary ow 2 LM

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order to cooperate with the auxiliary stream in the task of preventing direct contact between solid particles and the window. The radiation emerging out of the CPC diverges through a very wide angle. This dictates a thin, poor insulation ceiling to the reactor. Introducing the main methane ow through the ceiling should help in recycling heat from the ceiling back to the reactor chamber. These goals were met by replacing the discrete entry tubes, which were used in reactor M1 for introduction of the main and auxiliary streams into the reactor, by two narrow annular passages Fig. 2 . The annular passage dened by spacers placed between the top ange and a second metal ange enables the introduction of the auxiliary stream into the reactor cavity in the form of a planar thin lm of gas adjacent to the inner surface of the window. This stream ows radially from the periphery to the axis of symmetry. A second annular passage, dened by spacers between the second metal ange and the top-end ceramic annular structure, serves for the delivery of the main gas stream into the reactor cavity in the shape of a hollow conic lm, which ows in directions away from the window. With this design, we achieve an unobstructed passage for concentrated solar radiation from the CPCthrough the quartz windowinto the reactor cavity. The annular partition used in reactor M1 for the denition of a buffer zone does not appear in

the reactor M2 design. The two gas streams are delivered to the reactor cavity in the form of continuous thin lms. Moreover, in the reactor M2 design, the quartz window and the metal anges are cooled effectively by the two high-velocity gas streams. To enable generation of a whirling main gas stream inside the reactor cavity, an impeller-like disk Fig. 3 was inserted into a circular groove cut in the top-end ceramic structure. The main gas stream owing through the annular passage into the reactor cavity is deected by the slant channels of the impeller-like disk, thus acquiring an angular momentum.

4 Flow Visualization Test Series with Reactor Model M2: The Tornado Effect
Different versions of reactor M2 were built around a common cylindrical metal casing. The only practical way to scrutinize the ow inside the reactor cavity appeared to be by charging one of the two gas streams with smoke, by illuminating the cavity and by observing it through the quartz window. Figure 4 is a cross section of reactor model M2a, with the CPC replaced by a ange for ease of visual observation. Flow patterns inside reactor M2a, obtained by introducing radially a smoke-charged auxiliary gas stream into the reactor cavity at a rate of 2 L/M are illustrated in Fig. 5. No main gas stream was admitted to the reactor in the test shown in Fig. 5a. It is observed that the auxiliary ow progresses adjacent to the reactor window for some distance, but it detaches from the window surface before reaching the window center. During the test shown in Fig. 5b, a main gas stream of 10 L/M was also introduced radially into the reactor cavity. In this case, the annular area of the window, which is swept by the auxiliary stream, is smaller than the corresponding area in Fig. 5a, since the auxiliary stream is sucked away from the window by the main gas stream. While it is possible to get from these pictures some general impression about the ow characteristics, there is no way to determine from them what is the thickness distribution of the auxiliary ow layer, nor can we ascertain from them whether the main gas stream achieved direct contact with the window. The following optical arrangement was used in order to enable visual inspection of a cross section of the ow inside the reactor Fig. 6 . A laser beam directed towards the reactor window is diffracted by passage through a transverse cylindrical glass rod. The laser radiation emerges from the glass cylinder as a planar sheet of light that illuminates a cross section of ow inside the reactor cavity. Figure 7 is a visualization of the ow patterns of Fig. 5, obtained by the method of laser cross-section illumination. Many ow details that could not be discerned in Fig. 5 are visible in Fig. 7. We found out soon that this simple illumination technique can be a powerful tool in the investigation of complex ow congurations. The ow conguration visualized in Fig. 8 was also generated by introducing a main stream of 10 L/M and an auxiliary smokecharged stream of 2 L/M into the reactor cavity. The auxiliary stream entered the cavity radially, as in the case of Fig. 5. The main stream, however, was introduced into the cavity tangentially. The gas exits the reactor cavity through a port at the end of the cavity opposite the window, centered on the reactor axis of symmetry, as in the case depicted in Fig. 5. Under these boundary conditions, the main gas stream approximates a free vortex ow. Neglecting compressibility effects, the tangential velocity u and the pressure p in a free vortex ow are given by: u and c1 r (1)

Fig. 8 M2b ow pattern; smoke-charged radial auxiliary ow 2 LM; tangential main ow 10 LM

p0 p

c2 r2

(2)

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Fig. 9 M2a ow pattern; smoke-charged radial auxiliary ow 1 LM; illumination by planar laser beam

Fig. 10 Tornado at Manhattan, Kansas, USA, May 31, 1949

respectively, where r is the radial distance and p 0 is the limiting pressure, corresponding to r . Thus, the whirling motion of the main gas stream produces a radial pressure variation in the reactor cavity, the pressure being highest on the periphery and lowest at the reactor axis of symmetry and the pressure gradient increasing steeply towards the axis of symmetry. The auxiliary stream does not participate in the whirling motion of the main stream, since it is introduced into the reactor cavity in an essentially radial direction and because it is owing as a thin layer in direct contact with the non-rotating window. Yet, the strong negative radial pressure gradient produced by the whirling motion of the main stream is imposed on the boundary layer ow of the non-rotating auxiliary stream, a fact well known in uid mechanics 3 . In the absence of a centrifugal force to balance the pressure gradient, the auxiliary stream is accelerated vigorously towards the center of the window, owing as a thin boundary layer on the surface of the window. It must be emphasized that by extracting the outowing stream from the reactor cavity through the central port, the axis of the whirling motion inside the cavity is determined and it coincides with the axis of symmetry of the reactor. This is an example of the strong tendency towards two-dimensionality, which is observed in the ow of contained rotating uids 4 . The nature of the ow conguration generated by a main gas stream entering the reactor cavity tangentially and an auxiliary gas stream owing into it radially, in close proximity to the window surface, differs basically from the ow conguration obtained by introducing both the main and auxiliary streams radially into the reactor cavity. In the last case, the auxiliary stream can succeed to displace the main stream from the vicinity of the window only by sheer brute force, when its ow rate is comparable in size to the main gas ow rate. In the former case, by contrast, an increase in ow rate of the main whirling stream enhances the ow stability Transactions of the ASME

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of the auxiliary stream in the form of a boundary layer attached to the window surface. The window screening capacity of the auxiliary stream does not diminish when the main stream ow rate goes up. It continues to ow radially on the surface of the window all the way to its center. There it turns abruptly by 90 deg and proceeds as a tubular ow along the axis of symmetry towards the exit port. The above-described behavior of the whirling main ow and radial boundary layer auxiliary ow conguration was demonstrated in the test series illustrated in Fig. 9, during which the radial auxiliary stream was maintained constant, at a ow rate of 1 L/M, while the main whirling stream ow rate was increased gradually from 3 L/M to 20 L/M. In the case of a main stream ow rate of 3 L/M Fig. 9a , the smoke-charged auxiliary stream becomes detached from the window surface almost immediately upon its entry into the reactor cavity. Nevertheless, it seems to perform as a window screen by displacing the relatively weak main stream by the bulky volume it occupies. By increasing the main stream ow rate to 5 L/M, its stabilizing boundary layer inuence upon the auxiliary stream becomes fully effective Fig. 9b . This inuence becomes increasingly pronounced, up to the maximum main stream ow rate attained in this test series20 L/M Fig. 9d . It is observed that even in the extreme case illustrated in Fig. 9d, in which the rate of ow of the auxiliary stream equals barely 5% of the main stream ow rate, the auxiliary stream provides an effective gas dynamic window screen by adhering to the window surface over its whole extent as a fast sweeping thin boundary layer. A patent application has been led with respect to the described process. The interaction of a bulk whirling gas motion and a radial boundary layer ow described above occurs in nature in a tornado. The free vortex-like whirling motion of a tornado generated at high altitude is propagated down to the earth surface. The

strong whirling motion is arrested by friction within a boundary layer adjacent to the ground. In the absence of a centrifugal force in the ground boundary layer, the air in it is accelerated towards the tornado core by the pressure gradient induced in the boundary layer from the main tornado ow above ground. Soil and debris or water, in the case of a tornado over the ocean are swept by the violent wind in the boundary layer towards the tornado axis Fig. 10 . The physical circumstances that govern the tornado and the whirling ow generated in our laboratory are quite similar. Yet, these two phenomena differ in a number of respects: Compared to the laboratory experiment, the tornado is an event of a huge scale. North American tornadoes average 275375 m in width. Their funnels may extend down from as high as 7600 m. The wind speed in the vortex has never been measured, but judging from the effects and from theoretical considerations, it is of the order of 160635 km/h 5 . Tornadoes are transient phenomena, sometimes lasting for about 20 min. By contrast, the whirling motion described above can be maintained in the laboratory under steady or quasi-steady conditions indenitely. Tornadoes occur in the atmosphere uncontained by rigid boundaries, except for the ground or the ocean surface. The laboratory tornado is a contained gas ow phenomenon, occurring under axially symmetric boundary conditions. A rigorous mathematical treatment of the problem of a viscous uid rotating around an axis perpendicular to an impervious stationary boundary may be found in Ref. 4 . The important dimensionless parameter by which such ows are characterized is the Ekman number E L2 (3)

Fig. 11 Reactor model M2c

Fig. 12 Reactor model M2d

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It is a gross measure of how the typical viscous force compares to the centrifugal force and it is, in essence, the inverse of Reynolds number for the rotating ow. A very small value of E implies the existence of an Ekman boundary layer of thickness E 1/2 L. In our application, with typical values 72 rad/sec, L 6 cm, 0.14 cm2 /sec, the value of E is 5.4 10 5 and the expected boundary layer thickness at the reactor window is 0.044 cm. During operation of a solar reactor under real conditions, at temperatures around 1500C, strong destabilizing gas dynamic effects can be expected in connection with buoyancy due to inhomogeneous heating of gas inside the reactor cavity. Therefore, it is interesting to explore to what extent do the dimensions of the reactor cavity inuence stability of the contained tornado conguration. All the experiments described above were performed with reactor M2a. Its small cavity has a cone-shaped frustum of the following dimensions: D 1 80 mm, D 2 10 mm, L 100 mm Fig. 4 . A well-developed tornado ow conguration was obtained for an auxiliary gas ow rate of 2 L/M and a main gas ow rate

greater than 10 L/M. The tornado funnel extended from the exit port to the center of the window, within 1 mm. Smoke ow visualization tests were also performed with the enlarged cavity reactor model M2b Fig. 2 . The maximum cavity cross-section diameter in this reactor model is 150 mm, and the distance from the exit port to the window is 160 mm. A fully developed stable tornado ow was obtained for an auxiliary gas ow rate of 2 L/M and a main gas ow rate greater than 14 L/M. A reactor model with a very large cavity was then prepared by removing all the internal parts from the M2 model casing. The resulting conguration Fig. 11 has a cavity diameter of 250 mm and the distance from exit port to window is 380 mm. For an auxiliary gas ow rate of 2 L/M and a main gas ow rate exceeding 10 L/M, a tornado funnel with one end anchored at the exit port and the second end reaching up to the window plane was obtained even with this extreme conguration. However, the funnel end was not stationary. It was rather meandering on and around the window surface, while the auxiliary ow covered the window completely. The tornado funnel can be stabilized in a large size reactor cavity by the use of a tube segment that protrudes into the reactor cavity through the exit port, thus bringing the actual exit section

Fig. 13 M2d ow pattern; smoke-charged radial auxiliary ow 2 LM

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closer to the window. Tests performed with reactor model M2d Fig. 12 , in which the distance d from the window to the exit section was 45 mm, yielded very stable ow patterns Fig. 13 . However, for smaller values of d, there appeared some signs of distortion of the otherwise smooth boundary layer ow at the window surface. Finally, reactor model M2e Fig. 14 was built and tested. In model M2e, the central axial ow exit port is replaced by a series of slant holes on the periphery of the reactor cavity, near its end opposite the window. Here, the main gas stream enters the reactor cavity tangentially and the gas mixture leaves the reactor also tangentially, like in the reactor described in Ref. 2 . The swirling ow inside the reactor cavity can be approximated in this case by a solid body rotating ow, with: u c 3r and p c 4r 2 c 5 (5) (4)

effectively the window material, due to the high heat transfer coefcient of the rapid boundary layer ow. On the other hand, since the auxiliary stream does not detach from the window surface and does not mix appreciably with the main stream, it does not remove much process heat from the reacting gas. Many tests have been performed with ve reactor models that encompass a wide variety of boundary conditions. The three conditions that are required for the generation of a tornado windscreen have been demonstrated by experiment:

The pressure gradient decreases then towards the axis of symmetry, where it becomes zero. The patterns obtained during a ow visualization test series with reactor model M2e are illustrated in Fig. 15. An auxiliary smoke-charged gas stream of 2 L/M entered radially into the reactor cavity. The tangential main gas ow rate was increased in these tests from 3 L/M to 15 L/M. In all cases, the auxiliary stream detached from the window surface immediately upon entry into the reactor cavity.

Conclusions

The whirling ow system described above appears to be an ideal solution for the window-screening job. It is a very efcient method, requiring an auxiliary gas ow rate of less than 5% of the main gas ow rate. Its effectiveness is not limited to small size windows. The auxiliary gas sweeps the window surface as a thin and very fast lm that covers the surface completely. It also cools

Fig. 14 Reactor model M2e

Fig. 15 M2e ow pattern; smoke-charged radial auxiliary ow 2LM

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 The main gas stream must be introduced tangentially into the reactor cavity. The products of reaction should be extracted from the reactor cavity in the axial direction, preferably through a narrow exit port along the axis of symmetry of the reactor. The auxiliary gas stream should be introduced essentially radially into the reactor cavity and adjacent to the window.

d E L p p0 r

distance from window to exit port Fig. 12 Ekman number a characteristic length pressure stagnation pressure radial distance kinematic viscosity angular velocity

Acknowledgment
The authors are grateful to the Heineman Foundation for Research, Educational, Charitable and Scientic Purposes, Rochester, NY, USA, which generously supported this work. Thanks are expressed to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Library for permission to reproduce the tornado picture in Fig. 10, obtained from the NOAA Photo Collection at the Website.

References
1 Litterst, T., 1992, Investigation of Window Damage by Hot Particles in Solar Heated Circulating Fluidized Beds, Proc. of 6th International Symposium on Solar Thermal Concentrating Technologies, CIEMAT, Mojacar, Spain, 1, pp. 359369. 2 Steinfeld, A., Brack, M., Meier, A., Weidenkaff, A., and Wuillemin, D., 1998, A Solar Chemical Reactor for Co-production of Zinc and Synthesis Gas, Energy Oxford , 23, pp. 803 814. 3 Batchelor, G. C., 1967, Introduction to Fluid Flow Mechanics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 315. 4 Greenspan, H. P., 1968, Theory of Rotating Fluids, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 3. 5 Encyclopdia Britannica, 1968, 14th Edition, Vol. 22, pp. 88 89.

Nomenclature
CPC c 1 , . . . ,c 5 Compound Parabolic Concentrator constants

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