Investigations on heat-transfer in a rotating heat-pump

Background

Heat Pump Systems enable the use of waste heat by using small amounts of electricity and thus efficiently substitute the use of primary energy such as coal and gas, therefore, they are particularly relevant for the manufacturing industry. In the research project CONAN Rotating Heat Pumps are under investigation, which use only rotational energy for the compression of GWP-neutral noble gases.

The following master thesis should help solve these issues and improve the planning processes. Thesis should leverage existing know-how, models and accomplishments from the field of deep learning scene segmentation and object recognition.

Thesis objectives

In the course of the diploma thesis, the following objectives are planned:

1. Conduction of a thorough literature research on the topic of heat transfer in rotating systems.
2. Identification and selection of the most appropriate heat transfer models for the application under the guidance of the CONAN team
3. Conduction and analysis of numerical simulations (including Mesh generation) in Ansys (CFX or Fluent) based on existing models.
4. Study on the impact of specific parameters on various useful influencing variables (for e.g., speed, channel shape, etc.)
5. Evaluation ofthe results obtained and preparation for use in scientific publications.

Thesis learnings

The student will gain knowledge in following areas under the guidance of the CONAN team
- Fluid Dynamics and Heat transfer in rotating systems
- application and adaption of a commercial CFD Navier Stokes Suite (ANSYS Fluent)
- scientific writing, visualization and presentation of scientifc results

Time schedule

The student will be employed and compensated financially by AIT Austrian institute of Technology. The work will be done in Vienna. The thesis is expected to start under January 2025 (wk. 3) and be completed in June 2025 (wk. 26).

Supervisor at KTH

Supervisors at AIT, Center for Energy

Christoph Reichl , Senior Scientist:
Julian Unterluggauer , Research Engineer