In order to understand the effect of surface texturing parameters on the frictional behavior of textured surfaces and to correlate results of different lubrication regimes, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) numerical analysis of the fluid flow was performed for four different textured surface geometries. The aim of the present research paper is to get theoretical background for the frictional behavior of textured surfaces under hydrodynamic lubrication. Since it is unrealistic to make a direct analysis of a real problem that can possess more than several thousand micro-dimples, the purpose is then to investigate the flow in single cells of periodical micro-dimple patterns and to extract useful conclusions for the lubrication’s framework. Among all geometries studied, optimum geometry shapes in terms of hydrodynamic performance were reported. It was found that the best hydrodynamic performance was achieved with the rectangular geometry (lowest shear force).

We carried out several numerical experiments to analyze how different boundary conditions affect the ability to detect small pipeline leaks. Our method is based on determining the soil temperature gradient above a buried district heating channel. The equivalent thermal conductivity of a wet insulation (λ_eq) value of 0.5 W/(m·K) was used to mimic a small water leakage. To evaluate the heat loss through the channel cross section, the heat conduction model was used for the pipe insulation, the concrete, and the soil, while the convection model was considered within the channel. The following effects were used to simulate different operating conditions: heat convection at the soil surface, leakage only from the supply or return pipe, soil height above the channel, soil thermal conductivity, and pipe diameter. With the exception of leakage only from the return pipe and low soil thermal conductivity 0.4 W/(m·K), the results showed a doubling of the soil temperature gradient when compared with the no-leakage case. This fact undoubtedly confirms the potential of the method, which is particularly suitable for leak detection in old pipelines that have priority for renovation. A key added value of this research is that the soil temperature gradient-based leak detection technique was found useful in most foreseeable DH operating situations.

Using a meshless method, a simulation of steel billets in a pusher-type reheating furnace is carried out for the first time. The simulation represents an affordable way to replace the measurements. The heat transfer from the billets with convection and radiation is considered. Inside each of the billets, the heat diffusion equation is solved on a two-dimensional central slice of the billet. The diffusion equation is solved in a strong form by the Local Radial Basis Function Collocation Method (LRBFCM) with explicit time-stepping. The ray tracing procedure solves the radiation, where the view factors are computed with the Monte Carlo method. The changing number of billets in the furnace at the start and the end of the loading and unloading of the furnace is considered. A sensitivity study on billets’ temperature evolution is performed as a function of a different number of rays used in the Monte Carlo method, different stopping times of the billets in the furnace, and different spacing between the billets. The temperature field simulation is also essential for automatically optimizing the furnace’s productivity, energy consumption, and the billet’s quality. For the first time, the LRBFCM is successfully demonstrated for solving such a complex industrial problem.

This paper deals with the numerical simulation of exhaust gas flow through the electrostatic filter (EF) in block IV of the Šoštanj thermal power plant. Four different variants of the geometry were analysed. The exhaust gas flow was modelled as a turbulent incompressible viscous fluid flow. The commercial computational fluid dynamics package CFX-4.4 from ANSYS was used for flow analysis. The discrete models were very complex due to the internal objects such as guide vane rows, perforated screens, and electrodes. The turbulence model was the standard k—ɛ model with wall functions. Perforated screens were considered by an additional source term in momentum conservation equations. Velocity boundary conditions were obtained by interpolating the measured values on the discrete model nodes. The results of numerical simulation show that the most efficient is the variant where an additional screen is inserted between the second and the third EF volume. The maximum velocity is decreased and the distribution of velocity over the cross-section is more uniform. The increase in pressure drop was acceptable. The measurements of the velocity field after EF modification confirmed the prediction of the numerical simulation.

A two-phase bubbly flow is often found in the process industry. For the efficient operation of such devices, it is important to know the details of the flow. The paper presents a numerical simulation of the rising bubble in a stagnant liquid column. The interFOAM solver from the open source Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) toolbox OpenFOAM was used to obtain the necessary data. The constant and dynamic computational grids were used in the numerical simulation. The results of the calculation were compared with the measured values. As expected, by using the dynamic mesh, the bubble trajectory was closer to the experimental results due to the more detailed description of the gas–liquid interface.