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Liquid wicking flow characteristics in metallic screens with various weave densities

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Abstract

Metallic woven screen is the core component of a liquid acquisition device (LAD), which is used for the gas–liquid separation of propellants. One of the most important factors that determine the working performance and stability of the LAD is the wicking performance of screens. In order to characterize the wicking capacity and permeability of the screens, the wicking experiments were carried out using five vertically mounted Dutch Twill Weave (DTW) screens and three liquids (acetone, ethanol, and HFE-7500) in the present study. It is shown that the wicking process can be divided into three stages according to the flow characteristics, i.e., initial, intermediate, eventual wicking stages. The wicking height versus time follows h ~ t1/2 and h ~ t1/3 law in the initial wicking stage and intermediate stage, respectively. The eventual wicking stage is characterized by a very small wicking velocity of about 10–5 m/s, which is about one order of magnitude smaller than those of initial and intermediate wicking stages (10–3 ~ 10–4 m/s). The wicking velocity in the initial stage increases with the decrease of screen weave density, and the fluid with larger σ/μ and smaller ρ/μ tends to show larger wicking velocity. Furthermore, the permeabilities K, the effective capillary diameters Dc and the effective wicking diameters Dw of five DTW samples are obtained from the experiments, supplementing the blank of structural parameters of screens with higher weave densities. Parametric analysis was further conducted to validate the reliability by comparing the results of the present study with those in literature. Finally, a dimensionless model is derived by integrating the influence of the working liquid properties, screen structures and evaporation rate into a dimensionless number ξ, which is applied to evaluate and predict working performance for three typical cryogenic propellants LH2, LOX, and LCH4 based on the experimental wicking parameters.

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Abbreviations

D c :

Effective capillary diameter (m)

D h :

Hydraulic diameter (m)

D w :

Effective wicking diameter (m)

d :

Metal wire diameter (m)

f :

The body force per unit mass (N kg-1)

h :

Wicking height (m)

K :

Permeability (m2)

K t :

Dynamic apparent permeability tensor (m2)

L s :

Screen length (m)

\(\dot{m}_e\) :

Evaporation rate (kg m-2 s-1)

t :

Wicking time (s)

V m :

Volume of metal wire (m3)

V t :

Total volume of screen sample (m3)

v :

Wicking velocity (m s-1)

\(\langle \mathbf {v}\rangle\) :

Superficial average velocity (m s-1)

W s :

Screen width (m)

α :

The closure variable that maps the initial velocity to (m s-1)

δ s :

Screen thickness (m)

ε e :

Effective porosity

θ :

Static contact angle (°)

μ :

Viscosity (Pa s)

ξ :

Integrated control factor

ρ :

Density (kg m-3)

σ :

Surface tension (N m-1)

DTW:

Dutch twill weave

LAD:

Liquid acquisition device

PMD:

Propellant management device

abs:

Absolute

add:

Additional

cap:

Capillary

hyd:

Hydrostatic

imm:

Immersion

max:

Maximum

s:

Shute

vis:

Viscous

w:

Warp

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Acknowledgements

This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under the contract No. 51976117 and the fund of Shanghai Research Center of Advanced Aerospace Technology under the contract No. USCAST2019-4. A part of the characterizations is conducted in the AEMD of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Qingchun Zhu, Yuting Jiang & Peng Zhang

  2. Institute of Aerospace System Engineering, Shanghai, 201108, China

    Rui Zhuan

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Correspondence to Peng Zhang.

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Zhu, Q., Jiang, Y., Zhang, P. et al. Liquid wicking flow characteristics in metallic screens with various weave densities. Heat Mass Transfer 58, 719–734 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00231-021-03128-4

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