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Completed TRL 3 (started at 2, targeting 3)
This project will explore the use of a Tesla Valve for cryogenic fluids and gas applications. The project will entail designing and optimizing a Cryogenic Tesla Valve and the 3D printing/testing of the valve. This work will use Computational Fluid Dynamics to aid in a 3D design of a tesla valve that can work with cryogenic fluids. The design will be metal 3D printed and flow tested at cryogenic temperatures using Liquid Nitrogen. Flow through the valve will be tested in both the forward and backward flow direction to obtain a diodicity value greater than 2.
The use and function of Tesla valves have been vastly documented and these valves have been used recently in applications of small-scale advanced heat pipes. While these valves are constructed on the microscale, their geometry is repeatable and have a flow which is dependent on the number of channels in the valvular conduit. The main challenge of the project is scalability of the Tesla valve for macro fluid flow applications. Fluids at larger scales are governed by non-linear fluid mechanics and can be hard to determine. It can also be difficult to simulate geometries of fluid behavior. Our approach will use fluid modeling to design a simple 3D Tesla Valve and then use 3D printing to construct the valve. Tesla valves often employ repeating patterns of the valvular conduit and with each repeat changes the flow dynamics. The design will allow the attachment of each valvular section consecutively to achieve varying numbers of repeatable patterns to flow fluid through. This approach will simulate in detail each section of the pattern and then experimentally examine how fluid flows through each. This approach will allow the simulations of varying geometries to be tested and then compared to the real fluid flow.
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