INVESTIGATION OF FLOW CHARACTERISTICS FOR A MULTI-STAGE TESLA VALVE AT LAMINAR AND TURBULENT FLOW CONDITIONS

Abstract

Tesla valve is a passive type check valve that empowers flow in one direction without moving parts used for flow control in mini or microchannel systems. It is a system that can be used for a long time with low fatigue and low wear due to the lack of moving parts in its structure. Besides the cost of production is cheap due to its simple geometry. Also, the Tesla valve differs from all other valves with these features. Allowing or preventing the movement of the fluid is due to the specific design of the profiles inside the valve. In addition, the fluid that encounters obstacles at high velocities continues on its way by gaining thermodynamic properties. The efficiency of the Tesla valve is measured by diodicity, which can be managed by small losses due to direction during forward or reverse flows, primarily along with the flow inlet speed and flow line design. In this study, the variation of the velocities of methane gas in the specially designed Tesla valve has been investigated in detail via numerical analysis. Tesla valve structure with eleven flow control segments was used in the analysis. Moreover, the fluid motion behaviors in both directions were investigated for laminar and turbulent velocities. As a result of the study, the turbulence kinetic energy change and diodicity were determined for methane use in the Tesla valve. Also, different characteristic features of laminar and turbulent flow have been revealed in the tesla valve.

Keywords

• Tesla Valve
• Methane
• Computational Fluid Dynamics
• Diodicity
• Turbulance Kinetic Energy.

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