In a conventional continuous annealing line, the energy supplied to steel strip during heating is not recovered while cooling it. Therefore, an alternative heat transfer technology for energy efficient continuous annealing of steel was developed. This technology enables reusing the heat extracted during cooling of the strip in the heating part of the process. This is achieved by thermally linking the cooling strip to the heating strip via multiple rotating heat pipes. In this context, the dynamic simulation of a full heat pipe assisted annealing line is performed. The dynamic simulation consists of the interaction of computational building blocks, each comprising of a rotating heat pipe and strip parts wrapped around the heat pipe. The simulations are run for different installation configurations and operational settings, with the heat pipe number varying between 50 and 100 and with varying strip line speed and dimensions. The heat pipes are sized to be 0.5 m in diameter and 3 m in length. The simulation results show that the equipment is capable of satisfying the thermal cycle requirements of annealing both at steady-state and during transition between steady-states following changes in boundary conditions. With this concept, energy savings of up to 70% are feasible.

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A new concept for energy efficient annealing of steel strip comprises of multiple rotating heat pipes. Each heat pipe extracts heat from the cooling strip which is reused to increase the temperature of the heating strip. In this context, the heat transfer between the steel strip and the rotating heat pipe is investigated. When the strip is transported over the heat pipe, gas entrains in the gap. The gas compresses into a uniform gas layer. The contact heat transfer deteriorates due to this phenomenon. A numerical model to quantify the heat transfer between the surfaces is developed. Since there is no direct way to quantify the heat transfer between two moving surfaces, the problem is divided into a gas entrainment and a heat transfer part. The model is validated with experiments executed on a rotating heat pipe test rig. The validation was made varying the strip thickness, specific tension and strip velocity. The results show a uniform gas layer forming within the first 1° of the 180° wrap angle in all cases. The heat transfer is dominated by gas conduction. Results for the uniform gas layer region yield heat transfer coefficients in the range between 4000 and 20,000 W/m2·K.@en

Rotating wickless and stationary capillary cylindrical heat pipes are widely used heat transfer devices. Transient behavior of such heat pipes has been investigated numerically with computational fluid dynamics and lumped parameter models. In this paper, the advantages of both methods are combined into a novel engineering model that is low in computational cost but still accurate and rich in the details it provides. The model describes the interior dynamics of the heat pipe with a 2D representation of a cylindrical heat pipe. Liquid and vapor volumes are coarsely meshed in the axial direction. The cells are allowed to change in size in the radial direction during simulation. This allows for tracking the liquid/vapor interface without having to implement fine meshing. The model includes the equations for mass, momentum and energy and is applicable to both rotating and stationary heat pipes. The predictions of the model are validated with other experimental, numerical, and analytical works having an average deviation of less than 4%. The effects of various parameters on the system are explored. The presented model is suitable for the simulation of heat pipe systems in which both the level of detail and the computational cost are crucial factors.

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