Perturbation Solutions for Thermal Process of Honeycomb Regenerator

A parameter perturbation for the unsteady-state heat-transfer characteristics of honeycomb regenerator is presented. It is limited to the cases where the storage matrix has a small wall thickness so that no temperature variation in the matrix perpendicular to the flow direction is considered. Starting from a two-phase transient thermal model for the gas and storage matrix, an approximate solution for regenerator heat transfer process is derived using the multiple-scale method for the limiting case where the longitudinal heat conduction of solid matrix is far less than the convective heat transfer between the gas and the solid. The regenerator temperature profiles are expressed as Taylor series of the coefficient of solid heat conduction item in the model. The analytical validity is shown by comparing the perturbation solution with the experiment and the numerical solution. The results show that it is possible for the perturbation to improve the effectiveness and economics of thermal research on regenerators.