| Summary: | Nonwetting surfaces including superhydrophobic (SHS) and liquid infused surfaces
(SLIPS) exhibit diverse exceptional characteristics promoting numerous application
opportunities. Engineered textured surfaces demonstrate multiple features including drag
reduction, fouling reduction, corrosion resistance, anti-fogging, anti-icing, and
condensation enhancement. Integrating these properties, nonwetting surfaces have shown
significant potential in improving the efficiency of energy applications. The first part of
the thesis work aims at developing a fundamental mathematical understanding of the
wetting process on the solid surface followed by presenting fabrication methodologies
specifically focused on metallic substrates. The second part of this thesis presents an
exhaustive survey on recent advancements and researches about features of nonwetting
surfaces that could be implemented in major industrial applications.
To establish how realistically these features could enhance the real-life applications,
the third part of this work investigates the dynamic performance and economic benefits
of using textured surfaces fabricated using an electrodeposition process for condenser
tubes in thermoelectric power plants. The textured surfaces are expected to provide
enhanced performance by deterring fouling and promoting dropwise condensation of the
steam on the shell side. Using a thermal resistance network of a shell and tube condenser,
detailed parametric studies are carried out to investigate the effect of various design
parameters on the annual condenser performance measured in terms of its electric energy
output of a representative 550 MW coal-fired power plant. A cost modeling tool and a
new Levelized cost of condenser (LCOC) metric have been developed to evaluate the
economic and performance benefits of enhanced condenser designs. The LCOC is
defined as the ratio of the lifetime cost of the condenser (and associated costs such as
coating, operation and maintenance) to the total electric energy produced by the
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thermoelectric power plant. The physical model is coupled with a numerical optimization
method to identify the optimal design and operating parameters of the textured tubes that
minimizes LCOC. Altogether, the study presents the first effort to construct and analyze
enhanced condenser design with textured tube surfaces on annual thermoelectric power
plant performance and compares it against the baseline condenser design with plain
tubes. === Master of Science === Liquid repellant surfaces have attracted lots of attention due to their numerous
promising characteristics including promoting condensation, drag reduction, prohibiting
fouling/deposition, corrosion, and fog/dew harvesting. These attributes have the potential
to inspire a variety of applications for these surfaces in power plants, automotive and
aviation industries, oils/organic solvents clean-up, fuel cells, solar panels, membrane
distillation, stone/concrete protection, surgical fabrics, and biological applications, to
name a few. Some of these applications have reached their potential for real-life
implementation and more are still at the research phase needing more experimental and
fundamental studies to get them ready.
The first part of this study presents the fundamentals of the wetting process. Next,
fabrication methods for metallic surfaces have been explored to identify the most scalable
and cost-effective approaches which could be administered in large scale industrial
applications.
A comprehensive review of recent publications on features of nonwetting surfaces has
been carried out and presented in the second part of this thesis. To establish how
realistically these features could enhance the real-life applications of a thermo-economic
a performance model is developed for a powerplant condenser in the third section. Through
a simple and cost-effective electrodeposition process, the common condenser tubes are
modified to achieve textured tubes with superhydrophobic properties. The influence of
using textured tubes on the plant's performance and its economic benefits are
investigated to predict the potential promises of nonwetting surfaces.
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