Proceedings of the 2006 WSEAS/IASME International Conference on Heat and Mass Transfer, Miami, Florida, USA, January 18-20,

2006 (pp42-45)

Thermostatic Mixing Valves Thermostatic temperature distribution during various operating conditions
Joakim Wren, Peter Persson and Dan Loyd Department of Mechanical Engineering Linkpings universitet, SE 581 83 Linkping, S WEDEN Abstract: A model of a thermostat used in thermostatic mixing valves (TMVs) has been developed. The model contains realistic boundary conditions and material properties including the latent heat corresponding to a mixture of waxes inside the thermostat. The temperature-time characteristics show a relatively slow heating of the thermostat regardless of the ow rate. This implies an improvement potential for the thermostat and thus the entire valve. KeyWords: Thermostatic mixing valves, Thermostat, heat ux, Modeling and simulation, Phase transition

Introduction

Thermostatic mixing valves (TMVs) are important components in many heating, refrigeration and sanitary systems. The demands on such systems have increased the last years, for example due to new safety standards [1]. In this study we look at the temperature distribution inside the thermostat, which is responsible for the thermostats function as a combined sensor/actuator. The thermostat contains a specic mixture of waxes and all waxes in the mixture undergo a phase transition within the working temperature interval of the valve. The thermostat is also inuenced by among others the heat ux from the surrounding, which in turn is affected by e.g. the ow conditions in the proximity of the thermostat. In this study a nite element model of the thermostat including the temperature dependent thermal conductivity, the specic and latent heat of the mixture of waxes and the convective heat transfer. The results show a temperature distribution that varies greatly in both axial and radial directions throughout the response time for the valve for all investigated conditions.

Figure 1: The thermostatic mixing valve. Cold water inlet is at the bottom of the valve, hot water inlet to the left and mixed water outlet to the right. The height of the valve is approximately 100 mm.

2 Materials and Methods

2.1 The valve and thermostat
A thermostatic mixing valve (TMV) mixes hot and cold water to a preset mean temperature. The TMV investigated is ESBE series30 HR valve (ESBE AB, Reftele, Sweden) which has a short response time and stable mixed water temperature under varying water pressure, ow and temperature conditions. The valve is shown in Fig.1.

The valve regulation emerges from a thermostatic element (thermostat) located in the water-stream inside the valve. The thermostat contains a phase change material consisting of copper powder and a specic mixture of waxes, which change its density upon heating and thereby bring rise to the control. The wax mixture also contains a signicant amount of copper powder in order to increase the thermal diffusivity and thereby the speed of the thermal response. The thermostat forces a plastic shuttle to move towards/against a spring feed-back mechanism, which determine the cold and hot water intake (see Fig.2).

Proceedings of the 2006 WSEAS/IASME International Conference on Heat and Mass Transfer, Miami, Florida, USA, January 18-20, 2006 (pp42-45)

Outlet Thermostat (Probe) Inlets: hot and cold Shuttle Spring

Figure 2: Schematic picture of the valve in Fig.1.

2.2

Governing equations and boundary conditions

The heat transport in the thermostat is given by the heat conduction equation (1), which in axialsymmetric cylindrical co-ordinates, r and z , is given by
1 T = r r t
T r
z
T z
(1) +Q
Figure 3: The geometry of the thermostat showing its principle parts included in the model.

kr r

kz

for an isotropic material where is the density, c is the specic heat capacity, T = Ti (t, r, z ) is the temperature, t is time, ki is the thermal conductivity (i=r is a heat sink or source. All parameters and z ), and Q can vary in both time and space. See e.g. [2]. The equation is used together with a convective (Neumann) boundary condition, see e.g. [2]. In this case the convective heat ux is descried by equation (2). The surrounding temperature is given by T , hB is the convective heat transfer coefcient and lr and lz are the direction cosines. All parameters can vary in both time and space.
T T lz + hB (T T ) = 0 l r + kz z r

kr

(2)

Equation (1) was solved along with appropriate boundary conditions for the present geometry using the simulation software Femlab 3i (Comsol AB, Sweden), which as the name indicates exhibits simulation capabilities based on the Finite Element Method (FEM), see e.g. [3].

2.3 Simulation model

The axi-symmetric simulation model (Fig.3) comprises the thermostat including the phase-change copper/wax mixture in its surrounding of owing water at three ow rates (4, 10 and 20 liters per minute).

For the copper, brass and rubber of the thermostat, the density was 8850, 8430 and 1100 kg/m3 respectively, the specic heat 385, 400 and 2000 J/kgK respectively, and the thermal conductivity was 230, 110 and 0.24 W/mK respectively; all these are handbook values. For the copper/wax mixture, conductivity measurements were carried out at 20, 35, 43 and 51 C, giving a conductivity of 3.8, 3.0, 2.2 and 2.0 W/mK respectively. Interpolation was carried out along with the simulations. Also measurements of the combined effect of specic/latent heat of the copper/wax mixture were carried out at discrete temperatures, giving the result shown in Fig.4. Simulations were carried out for three ow cases, each corresponding to a set of measured [4] space-dependent convective heat transfer coefcients (hB ). For the lowest ow rate (4 l/min), hB is 4500 kW/m2 for the lowest horizontal face of the thermostat, linearly decreasing from 9600 to 6000 for the long vertical face, 3000 for the upper horizontal face and 2000 for the vertical curved part. For the other ow rates, 10 and 20 liters per minute, hB was increased by approximately 50 and 90%, respectively. Further details of the values and measurement of hB for the ow cases are found in [4].

Proceedings of the 2006 WSEAS/IASME International Conference on Heat and Mass Transfer, Miami, Florida, USA, January 18-20, 2006 (pp42-45)

2500 Specific heat [J/kgK]

2000

1500

1000

500 20 30 40 50 Temperature [C] 60

Figure 4: The combined specic/latent heat of the copper wax mixture measured at discrete temperatures and tted by a cubic spline function.

Results

The temperature as a function of time for each ow condition is given in Fig.5 for two locations, both at a radius of 1 mm and at axial locations 3 and 15 mm from the bottom of the thermostat. The temperaturetime derivative is slightly larger for the higher boundary heat uxes. It is also interesting to note that the curves tend to atten out at between 30 and 40 C, before their derivative increases again.
60 Flow 4, A Flow 4, B Flow 10, A Flow 10, B Flow 20, A Flow 20, B

50 Temperature [C]

40

due to the steep pressure and temperature gradients present inside the valve [5] as well as the large spatially and temporally dependent convective heat transfer at the boundary of the thermostat [4]. These affect the valve/thermostat characteristics, which in turn are responsible for the performance and safety classication of the valve. This is among others actualized by the risk for invasion of Legionellae bacteria [6]. The temperature-time plots in Fig.4 show that the the large difference in heat transfer coefcients associated with the various ow rates do not have a substantial impact of the temperature inside the copper/wax mixture. This means that other aspects than the heat ux over the boundary dominates the situation. The relatively low thermal conductivity of the mixture together with the latent heat of the phase transition in the copper wax mixture decreases the thermal diffusivity and thus slow down the heating of the mixture. This effect is actually seen in Fig.4 where the curves tend to atten out at slightly below 30 C. One reason is that this temperature coincides with the temperature for which the largest change in specic heat and thermal conductivity (increase and decrease, respectively) occurs. Another reason is the various transition temperatures for the wax mixture. An interesting nding is that after four seconds after a temperature step, the temperature distribution inside the thermostat is far from equilibrated. This is quite unexpected, as the valve is classied as a high performance valve meeting among others the Asse (American Society of Sanitary Engineering) no.1016 standard which demands a response time less than four seconds. See e.g. [7] for a discussion of response times.

30

5
20 0 1 2 Time [s] 3 4 5

Conclusion

Figure 5: Temperature in the copper/wax mixture as a function of time for the ows 4, 10 and 20 l/min at a radius of 1 mm and axial locations 3 and 15 mm (A and B respectively) from the bottom of the thermostat. The temperature decreases from the bottom to the top of the thermostat.

The temperature-time characteristics of the thermostat show a relatively slow heating regardless of the ow rate. There is an axial temperature difference inside the thermostat throughout the simulated time, and the combined effect of the specic and latent heats can be seen in the presented graphs. Altogether, this implies an improvement potential for the thermostat and thus the entire valve.

Acknowledgement 4 Discussion
The temperature distribution inside a thermostat of a TMV has under various operating conditions been analyzed using modeling and computer simulation. This is an interesting problem from a thermal point of view, The author is very grateful to Tech.Lic. Nils Hjelte and Eng. Dan Bengtsson, both at ESBE AB, for fruitful discussions during this work, and to Res.Eng. Ulf Bengtsson at Linkping university for accurate design of the thermostat dummy. The study was supported by The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research.

Proceedings of the 2006 WSEAS/IASME International Conference on Heat and Mass Transfer, Miami, Florida, USA, January 18-20, 2006 (pp42-45)

References: [1] N. McGrellis, Tmv3 why was it needed, Hospital Development. [2] H. S. Carslaw and J. C. Jaeger, Conduction of heat in solids (Oxford University Press, 1959), 2 edn. [3] O. C. Zienkiewicz, The Finite Element Method (McGrawHill, 1977). [4] J. Wren and P. Persson, Thermostatic mixing valves a method for non-disturbing intra-valve heat transfer estimation, Transactions on Fluid Mechanics, ISSN: 1790-5087.

[5] P. Persson, D. Loyd and J. Wren, A measurement equipment for analyzing control characteristics of thermostatic mixing valves, in Proceedings of the 4th European Thermal Sciences Conference (Birmingham, UK, 2004). [6] M. Lacroix, Electric water heater designs for load shifting and control of bacterial contamination, Energy Conversion and Management, 40(2), 1999, 131340. [7] J. P. Murray, A study of the prevention of hot tapwater burns, Burns, 14(3), 1988, 18593.