Experimental Study on Non-Isothermal Mixing Characteristics of Water in T-Junction

T-junction is an essential component in piping system of various thermal systems. When hot and cold fluid mixing in the T-junction, several compound mechanisms (like turbulent mixing, turbulent penetration, fluid stratification) make the mixing characteristics more complex. To clearly reveal such mixing mechanism with non-isothermal fluids, an experimental study was conducted with Ultrasound Doppler Velocimetry (UDV) and fast-response thermocouples bundle. The results show that the local velocity uncertainty of the UDV is within 10%, the uncertainty of the thermocouple bundle is 0.5°C, and the response time is 66.7 ms. After verification, the mixing characteristics between the main and branch pipe under different momentum ratios and temperature differences were discussed. It is shown that as the momentum ratio decreases, the location of the most intense radial temperature fluctuations and velocity fluctuations shifts towards the lower wall. At the same time, the peak flow rate in the cross-section increases by 35.7% and the main branch fluid mixing is more homogeneous. As the temperature difference increases, the thermal stratification is more pronounced and the velocity fluctuation peak moves towards the upper wall of the pipe.