Transient temperature and thermally induced stress distributions in a partly-circumferentially heated cylindrical workpiece

This paper presents the numerical solutions of the transient temperature and thermally induced stress distributions in a partly-circumferentially heated cylindrical hollow workpiece (steel) with conjugate heat transfer. Outer surface of the workpiece is heated partly-circumferentially heat flux as its remainder outer surface is circumferentially cooled with fluid (water). Three phenomena have been considered as; (1) conduction inside the cylinder, (2) convection from the cylinder surface to the surrounding fluid, and (3) thermal stress produced by high temperature gradient inside the cylinder. The governing flow and energy equations have been solved numerically by using a control volume approach. The PHOENICS 3.2 and HEATING7 computer codes have been used for the numerical evaluation. The transient calculations have been performed individually for four fluid inlet velocities, u_i = 0.005, 0.01, 0.015 and 0.020 m/s, until the system attains steady-state. The results of this study clearly demonstrate that the temperature contours in the low inlet velocity cases are more near to a symmetric case with respect to the y = 0 plane than that in the high inlet velocity cases, and the increment of the inlet velocity exponentially reduces the temperatures and thermally induced stresses in the workpiece. The effective thermal stress differences occurring in the workpiece can be significantly reduced by the high fluid inlet velocity.