The effect of thermal prehistory on turbulent separated flow at sudden tube expansion

Results of numerical investigation of the effect of heat boundary layer thickness in front of a sudden expansion of a round tube on turbulent transfer in the zone of flow separation, attachment, and relaxation are presented. Before separation the flow was hydrodynamically stable, and the heat layer in front of expansion could change its thickness in maximally possible limits: from zero to a half of tube diameter. The Reynolds number varied from 6.7·10³ to 1.33·10⁵. It was found that the growth of heat layer thickness leads to reduction of heat transfer intensity in the separation area and moving away of the coordinate of maximal heat transfer from the place of tube expansion. Generalizing dependence for the maximum Nusselt number is given for variation of the heat layer thickness. Comparison with experimental data of 1] proved the main behavior tendencies of heat and mass transfer processes in separation flows behind a backward-facing step with different thermal prehistory.