Experimental investigation of local heat transfer in a square duct with various-shaped ribs

In the present study, experimental studies are carried out to investigate the heat transfer and friction characteristics in a square duct roughened by various-shaped ribs on one wall. The ribs are oriented transversely to the main stream in a periodic arrangement. Liquid crystal thermography is employed to measure the local and average heat transfer coefficient on the ribbed surface. The rib height-to-duct hydraulic diameter ratio is fixed at 0.1; the rib pitch-to-height ratio varies from 8 to 15 and the test Reynolds number spans from 8,000 to 20,000. The results show that the trapezoidal-shaped ribs with decreasing height in the flow direction (case C) provide the highest heat transfer enhancement factor and are likely to be used to suppress the local hot spot which usually occurs in the region just behind the ribs.     

Experimental investigation into the effect of heat transfer on compressible air stream in a duct

A converging nozzle-constant area parallel passage with an outer duct encasing the constant-area passage has been built for investigating the effect of heat transfer on subsonic flow of an air stream. It is concluded experimentally as can be predicted analytically that large quantities of heat are needed in order to accelerate very slow air stream (incompressible) to sonic conditions. It is observed experimentally as confirmed analytically, that the increase in Mach number with heat addition is associated with a decrease in the local static pressure along the axis of the duct. It could be concluded that any more heat added beyond thermal choking will be accompanied by a decrease in the mass flow rate of the compressible flowing air.Nomenclature A cross-sectional area of the duct - C _{P air} specific heat of air joules/kg. °K - C _d discharge coefficient - D duct diameter - d orifice diameter m - dA _d elemental lateral area of the duct - h overall heat transfer coefficient - h head across orifice, mm. - M Mach number - m _air mass flow rate of air - P local static pressure - P _b back pressure at duct outlet - P ₀₁ stagnation pressure at duct inlet - gas density - _u air density upstream of orifice - _q incremental heat flow - T local static temperature - T ₀₁ stagnation temperature at duct inlet - T _h hot water temperature - q heat added per kg of flowing air - V flow speed     

Experimental study of augmented heat transfer and friction in solar air heater with different orientations of W-Rib roughness

Artificial roughness in the form of ribs is a convenient method for enhancing thermal performance of solar air heaters. This paper presents the experimental investigation of heat transfer and friction factor characteristics of a rectangular duct roughened with W-shaped ribs arranged at an inclination with respect to the flow direction on its underside on one broad wall. W ribs have been tested both pointing in downstream W-down and upstream W-up to the flow. The range of parameters for this study has been decided on the basis of practical considerations of the system and operating conditions. The duct has a width to height ratio (W/H) of 8.0, relative roughness pitch (p/e) of 10, relative roughness height (e/D_h) of 0.03375 and angle of attack of flow (α) of 30-75°. The air flow rate corresponds to Reynolds number between 2300-14,000. The heat transfer and friction factor results have been compared with those for smooth duct under similar flow and thermal boundary condition and thermo-hydraulic performance has been investigated. Thermo-hydraulic performance comparison for different angle of attack of flow shows that W-down arrangement with angle of attack of flow as 60° gives best thermo-hydraulic performance. In addition heat transfer and friction factor correlations have been developed.     

Experimental investigation of heat transfer in a packed duct with unequal wall temperatures

Wall-to-air forced convective heat transfer has been measured in a rectangular duct with unequal wall temperatures. The measurements were taken for a developing region in laminar flow. A uniform heat flux was supplied to the front wall of the duct. Heat transfer coefficients were measured in the empty and packed duct for various airflow rates and for different diameters of Raschig ring type packings. Measurements indicate that there is a considerable increase in the value of heat transfer coefficient for a packed duct over that for a duct with an empty flow passage.     

Experimental investigation of parameters effect on heat transfer of spray cooling

The effects of spray height, nozzle spray angle, inlet pressure and spray incident angle on heat transfer of spray cooling were studied by an experimental method. Multi-points thermocouples and infrared imaging device were used to measure temperature distribution on heating surface. A Doppler anemometry and a camera were applied to study the spray flow field. The mechanism of heat transfer of spray cooling was concluded on the basis of experimental data and spray characteristics. It is showed that parameters affect heat transfer by way of changing the flow field on the heating surface. Heat transfer performance can be optimized by a smaller spray angle nozzle, which sprays at a smaller spray height and a higher inlet pressure. The effect of incident angle on heat transfer depends on nozzle spray angle and the definition of distance of nozzle to surface.     

Numerical investigation of heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics inside a wavy channel

The periodically fully developed laminar heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics inside a two-dimensional wavy channel in a compact heat exchanger have been numerically investigated. Calculations were performed for Prandtl number 0.7, and Reynolds number ranging from 100 to 1,100 on non-orthogonal non-staggered grid systems, based on SIMPLER algorithm in the curvilinear body-fitted coordinates. Effects of wavy heights, lengths, wavy pitches and channel widths on fluid flow and heat transfer were studied. The results show that overall Nusselt numbers and friction factors increase with the increase of Reynolds numbers. According to the local Nusselt number distribution along channel wall, the heat transfer may be greatly enhanced due to the wavy characteristics. In the geometries parameters considered, friction factors and overall Nusselt number always increase with the increase of wavy heights or channel widths, and with the decrease of wavy lengths or wavy pitches. Especially the overall Nusselt number significantly increase with the increase of wavy heights or channel widths, where the flow may become into transition regime with a penalty of strongly increasing in pressure drop. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Direct numerical simulation of turbulent heat transfer in a square duct with transverse ribs mounted on one wall

Turbulent heat transfer in a ribbed square duct of three different blockage ratios are investigated using direct numerical simulation (DNS). The results of ribbed duct cases are compared with those of a heated smooth duct flow. It is observed that owing to the existence of the ribs and confinement of the duct, organized secondary flows appear as large streamwise-elongated vortices, which intensely interact with the rib elements and four sidewalls and have profound influences on the transport of momentum and thermal energy. This study also shows that the drag and heat transfer coefficients are highly sensitive to the rib height. It is observed that as the rib height increases, the impinging effect of the flow on the windward face of the rib strengthens, leading to enhanced rates of turbulent mixing and heat transfer. The influence of sidewalls and rib height on the turbulence structures associated with temperature fluctuations are analyzed based on multiple tools such as vortex swirling strengths, temporal auto-correlations, spatial two-point cross-correlations, joint probability density functions (JPDF) between the temperature and velocity fluctuations, statistical moments of different orders, and temperature spectra.     

An experimental investigation of the effect of waves on vapour side heat and mass transfer in filmwise condensation inside a vertical tube

The effect of liquid Reynolds number in condensation of a single vapour from a non-condensing gas has been investigated experimentally. It is apparent that there is no significant enhancement of the heat and mass transfer coefficients on the vapour side up to a liquid film Reynolds number of 200 and a gas Reynolds number of 14,000 in a vertical tube of length 1 metre.     

Quantitative infrared investigation of local heat transfer in a circular finned tube heat exchanger assembly

This work deals with the local heat transfer coefficient evaluation over the fin of the second row of a staggered circular finned tube heat exchanger assembly. The coefficient distribution is determined by using a transient technique and by calculating the energy balance during the fin cooling. The calculation model takes into account radiation with the surrounding and lateral heat conduction into the material. The method uses infrared measurements and integration between time bounds that depend on space. It is proposed to choose the integration bounds with an original criterion based on local heat transfer. Validation is performed on the reference case consisting in a thin plate in an aerodynamically and thermally developing channel flow. Then, distributions of Nusselt number on the circular fin are presented for several Reynolds numbers. The high resolution of the whole method and set-up allow detecting thermal imprints of developing horseshoe vortices. These imprints are analyzed by following their angular evolution around the tube.     

An experimental investigation of heat transfer characteristics for turbulent flow over staggered ribs in a square duct

An experimental study of developing and fully developed turbulent air flow in a square duct with two opposite rib-roughened walls in which the ribs are attached in a staggered fashion was conducted to determine the heat transfer characteristics. The rib height-to-hydraulic diameter ratio (e/D_H) was 0.19, the rib pitch-to-height ratio (p/e) was 5.31. The streamwise temperature distribution was measured, and a law of the wall for the thermal boundary layer at each free-stream turbulence level was obtained. The effects of free-stream turbulence intensity with variations of 4–11% on heat transfer coefficients were also examined. Finally, the relationship between Nusselt number and Reynolds number was correlated. The results might be used in the design of turbine blade cooling channels.     

3D Numerical study of the effect of aspect ratio on mixed convection air flow in upward solar air heater

A 3D Numerical study of mixed convection air flow in upward solar air heater with large spanwise aspect ratio (A = 10 to 40) was performed using CFD commercial code Fluent 14.5 (ANSYS). The main objective of this study is to investigate the channel height's effect (aspect ratio) on flow pattern and heat transfer in upward solar air heater in the particular case of low Re and high aspect ratio. The bottom plate (absorber) was submitted to Constant Heat Flux (CHF) in the range of 200 to 1000 W/m² and Reynolds number was varied from 50 to 1000. Our results are in concordance with most of authors conclusions about Poiseuille–Rayleigh–Benard flows. In mixed convection, increasing heat flux enhances heat transfer unlike forced convection flows. Simulation results of flow visualizations and Nusselt number calculations have shown that depending on Ri*, the velocity and temperature distributions in SAH vary greatly with the channel's height. The obtained results were different from previous studies. Indeed, our investigation of channel's height was achieved for the same heat flux but different Grashof numbers. For low channel's heights (high aspect ratio), increasing heat flux has not a significant effect but for higher channel's heights, an augmentation of heat flux enhances buoyancy effects in the flow and causes high turbulence. Also, increasing Reynolds number in low channel's heights (high A), can enhance substantially heat transfer. For higher channel's heights (low A), increasing Reynolds number decreases Ri* and thus buoyancy forces. Heat transfer is reduced and so Nusselt number. The obtained results may be very useful for engineers in designing and testing solar collectors.     

Experimental investigation on condensation heat transfer and pressure drop of R134a in a plate heat exchanger

Condensation heat transfer of R134a in a vertical plate heat exchanger was investigated experimentally. The local heat transfer coefficients are determined by means of the measured local wall temperatures. A differential energy balance model is developed for data evaluation. It is found that the correlation proposed by Shah using Ψ and Z factors is suitable for condensation in plate heat exchangers and is adopted to fit the measured data.     

An experimental and three-dimensional numerical study on the convective heat transfer inside a trapezoidal duct under constant wall temperature

In this study, steady-state forced convection heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics for hydrodynamically fully developed thermally developing three-dimensional turbulent flow in a horizontal smooth trapezoidal duct with corner angle of 75° and hydraulic diameter of 0.043 m were both experimentally and numerically investigated in the Reynolds number range from 2.6 × 10³ to 67 × 10³ for isothermal conditions. Results have shown that there is a good agreement between the present experimental and numerical results.     

Experimental investigation on flow and heat transfer performance of a novel heat fin-plate radiator for electronic cooling

Within the electronics industry, high degree of integration and enhanced performance has led to high heat dissipation electronic devices. This has identified the future development of very high heat flux components. In this paper, a novel and high efficient diffusion welded heat fin-plate radiator (HFPR) was proposed and designed. Various parameters affect the thermal performance of HFPR. The effect of three parameters: the working fluid filling ratios (8% < FR < 70%), the vacuum degrees (0.001 Pa < VD < 0.1 Pa), and the air flow velocities (0.5 m/s < u < 6 m/s) were investigated experimentally. Using distilled water and ethanol as working fluids, a series of tests were carried out to find the influence of the above parameters on steady-state heat transfer characteristics of HFPR. The experimental results indicated that the filling ratio and vacuum degree had a significant influence on thermal performance of HFPR. Also compared with cooling performance using distilled water and ethanol, the HFPR cooling component using distilled water had a stronger heat dissipation capacity for the same filling ratio. The results also can provide a basis for optimal design of HFPR structure.