Conjugate heat transfer study of incompressible turbulent offset jet flows

In the present case, the conjugate heat transfer involving a turbulent plane offset jet is considered. The bottom wall of the solid block is maintained at an isothermal temperature higher than the jet inlet temperature. The parameters considered are the offset ratio (OR), the conductivity ratio (K), the solid slab thickness (S) and the Prandtl number (Pr). The Reynolds number considered is 15,000 because the flow becomes fully turbulent and then it becomes independent of the Reynolds number. The ranges of parameters considered are: OR = 3, 7 and 11, K = 1–1,000, S = 1–10 and Pr = 0.01–100. High Reynolds number two-equation model (k–ε) has been used for turbulence modeling. Results for the solid–fluid interface temperature, local Nusselt number, local heat flux, average Nusselt number and average heat transfer have been presented and discussed.     

Local heat transfer distribution between smooth flat surface and impinging air jet from a circular nozzle at low Reynolds numbers

An experimental investigation is performed to study the effect of jet to plate spacing and low Reynolds number on the local heat transfer distribution to normally impinging submerged circular air jet on a smooth and flat surface. A single jet from a straight circular nozzle of length-to-diameter ratio (l/d) of 83 is tested. Reynolds number based on nozzle exit condition is varied between 500 and 8,000 and jet-to-plate spacing between 0.5 and 8 nozzle diameters. The local heat transfer characteristics are obtained using thermal images from infrared thermal imaging technique. It was observed that at lower Reynolds numbers, the effect of jet to plate distances covered during the study on the stagnation point Nusselt numbers is minimal. At all jet to plate distances, the stagnation point Nusselt numbers decrease monotonically with the maximum occurring at a z/d of 0.5 as opposed to the stagnation point Nusselt numbers at high Reynolds numbers which occur around a z/d of 6.     

Experimental investigation of mixed convection in a rectangular duct with a heated plate in the middle of cross section

The flow and heat transfer in an inclined and horizontal rectangular duct with a heated plate longitudinally mounted in the middle of cross section was experimentally investigated. The heated plate and rectangular duct were both made of highly conductive materials, and the heated plate was subjected to a uniform heat flux. The heat transfer processes through the test section were under various operating conditions: Pr ≈ 0.7, inclination angle ϕ = −60° to +60°, Reynolds number Re = 334–1,911, Grashof number Gr = 5.26 × 10²–5.78 × 10⁶. The experimental results showed that the average Nusselt number in the entrance region was 1.6–2 times as large as that in the fully developed region. The average Nusselt numbers and pressure drops increased with the Reynolds number. The average Nusselt numbers and pressure drops decreased with an increase in the inclination angle from −60° to +60° when the Reynolds number was less than 1,500. But when the Reynolds number increased to over about 1,800, the heat transfer coefficients and pressure drops were independent of inclination angles.     

Buoyancy and cross flow effects on heat transfer of multiple impinging slot air jets cooling a flat plate at different orientations

The present article reports on heat transfer characteristics associated with multiple laminar impinging air jet cooling a hot flat plat at different orientations. The work aims to study the interactions of the effects of cross flow, buoyancy induced flow, orientation of the hot surface with respect to gravity, Reynolds numbers and Rayleigh numbers on heat transfer characteristics. Experiments have been carried out for different values of jet Reynolds number, Rayleigh number and cross flow strength and at different orientations of the air jet with respect to the target hot plate. In general, the effective cooling of the plate has been observed to be increased with increasing Reynolds number and Rayleigh number. The results concluded that the hot surface orientation is important for optimum performance in practical applications. It was found that for Re ≥ 400 and Ra ≥ 10,000 (these ranges give 0.0142 ≤ Ri ≤ 1.59 the Nusselt number is independent on the hot surface orientation. However, for Re ≤ 300 and Ra ≥ 100,000 (these ranges give 1.59 ≤ Ri ≤ 42.85): (i) the Nusselt number for horizontal orientation with hot surface facing down is less that that of vertical orientation and that of horizontal orientation with hot surface facing up, and (ii) the Nusselt number of vertical orientation is approximately the same as that of horizontal orientation with hot surface facing up. For all surfaces orientations and for the entire ranges of Re and Ra, it was found that increasing the cross flow strength decreases the effective cooling of the surface.     

Transient conjugated mixed-convective heat transfer in a vertical plate channel with one wall heated discretely

 This study presents a numerical solution of the unsteady conjugated mixed-convection heat transfer in a vertical plate channel with one wall suddenly subjected to either isoflux or isothermal discrete heat sources. The effects of the dimensionless heat source length H ₁, the dimensionless spacing between heat sources H ₂, the dimensionless channel length L, the dimensionless heated-plate thickness B _l, the wall-to-fluid conductivity ratio K and the ratio of Grashof number to Reynolds number Gr/Re on the interface heat flux, Nusselt number and bulk fluid temperature are discussed in detail. Results show that the discrete heating can cause the heat transfer direction conversely from the fluid to the heated plate during the transient period, which is more significant for the cases with larger L and H ₂. For the system with isoflux discrete heat sources, the time required to reach the steady-state is shorter for larger H ₂. While the trend is reverse for system with isothermal discrete heat sources. Additionally, a higher ratio of the input energy is axially conducted through the plate wall from heated sections to unheated regions for a larger H ₂ and B _l or smaller L. Received on 9 November 1998     

Numerical modeling of incline plate LiBr absorber

Among major components of LiBr–H₂O absorption chillers is the absorber, which has a direct effect on the chillier size and whose characteristics have significant effects on the overall efficiency of absorption machines. In this article, heat and mass transfer process in absorption of refrigerant vapor into a lithium bromide solution of water-cooled incline plate absorber in the Reynolds number range of 5 < Re < 150 is performed numerically. The boundary layer assumptions are used for the mass, momentum and energy transport equations and the fully implicit finite difference method is employed to solve the governing equations. Dependence of lithium bromide aqueous properties to the temperature and concentration is employed as well as dependence of film thickness to vapor absorption. An analysis for linear distribution of wall temperature condition carries out to investigate the reliability of the present numerical method through comparing with previous investigation. The effect of plate angle on heat and mass transfer parameters is investigated and the results show that absorption mass flux and heat and mass transfer coefficient increase as the angle of the plate increase. The main parameters of absorber design, namely Nusselt and Sherwood numbers, are correlated as a function of Reynolds Number and the plate angle.     

Flow structure and heat transfer characteristics of an unconfined impinging air jet at high jet Reynolds numbers

The flow and heat transfer characteristics of an unconfined air jet that is impinged normally onto a heated flat plate have been experimentally investigated for high Reynolds numbers ranging from 30,000 to 70,000 and a nozzle-to-plate spacing range of 1–10. The mean and turbulence velocities by using hot-wire anemometry and impingement surface pressures with pressure transducer are measured. Surface temperature measurements are made by means of an infrared thermal imaging technique. The effects of Reynolds number and nozzle-to-plate spacing on the flow structure and heat transfer characteristics are described and compared with similar experiments. It was seen that the locations of the second peaks in Nusselt number distributions slightly vary with Reynolds number and nozzle-to-plate spacing. The peaks in distributions of Nusselt numbers and radial turbulence intensity are compatible for spacings up to 3. The stagnation Nusselt number was correlated for the jet Reynolds number and the nozzle-to-plate spacing as Nu _st∝Re ^0.69(H/D)^0.019.     

Mixed convection cooling of a heated circular cylinder by laminar upward-directed slot jet impingement

An experimental and numerical study has been carried out to investigate the heat transfer characteristics of a horizontal circular cylinder exposed to a slot jet impingement of air. A square-edged nozzle is mounted parallel with the cylinder axis and jet flow impinges on the bottom of the cylinder. The study is focused on low Reynolds numbers ranging from 120 to 1,210, Grashof numbers up to Gr = 10Re ² and slot-to-cylinder spacing from 2 to 8 of the slot width. The flow field is greatly influenced by the slot exit velocity and the buoyancy force due to density change. A Mach–Zehnder Interferometer is used for measurement of local Nusselt number around the cylinder at 10° interval. It is observed that the average Nusselt number decreases with increasing the jet spacing and increases with rising the Reynolds number. A finite volume method utilizing a curvilinear coordinate transformation is used for numerical modeling. The numerical results show good agreement with the experimental results. The flow and thermal field are seen to be stable and symmetric around the cylinder over the range of parameters studied.     

Lattice Boltzmann simulation of heat transfer and fluid flow in a microchannel with nanofluids

Mathematical modeling is performed to simulate forced convection flow of 47 nm- Al₂O₃/water nanofluids in a microchannel using the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). Single channel flow and conjugate heat transfer problem are taken into consideration and the heat transfer rate using a nanofluid is examined. Simulations are conducted at low Reynolds numbers (2 ≤ Re ≤ 16). The computed average Nusselt number, which is associated with the thermal conductivity of nanofluid, is in the range of 0.6 ￡ [`(Nu)] ￡ 13 0.6 \le \overline{Nu} \le 13 . Results indicate that the average Nusselt number increases with the increase of Reynolds number and particle volume concentration. The fluid temperature distribution is more uniform with the use of nanofluid than that of pure water. Furthermore, great deviations of computed Nusselt numbers using different models associated with the physical properties of a nanofluid are revealed. The results of LBM agree well with the classical CFD method for predictions of flow and heat transfer in a single channel and a microchannel heat sink concerning the conjugate heat transfer problem, and consequently LBM is robust and promising for practical applications.     

Effects of magnetic field on nanofluid forced convection in a partially heated microchannel

This paper numerically examines the laminar forced convection of a water–Al₂O₃ nanofluid flowing through a horizontal microchannel. The middle section of the microchannel is heated with a constant and uniform heat flux. The middle section is also influenced by a transverse magnetic field with a uniform strength. The effects of pertinent parameters such as the Reynolds number (0≤Re≤1000), the solid volume fraction (0≤?≤0.04) and the Hartmann number (0≤Ha≤100) on the flow and temperature fields and the heat transfer performance of the microchannel are examined against numerical predictions. The results show that the microchannel performs better heat transfers at higher values of the Reynolds and Hartmann numbers. For all values of the Reynolds and Hartmann numbers considered in this study, the average Nusselt number on the middle section surface of the microchannel increases as the solid volume fraction increases. The rate of this increase is considerably more at higher values of the Reynolds number and at lower values of the Hartmann number.     

A numerical study of the steady forced convection heat transfer from an unconfined circular cylinder

Forced convection heat transfer from an unconfined circular cylinder in the steady cross-flow regime has been studied using a finite volume method (FVM) implemented on a Cartesian grid system in the range as 10 ≤ Re ≤ 45 and 0.7 ≤ Pr ≤ 400. The numerical results are used to develop simple correlations for Nusselt number as a function of the pertinent dimensionless variables. In addition to average Nusselt number, the effects of Re, Pr and thermal boundary conditions on the temperature field near the cylinder and on the local Nusselt number distributions have also been presented to provide further physical insights into the nature of the flow. The rate of heat transfer increases with an increase in the Reynolds and/or Prandtl numbers. The uniform heat flux condition always shows higher value of heat transfer coefficient than the constant wall temperature at the surface of the cylinder for the same Reynolds and Prandtl numbers. The maximum difference between the two values is around 15–20%.     

Heat transfer in a tapered passage

Heat transfer to laminar flow in tapered passages is studied for two types of thermal boundary conditions: prescribed heat flux on both walls, and on one wall with the other wall adiabatic. In the analysis, the flow is assumed to be purely radial. Temperature distributions and Nusselt number are obtained for the heat flux q ∞ r^δ. The Nusselt number depends on Reynolds number and taper angle. The fully developed Nusselt number decreases with increase in δ for converging flow and increases for diverging flow. Constant heat flux boundary conditions, δ = 0, for converging flow yield a reduction in Nusselt number when compared with the case of parallel channel flow.     

Forced convection flow over a microsphere

Forced convection heat transfer characteristics around a microsphere subjected to uniform heat flux boundary condition is numerically investigated in this study. Moderate to high values of Reynolds number and a wide range of Prandtl number are considered. The analysis assumes that the continuity assumption is valid and hence the Navier–Stokes equations are solved for the range of Knudsen number of 0.001 ≤ Kn ≤ 0.1. The appropriate boundary conditions at the surface of the microsphere; the velocity slip and temperature jump are applied. The effect of the flow parameters: Re, Pr and Kn on the velocity and temperature distribution is presented and hence a better control on the boundary layer thickness can be achieved in the microscale level. Furthermore, the effect of the controlling parameters on the delay of flow separation, reduced shear stress, drag coefficient and on the Nusselt number profiles is also presented in the results.     

Numerical Study of Heat Transfer in a Rectangular Channel with Porous Covering Obstacles

A numerical study is performed to analyze steady laminar forced convection in a channel in which discrete heat sources covered with porous material are placed on the bottom wall. Hydrodynamic and heat transfer results are reported. The flow in the porous medium is modeled using the Darcy–Brinkman–Forchheimer model. A computer program based on control volume method with appropriate averaging for diffusion coefficient is developed to solve the coupling between solid, fluid, and porous region. The effects of parameters such as Reynolds number, Prandtl number, inertia coefficient, and thermal conductivity ratio are considered. The results reveal that the porous cover with high thermal conductivity enhances the heat transfer from the solid blocks significantly and decreases the maximum temperature on the heated solid blocks. The mean Nusselt number increases with increase of Reynolds number and Prandtl number, and decrease of inertia coefficient. The pressure drop along the channel increases rapidly with the increase of Reynolds number.     

Heat transfer due to a round jet impinging normal to a circular cylinder

An experimental investigations of heat transfer for a stationary isothermal circular cylinder exposed normal to an impinging round air-jet has been reported. The circumferential heat transfer distributions as well as axial Nusselt number is measured. The measurements are taken as a function of the Reynolds number ranging from 3.8 × 10³ to 4 × 10⁴, the cylinder separation distance to the nozzle diameter (z/d) varying from 7 to 30, and the nozzle to cylinder diameter ratio (d/D) changing from 0.06 to 0.14. The output results indicated that the axial and radial distributions of the local heat transfer peaked at the impingement point. The heat transfer rate increases as the values of z decreases, for the same d and Re. The drop-off of the Nusselt number with increasing axial distance or radial angle from the impingement point was more pronounced for smaller z and d. The peripheral and surface average Nusselt numbers were determined by integration. The experimental data was used to produce correlations for both average and stagnation point heat transfer. Received on 4 January 1999     

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.     

Correlations for heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop in the annulus of concentric helical coils

Heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics in the annulus of concentric helical coils heat exchangers were experimentally investigated. The effects of coil curvature ratio, flow configuration, number of turns and addition of surfactant were investigated. Five test coils were designed and manufactured to study the effect of different parameters on heat transfer and pressure drop. The liquids used in the present study were water and oleyl-dihydroxy-etheyl-amine-oxide (ODEAO, C₂₂H₄₅NO₃ = 371) non-ionic aqua surfactant solution flowing through the annulus side. The inner side Reynolds number range 11,000–27,000 and the annulus side range 5,000–19,000. The results showed that the annulus Nusselt number decreases as annulus curvature ratio increases and increases when number of turns decrease. Moreover, the friction factor increases with the curvature ratio and also increases as number of turns decreases. Both Nusselt number and friction factor decrease when ODEAO concentration increases.     

Transient natural convection along vertical cylinder with Heat and Mass transfer

A numerical solution for the transient natural convection flow over a vertical cylinder under the combined buoyancy effect of heat and mass transfer is presented. The velocity, temperature and concentration profiles, local and average skin-friction, Nusselt number and Sherwood number are shown graphically. It is observed that time taken to reach steady state increases with Schmidt number and decreases as combined buoyancy ratio parameter N increases. Stability and convergence of the finite difference scheme are established. Received on 8 July 1997     

Forced convection of a power-law fluid in a porous channel – numerical solutions

A detailed numerical study of laminar forced convection in a porous channel which contains a fibrous medium saturated with a power-law fluid was performed. Hydrodynamic and heat transfer results are presented for a configuration that has uniform heat flux or uniform temperature heating at the walls. The flow in the porous medium was modeled using the modified Brinkman-Forchheimer-extended Darcy model for power law fluids in which the non-Darcy effects of inertia and boundary were considered. Parametric studies were conducted to examine the effects of Darcy number, power law index, inertia parameter and Prandtl number. The results indicate that when the power law index is decreased, the velocity gradient near the walls increases but these effects are reduced gradually as the Darcy number decreases until the Darcy regime (Da≤10⁻⁶) is reached in which case the effects of power law index become negligible. As the power law index is decreased, the thermal boundary layer thickness decreases significantly only in the non-Darcy regime. Consequently, as the power law index decreases, the fully developed Nusselt number increases considerably in the non-Darcy regime whereas in the Darcy regime the change in Nusselt number is very small. As the Prandtl number increases, the local Nusselt number increases and this effect is more significant for shear thinning fluids (n<1.0). Received on 2 March 1998     

Laboratory investigation and commercial test for rotors-assembled strand applied in smooth tube

In the commercial test for smooth tube inserted with rotors-assembled strand comparing with non-inserted ones on condensers in electric power plant, using water as working fluid, the single-phase pressure drop and heat transfer were measured. It was found difficult to receive reliable and accurate enough data through commercial test. Meanwhile, the single-phase pressure drop and heat transfer in a rotors-assembled strand inserted tube were measured in laboratory, with the tube side Prandtl numbers varying from 5.67 to 5.80 and the tube side Reynolds numbers varying from 21,300 to 72,200. Before that, a validation experiment based on the same smooth tube was carried out to testify the experimental system and the data reduction method, in which fixed mounts were employed to eliminate entrance effects. The Prandtl numbers varied from 5.64 to 5.76 and the Reynolds numbers varied from 19,000 to 56,000 in the tube. The annular side Reynolds numbers remained nearly constant at the value of around 50,000 for all experiments, with the annular side Prandtl numbers varying from 8.02 to 8.22. The experimental results of smooth tube show that employment of fixed mounts leads to a visible bias of friction factor at relative low Reynolds numbers while it hardly affects the Nusselt numbers. On the other hand, experiment for the tube inserted with rotors-assembled strand show remarkable improvement for heat transfer with the Nusselt number increased by 9.764–11.87% and the overall heat transfer coefficient increased by 7.08–7.49% within the range of Reynolds number from about 21,300 to 55,500. Meanwhile, friction factor increases inevitably by 278.1–353.9% within the same range of Reynolds number. Based on through multivariant linear normal regression method, the Reynolds number and Prandtl number dependencies of the Nusselt number and friction factor were determined to be Nu = 0.0031Re^0.9Pr^1.0849 and f = 0.993Re^−0.22.