Simultaneous heat and mass transfer under unsteady mixed convection along a vertical slender cylinder embedded in a porous medium

Unsteady laminar mixed convection flow (combined free and forced convection flow) along a vertical slender cylinder embedded in a porous medium under the combined buoyancy effect of thermal and species diffusion has been studied. The effect of the permeability of the medium as well as the magnetic field has been included in the analysis. The partial differential equations with three independent variables governing the flow have been solved numerically using a implicit finite difference scheme in combination with the quasilinearization technique. Computations have been carried out for accelerating, decelerating and oscillatory free stream velocity distributions. The effects of the permeability of the medium, buoyancy forces, transverse curvature and magnetic field on skin friction, heat transfer and mass transfer have been studied. It is found that the effect of free stream velocity distribution is more pronounced on the skin friction than on the heat and mass transfer. The permeability and magnetic parameters increase the skin friction, but reduce the heat and mass transfer. The skin friction, heat transfer and mass transfer are enhanced due to the buoyancy forces and curvature parameter. The heat transfer is strongly dependent on the viscous dissipation parameter and the Prandtl number, and the mass transfer on the Schmidt number.     

Flow and heat transfer characteristics behind vortex generators - A benchmark dataset

The velocity field and wall heat transfer distributions for internal flows in the presence of longitudinal vortices have been experimentally investigated. A transient method based on temperature measurement with thermochromic liquid crystals was used to obtain the heat transfer distribution behind a tetrahedral, full-body vortex generator. With the focus on the longitudinal vortices, the flow field was captured by a three-component particle image velocimetry system. Mean values as well as velocity fluctuations have been assessed. The combined investigation of heat transfer and flow field describes in detail the physical conditions. For a channel Reynolds number of 300,000 a dataset has been obtained, which can be used for validation of numerical models.     

Self-similar solution of the unsteady mixed convection flow in the stagnation point region of a rotating sphere

An analysis is performed to present a new self-similar solution of unsteady mixed convection boundary layer flow in the forward stagnation point region of a rotating sphere where the free stream velocity and the angular velocity of the rotating sphere vary continuously with time. It is shown that a self-similar solution is possible when the free stream velocity varies inversely with time. Both constant wall temperature and constant heat flux conditions have been considered in the present study. The system of ordinary differential equations governing the flow have been solved numerically using an implicit finite difference scheme in combination with a quasilinearization technique. It is observed that the surface shear stresses and the surface heat transfer parameters increase with the acceleration and rotation parameters. For a certain value of the acceleration parameter, the surface shear stress in x-direction vanishes and due to further reduction in the value of the acceleration parameter, reverse flow occurs in the x–component of the velocity profiles. The effect of buoyancy parameter is to increase the surface heat transfer rate for buoyancy assisting flow and to decrease it for buoyancy opposing flow. For a fixed buoyancy force, heating by constant heat flux yields a higher value of surface heat transfer rate than heating by constant wall temperature.     

Mixed convection flow over a vertical wedge embedded in a highly porous medium

 The steady mixed convection flow over a vertical wedge with a magnetic field embedded in a porous medium has been investigated. The effects of the permeability of the medium, surface mass transfer and viscous dissipation on the flow and temperature fields have been included in the analysis. The coupled nonlinear partial differential equations governing the flow field have been solved numerically using the Keller box method. The skin friction and heat transfer are found to increase with the parameters characterizing the permeability of the medium, buoyancy force, magnetic field and pressure gradient. However the effect of the permeability and magnetic field on the heat transfer is very small. The heat transfer increases with the Prandtl number, but the skin friction decreases. The buoyancy force which assists the forced convection flow causes an overshoot in the velocity profiles. Both the skin friction and heat transfer increase with suction and the effect of injection is just the reverse. Received on 21 May 1999     

Heat transfer and interfacial drag in countercurrent steam-water stratified flow

Local condensation heat transfer coefficients and interfacial shear stresses have been measured for countercurrent stratified flow of steam and subcooled water in rectangular channels over a wide range of inclination angles (4–87°) at two aspect ratios. Dimensionless correlations for the interfacial friction factor have been developed that show that it is a function of the liquid Reynolds number only. Empirical correlations of the heat transfer coefficient, based upon the bulk flow properties, have also been set up for the whole body of data encompassing the different inclination angles and aspect ratios. These indicate that the Froude number as a dimensionless gas velocity is a better correlating parameter than the gas Reynolds number. As an alternative approach, a simple dimensionless relationship for the beat transfer coefficient was obtained by analogy between heat and momentum transfer through the interface. Finally, a turbulence-centered model has been modified by using measured interfacial parameters for the turbulent velocity and length scales, resulting in good agreement with the data.     

Experiments and homogeneous turbulence model of boiling flowin narrow channels

The boiling heat transfer experiments have been carried out in vertical narrow annular channels with pure water. A two-dimensional homogeneous turbulence model of boiling flow has been developed and solved numerically to yield pressure gradient, and velocity, thermal and turbulence fields, together with local heat transfer coefficient along the length of the tube. Predictions are compared with the data of experiments and agreed well with it. The model results show that the heat transfer coefficient increases as the gap size decreases in annular channels. This model can be used to predict heat transfer of boiling flow in narrow channels.     

Steady mixed convection stagnation-point flow of upper convected Maxwell fluids with magnetic field

The steady MHD mixed convection flow of a viscoelastic fluid in the vicinity of two-dimensional stagnation point with magnetic field has been investigated under the assumption that the fluid obeys the upper-convected Maxwell (UCM) model. Boundary layer theory is used to simplify the equations of motion, induced magnetic field and energy which results in three coupled non-linear ordinary differential equations which are well-posed. These equations have been solved by using finite difference method. The results indicate the reduction in the surface velocity gradient, surface heat transfer and displacement thickness with the increase in the elasticity number. These trends are opposite to those reported in the literature for a second-grade fluid. The surface velocity gradient and heat transfer are enhanced by the magnetic and buoyancy parameters. The surface heat transfer increases with the Prandtl number, but the surface velocity gradient decreases.     

Heat transfer enhancement for laminar natural convection along a vertical plate due to sub-millimeter-bubble injection

Sub-millimeter-bubble injection is one of the most promising techniques for enhancing heat transfer for the laminar natural convection of liquids. However, flow and heat transfer characteristics for laminar natural convection of water with sub-millimeter bubbles have not yet been fully understood. The purpose of this study is to experimentally clarify the effects of sub-millimeter-bubble injection on the laminar natural convection of water along a heated vertical plate. The use of thermocouples and a particle tracking velocimetry (PTV) technique are applied to temperature and velocity measurements, respectively. The temperature measurement shows that the ratio of the heat transfer coefficient with sub-millimeter-bubble injection to that without injection increases with an increase in the bubble flow rate or a decrease in the wall heat flux and that the ratio ranges from 1.35 to 1.85. Moreover, it is concluded from simultaneous measurement of temperature and velocity that the heat transfer enhancement is directly affected by flow modification due to bubbles rising near the heated vertical plate.     

Characteristics of air and water velocity fields during natural convection

Air and water velocity fields have been simulated during natural convection, using a two-dimensional volume of fluid (VOF) model. The results have shown that during unstable thermal stratification, the root-mean-square (RMS) airside velocities are an order of magnitude higher than the RMS waterside velocities, whereas, during the stable thermal stratification, the velocity magnitudes are comparable for air and water sides. Furthermore, the magnitude of the air velocity changed more rapidly with the change in the bulk air–water temperature difference than the water velocity, indicating that the air velocities are more sensitive to the bulk air and water temperature difference than the water velocities. A physical model of the heat and mass transfer across the air–water interface is defined. According to this model, the vortices on the air and water sides play an important role in enhancing the heat and mass transfer. Due to the significance of the flow velocities in the transport process, it has been proposed that the correlations for the heat and mass transfer during natural convection should be improved by incorporating the flow velocity as a parameter.     

Metal Foam Heat Exchangers for Heat Transfer Augmentation from a Cylinder in Cross-Flow

A numerical study has been conducted to examine the heat transfer from a metal foam-wrapped solid cylinder in cross-flow. Effects of the key parameters including the free stream velocity and characteristics of metal foam such as porosity, permeability, and form drag coefficient on heat and fluid flow are examined. Being a determining factor in pressure drop and heat transfer increment, the porous layer thickness is changed systematically to observe that there is an optimum layer thickness beyond which the heat transfer does not improve while the pressure drop continues to increase. This has been verified by the application of Bejan’s Intersection of Asymptotes method. Results have been compared to those of a finned-tube heat exchanger to observe much higher heat transfer rate with reasonable excess pressure drop leading to a higher area goodness factor for metal foam-wrapped cylinder.     

Heat dispersion in stationary mixed convection flow about horizontal surfaces in porous media

An analysis has been performed to study the influence of velocity dependent dispersion on transverse heat transfer in mixed convection flow above a horizontal wall of prescribed temperature in a saturated porous medium. The Boussinesq approximation and boundary layer analysis were used to numerically obtain gravity affected temperature and velocity distributions within the frames of Darcy's law and a total thermal diffusivity tensor comprising both of constant coefficient heat conduction and velocity proportional mechanical heat dispersion. Dependending on Pe_∞, the molecular Peclét number basing on the effective thermal diffusivity and the velocity of the oncoming flow, density coupling has distinct influences on heat transfer rates between the wall surface and the porous medium flow region. For small Peclét numbers, when heat conduction is the prevailing mechanism, wall heat fluxes are the higher the larger the density difference between the oncoming and the near wall fluid is. The opposite is true for larger Peclét numbers, when mechanical heat dispersion is the main cause of heat spreading. For Pe_∞ tending to infinity these wall heat fluxes approach finite maximum values in the total heat diffusivity model, they grow beyond any limit if only constant coefficient heat conduction is considered. Thus, the inclusion of mechanical heat dispersion effects yields physically more realistic predictions. Received on 18 September 1996     

Experimental and numerical study on flow characteristics and heat transfer of an oscillating jet in a channel

A fluidic oscillator can produce self-induced and self-sustaining oscillating jet by fluid supply without moving parts. This device has attracted research interest in heat and mass transfer enhancement in recent years. In the current study, a double-feedback fluidic oscillator was numerically investigated based on three-dimensional unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations (3D-URANS) while the operating fluid is an incompressible flow. Then, the results were validated with experimental data by two-dimensional time-resolved particle image velocimetry (2D-TR-PIV) and thermographic phosphor thermometry (TPT) for the velocity and temperature field, respectively. A grid sensitivity study was done by comparison of instantaneous and time-averaged flow fields. Additionally, the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) method was used to find the phase information of the oscillating jet, and fast Fourier transform (FFT) analysis was used to find the frequency of the oscillating jet to validate the numerical results. The effect of the working fluid was also studied. Finally, in order to determine the effect of the Reynolds number on heat transfer enhancement, the Q-criterion was calculated to provide detailed insight into the oscillating mechanism. The results show that the non-dimensional frequency of oscillation is independent of either the working fluid or mass flow rate. Additionally, for a given fluid, increasing Re causes strong vortices and increases the frequency of oscillation. However, the convection heat transfer did not change significantly when varying the mass flow rate because the convection velocity of vortices increases as the mass flow rate is enhanced. A comparison with a free jet reveals that the oscillating jet in a channel is useful in terms of covering a larger area.     

Unsteady flow with heat and mass transfer due to impingement of slot jet on an inclined plate

The unsteady laminar incompressible boundary layer flow due to a two-dimensional slot jet on a flat plate at an angle of attack has been studied. The unsteadiness in the flow field is due to the free stream velocity distribution or wall temperature (concentration) which varies with time. The governing partial differential equations in primitive variables have been solved numerically using an implicit finite-difference scheme in combination with the quasilinearization technique. The effect of the variation of the free stream velocity distribution with time is found to be more pronounced on the skin friction than on the heat or mass transfer. The Prandtl number and the variation of the wall temperature with time strongly affect the heat transfer. Similarly, the Schmidt number and the variation of the concentration at the wall with time strongly affect the mass transfer. Beyond a certain critical value of the viscous dissipation parameter, the plate gets heated instead of being cooled.     

Periodic flow and heat transfer using unstructured meshes

A numerical scheme has been developed for computing fluid flow and heat transfer in periodically repeating geometries. Unstructured solution-adaptive meshes are used in a cell-centred finite volume formulation. The SIMPLE algorithm is used for pressure‒velocity coupling. For periodic flows the static pressure is decomposed into a periodic component and one that varies linearly in the streamwise direction. The latter is computed from the imposition of overall mass balance at the periodic boundary. A subiteration between the periodic pressure correction equation and the correction to the linear component is used. For heat transfer a formulation using the physical rather than the scaled temperature is employed. The scheme is applied to both laminar and turbulent computations of periodic flow and heat transfer in a variety of heat exchanger geometries; comparison with published computations and experimental data is found to be satisfactory. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of buoyancy and thermophysical property variations on the flow of supercritical carbon dioxide

The flow and heat transfer behaviours of fluids at supercritical pressure have been studied using direct numerical simulations (DNS), in which one or more thermal properties are artificially frozen to discern the various physical mechanisms from each other so as to better understand the complex phenomena. Different from previous similar studies on this topic, this study focuses on the axial flow development resulted from the large variations of thermophysical properties. The contribution of the flow inertia has been quantified by analysing the momentum balance for each case studied, which has been found to be significant throughout the entire length of the pipe in cases when buoyancy is considered. The effect of the inertia on momentum in turn impacts on turbulence production, generally delaying flow laminarisation. Such an influence of flow development is non-trivial and cannot be omitted in flow analysis and heat transfer calculations. This suggests that the results of simplified analyses based on a spatially developed flow cannot be directly applied to such flows despite they can be very useful in developing fundamental understanding of the physics. Similarly, this also explains that in some cases, buoyancy parameters based on local flow quantities cannot describe heat transfer deterioration accurately. The effect of variable viscosity alone can cause turbulence reduction by flattening the velocity profile, but it will not turn the velocity profile to an M-shape, which can only be achieved by buoyancy.     

Unsteady mixed convection boundary layer flow over a vertical cone with non-uniform slot suction (injection)

The non-similar solution of an unsteady mixed convection laminar boundary layer flow over a vertical cone in the presence of non-uniform surface mass transfer through slot has been obtained while the axis of cone is inline with the flow. The unsteadiness is caused by the time dependent free stream velocity. The governing boundary layer equations are transformed into a non-dimensional form by a group of non-similar transformations. The resulting coupled non-linear partial differential equations have been solved numerically by the combination of quasi-linearization technique and an implicit finite difference scheme. Numerical computations are performed for different values of the parameters to display the velocity and temperature profiles graphically. Both accelerating and decelerating free stream velocities are considered. Numerical results are reported to display the effects of non-uniform single and double slot suction (injection) on skin friction and heat transfer coefficients at the wall. Further, the effects of Prandtl number, buoyancy and mass transfer (suction or injection) parameters at different stream-wise locations for various times on velocity and temperature profiles, and on skin friction and heat transfer coefficients are also presented in this paper.     

Flow statistics in plate and shell heat exchangers measured with PTV

Particle tracking velocimetry (PTV) measurements have provided inner flow features within plate and shell heat exchangers (PSHE). Measurements have been performed at Reynolds number 3450, based on the bulk velocity and the PSHE geometry at the channel mid-section. Particle trajectories have been measured. Organized flow features prevail in the channel inlet, whereas a highly turbulent flow field occurs at the channel outlet. A recirculation zone characterizes the turbulent flow field at the outlet. Gravity has been shown not to affect flow and heat transfer at this Reynolds number. The mean velocity profile is non-uniform at a given channel cross section. Friction factors developed for Plate Heat Exchanger (PHE) applied to the PSHE geometry with the bulk velocity at the channel mid-plane were found appropriate for design purposes. Furthermore, friction factor, Nusselt number and forces due to shear stresses were locally estimated for the whole channel area. Potential break-down locations have been identified.     

Free convection heat and mass transfer with Hall current, Joule heating and thermal diffusion

A boundary layer analysis has been presented to study the combined effects of viscous dissipation, Joule heating, transpiration, heat source, thermal diffusion and Hall current on the hydromagnetic free convection and mass transfer flow of an electrically conducting, viscous, homogeneous, incompressible fluid past an infinite vertical porous plate. The governing partial differential equations of the hydromagnetic free convective boundary layer flow are reduced to non-linear ordinary differential equations and solutions for primary velocity, secondary velocity, temperature and concentration field are obtained for large suction. The expressions for the skin-friction, the heat transfer and the mass transfer are also derived. The results of the study are discussed through graphs and tables for different numerical values of the parameters entered into the equations governing the flow.     

Non-isothermal Poiseuille flow and its stability in a vertical annulus filled with porous medium

In this article, the non-isothermal Poiseuille flow and its stability in a vertical annulus filled with porous medium are investigated. The flow is induced by external pressure gradient and buoyancy force due to linearly varying inner wall temperature. The non-Darcy model along with Boussinesq approximation has been used. The Chebyshev spectral-collocation method has been adopted to solve the governing equations related to basic flow as well as its stability. Special attention is given to understand the effect of curvature parameter of the annular geometry on the flow, heat transfer rate and stability of the stably stratified flow. A comprehensive numerical experiment indicates that reducing gap between two concentric cylinders decreases the heat transfer rate as well as the maximum magnitude of the flow velocity. It stabilizes the flow which has been shown through stability analysis. Furthermore, appropriateness of the Forchheimer term in the momentum equation has been examined by investigating the flow regime as well as its stability in the presence and absence of Forchheimer term. Finally, it has been found from the energy analysis at critical point that the thermal-buoyant instability is the only mode of instability for the considered range of different parameters.     

Investigation on periodically developed heat transfer in a specially enhanced channel

The heat transfer and the flow resistance in the channel with periodic flow-inclining fins attached on the wall have been studied numerically and experimentally on the characteristics in the periodically fully developed flow region. The effect of the fin angle from 0° to 23.2° has been verified on the thermal performance and the flow resistance. The results reveal that the heat transfer is obviously enhanced for both the laminar and the turbulent flow. Analyses also show that the enhancement is accordant to the improvement of the field synergy between the flow velocity and the temperature gradient. Assessments under the identical pump power consumption show that the fin of β = 16.0° is the best in most cases. The most enhancement ratio fall in between 2 and 7.5. The conductivity of the fin material has also been demonstrated to be an important factor to the thermal performance.