Numerical Study of Air Forced Convection in a Rectangular Channel Provided With Ribs

Author(s):  
O. Manca ◽  
S. Nardini ◽  
D. Ricci

Heat transfer enhancement technology has the aim to develop more efficient systems as demanded in many applications, like heat exchangers for refrigeration, automotives, process industry, solar heater etc.. Convective heat transfer may be enhanced passively by adopting different solutions. A possibility for increasing the heat transfer is to employ rough surfaces. When a fluid flows in a channel, ribs break the laminar sub-layer and create local turbulence, due to flow separation and reattachment between consecutive ribs, which reduce thermal resistance and augment heat transfer. This behaviour overcomes the effect linked to the increased heat transfer area due to the ribs. However, higher friction losses are expected and turbulence must be created only in the region very close to the heat transferring surface and the core flow should not be unduly disturbed. In this paper a numerical investigation is carried out on air forced convection in a rectangular channel with constant heat flux applied on the bottom and upper external walls. Properties of fluid are considered temperature-dependent and flow regime is turbulent. The investigation is accomplished by means of the commercial code Fluent. A three-dimensional model is developed in order to study the effect of the angle between the fluid flow direction and the ribbed surfaces. In fact, secondary turbulence is promoted in the orthogonal direction to the channel longitudinal axis. Three different inclination angles of the ribbed surfaces have been considered and the channel is provided with rectangular ribs. Simulations have shown that Nusselt numbers as well as the pressure drops increase as the inclination angles increase.

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Singh ◽  
P. K. Panigrahi ◽  
G. Biswas

Abstract A numerical study of rib augmented cooling of turbine blades is reported in this paper. The time-dependent velocity field around a pair of symmetrically placed ribs on the walls of a three-dimensional rectangular channel was studied by use of a modified version of Marker-And-Cell algorithm to solve the unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes and energy equations. The flow structures are presented with the help of instantaneous velocity vector and vorticity fields, FFT and time averaged and rms values of components of velocity. The spanwise averaged Nusselt number is found to increase at the locations of reattachment. The numerical results are compared with available numerical and experimental results. The presence of ribs leads to complex flow fields with regions of flow separation before and after the ribs. Each interruption in the flow field due to the surface mounted rib enables the velocity distribution to be more homogeneous and a new boundary layer starts developing downstream of the rib. The heat transfer is primarily enhanced due to the decrease in the thermal resistance owing to the thinner boundary layers on the interrupted surfaces. Another reason for heat transfer enhancement can be attributed to the mixing induced by large-scale structures present downstream of the separation point.


2019 ◽  
Vol 142 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Digpal Kumar ◽  
B. Premachandran

Abstract In this paper, the details of a numerical study performed for the optimum fin arrangement in a solar air heater with a rectangular fin array attached to the bottom side of the absorber plate have been presented. Results have been presented for various fin sizes and spacing between the fins, while the heat transfer and fluid flow are directed by natural convection. An inclined rectangular channel similar to the dimensions of a typical solar air heater has been considered. Three different fin configurations, namely, continuous long fins for the whole length of the channel, in-line interrupted and staggered interrupted arrangements of fins, have been studied. The present analysis aims to identify the optimum configuration of the fin array for enhanced heat transfer. The spacing between the fins and the height of the fins are varied to obtain an optimum configuration. The numerical simulations are performed for heat flux (q″) ranging from 250 to 750 W/m2 on the absorber plate. The inclination angles of the channel (θ) have been maintained at 15 deg, 30 deg, and 45 deg from the horizontal plane. The results show that with the spacing between fins, S = 5.4 cm performs better in the case of longitudinal continuous fin arrangement. However, a fin spacing of 4.75 cm shows a higher heat transfer in the case of staggered fin configuration. In comparison with nine long uninterrupted fins, using the staggered arrangement with 15 × 10 fins saves up to 33% of fin material.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (10) ◽  
pp. 4649-4659 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali S. Alshomrani ◽  
S. Sivasankaran ◽  
Amer Abdulfattah Ahmed

Purpose This study aims to deal the numerical simulation on buoyant convection and energy transport in an inclined cubic box with diverse locations of the heater and coolers. Design/methodology/approach The left/right walls are cooled partially whereas the other walls are kept adiabatic. In the left/right walls, three different locations of the cooler are examined, whereas heater moves in three locations in the middle of the enclosed box. The governing models are numerically solved using the finite-element method. Findings The simulations are done on several values of the Rayleigh number and cavity inclination angles and different locations of the heater and coolers. The results are presented in the form of streamlines, isosurfaces and Nusselt numbers for different values of parameter involved here. It is recognized that the inclination of the box and the locations of the coolers strongly influence the stream and energy transport inside the enclosed domain. Research limitations/implications The present investigation is conducted for steady, laminar, three-dimensional natural convective flow in a box for different locations of cooler and tilting angles of a cavity. The study might be useful to the design of solar collectors, room ventilation systems and electronic cooling systems. Originality/value This work examines the effects of different locations of cooler and tilting angles of a cavity on convective heat transfer in a 3D cavity. The study is useful for thermal engineering applications.


Solar Energy ◽  
2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Su ◽  
Jane H. Davidson

A three-dimensional model and dimensionless scale analysis of the transient fluid dynamics and heat transfer in an inclined adiabatic water-filled enclosure with an immersed cylindrical cold sink is presented. The geometry represents an integral collector storage system with an immersed heat exchanger. The modeled enclosure has an aspect ratio of 6:1 and is inclined at 30 degrees to the horizontal. The heat exchanger is represented by a constant surface temperature horizontal cylinder positioned near the top of the enclosure. A scale analysis of the transient heat transfer process identifies four temporal periods: conduction, quasi-steady, fluctuating and decay. It also provides general formulations for the transient Nusselt number, and volume averaged water temperature in the enclosure. Insight to the transient fluid and thermal processes is provided by presentation of instantaneous flow streamlines and isotherm contours during each transient period. The flow field consists of two distinct zones. The zone above the cold sink is nearly stagnant. The larger zone below the sink is one of strong mixing and recirculation initiated by the cold plume formed in the boundary layer of the cylindrical sink. Correlations predicted with the model for the transient Nusselt number and the dimensionless volume averaged tank temperature expressed in terms of the initial Rayleigh number compare favorably to prior measured data.


Author(s):  
Xinjun Wang ◽  
Xiaowei Bai ◽  
Jiangbo Wu ◽  
Rui Liu ◽  
Ding Zhu ◽  
...  

By using the CFX software, three-dimensional flow and heat transfer characteristics in rectangular cooling ducts with in-line and staggered array pin-fins of gas turbine blade trailing edge were numerically simulated. The effects of in-line and staggered arrays of pin-fins, flow Reynolds number as well as density of cylindrical pin-fins in flow direction on heat transfer characteristics were analyzed. Both in the cases of in-line and staggered arrays of pin-fins, the results show that the pin-fin surface averaged Nusselt number increases with the increasing of Reynolds number. In the case of the same Reynolds number, the mean Nusselt number of pin-fin surface decreased with the increasing of X/D (the ratio of streamwise pin-pitch to pin-fin diameter) value. The Nusselt number increases gradually before the first pin-fin row and then reached the fully developed value at fourth or fifth row. The pin-fin Nusselt number at flow direction is larger than that at back flow direction. Along the height direction of pin-fin, the Nusselt number in middle area is larger.


2014 ◽  
Vol 721 ◽  
pp. 174-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Lai

This paper presents a heat exchanger of louver baffle, the establishment of a three-dimensional model, research by numerical simulation of flow and heat transfer performance of the heat exchanger baffles different louver angle, and analyzes its local temperature, and evaluated for its overall performance. The results show that louver baffle heat exchanger avoids the existence of traditional segmental baffle heat exchanger problem after baffle local flow dead zone; compared with conventional segmental baffle heat exchanger, louver baffle heat exchanger greatly reduces the heat exchanger shell side pressure drop; louver baffle heat exchanger in the unit pressure drop coefficients are higher than the segmental baffle heat exchanger, and with the baffle plate angle increases, with significant energy savings.


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