An investigation on the forced convection heat transfer in the gap of two rotating disks with laminar inflow

Abstract

AbstractThis study presents forced convection in the gap between two rotating disks with the laminar radial inward flow. The disk surfaces are held at a constant temperature different from the temperature of the fluid flowing. The disks' surfaces may also receive a heat flux. The temperature of the fluid flowing in the gap is predicted by solving the coupled equations of momentum, energy, and continuity in cylindrical coordinate numerically. The finite difference method is used to discretize the energy equation into nonlinear algebraic equations. The tridiagonal matrix algorithm is employed to solve the resulting algebraic equations. Predominantly, throughflow Reynolds number, rotational Reynolds number, gap ratio, speed ratio, and Peclet number are the parameters that affect the temperature distribution for the fixed disk temperature and for the heat flux boundary conditions. The Nusselt number compares reasonably well with the numerical results of other investigators. The heat flow into the fluid is higher for corotating disks than for contrarotating disks for both constant temperatures as well as heat flux boundary conditions. This is the first investigation that predicts temperature distribution due to forced convection in the gap of two rotating disks with laminar inflow.