Analysis of conjugate heat transfer for forced convective flow through wavy minichannel

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze numerically forced convective conjugate heat transfer characteristics for laminar flow through a wavy minichannel.Design/methodology/approachThe mass and momentum conservation equations for the flow of water in the fluidic domain and the coupled energy conservation equations in both the fluid and solid domain are solved numerically using the finite element method. The exteriors of both the walls are subjected to a uniform heat flux.FindingsThe results reveal that the theoretical model without consideration of the effect of wall thickness always predicts a lower value of average Nusselt number () as compared to the case of conjugate analysis, although it varies with the thickness as well as material of the wall. For the low amplitude of the wall (α = 0.2), the performance factor (PF) becomes very high for Re in the regime of 5 (⩽) Re (⩽) 15. For any geometrical configurations, conjugate heat transfer analysis predicts higher PF as compared to that of nonconjugate analysis.Practical implicationsThe present study finds relevance in several applications, such as solar collectors and heat exchangers used in chemical industries and heating-ventilation and air-conditioning, etc.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, the analysis of combined influences of the thickness and the material of the wall of the channel together with the geometrical parameters of the channel, namely, amplitude and wavelength on the heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics for flow through wavy minichannel in the laminar regime is reported first time in the literature.