Conjugate Effect on the Thermal Characteristics of Air Impinging Jet

Abstract

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) investigation to determine the conjugate heat transfer (CHT) effect on the stagnation and local thermal characteristics due to an impinging process has been carried out in this study using STAR-CCM+ - Siemens PLM commercial code. The transient Navier-Stokes’s equations are numerically solved using a finite volume approach with k-ω SST eddy viscosity as the turbulence model. A fully developed circular air jet with different Reynolds numbers, impinging vertically onto a heated flat disc with different metals, thicknesses, and boundary heat fluxes are employed in the current study to examine the thermal characteristics and provide an enhanced picture for the convection mechanism that used in jet cooling technology. It is found that the thermal characteristics are influenced by the thermal conductivity and thickness of the target upon using air as a cooling jet. The CHT process enhances the local convective heat transfer at the fluid-solid interface due to the variation in transverse and axial conductive heat transfer inside the metal up to a certain redial extent from the stagnation region compared to the process with no CHT. The extent of the radial enhancement depends on the thermal conductivity of the metal. For a given thermal conductivity, the CHT process acts to increase the temperature and convective heat flux of the stagnation region as the metal thickness increases.