Effect of rotation on forced convection in wavy wall channels

Abstract

In this paper, flow field and heat transfer performance in stationary and rotating wavy channels with different shapes were numerically investigated. Three different geometries were generated through three different values of phase-shift angles of ∅= 0, 90 and 180° between the two opposite wavy walls. A cell-centred finite-volume technique was employed to solve the three-dimensional governing equations based on the SIMPLE algorithm technique. Besides, the Menter k−−ω SST turbulence model was used to simulate the turbulent flow in the current study. The wavelength and wave amplitude of the channel examined were Lw=20 mm and a = 2 mm, respectively. Numerical simulations were carried out over a range of design and operating conditions including the phase-shift angle of ∅= 0–180°, Reynolds number of Re=1,000–10,000, and rotating speed of Ω= 0–1000 rpm. The results showed that the surface-averaged Nusselt number increases as Re increases for all shapes of the wavy channel, however, at the expense of the raised pressure losses. Also, the wavy channel with a phase-shift of ∅= 0 deg showed the highest enhancement in the performance of heat transfer followed by that of ∅=90 and 180 deg, respectively. The rotation had a strong impact on the flow field and heat transfer performance. With the increase of rotating speed, lower wall heat transfer coefficient significantly increased, while the upper wall heat transfer coefficient exhibited a slight increase, indicating that those three different geometries of the wavy channels had a good versatility at various values of rotating speeds. The numerical results were compared with those available in the literature, and the results were in a good agreement.