Experimental study on flow and local heat/mass transfer characteristics inside corrugated duct

Abstract

The present study investigates the flow and heat/mass transfer characteristics of wavy duct for the primary surface heat exchanger application. Local heat/mass transfer coefficients on the corrugated duct side walls are measured using a naphthalene sublimation technique. The flow visualization technique and a numerical analysis using a commercial code, FLUENT, are used to understand the overall flow structures inside the duct. The corrugation angle of the wavy duct is 145° and the duct aspect ratio is 7.3. The Reynolds numbers, based on the duct hydraulic diameter, vary from 100 to 5000. The results show that complex secondary flows and transfer processes exist inside the wavy duct resulting in non-uniform distributions of the heat/mass transfer coefficients on the duct side walls. At low Reynolds numbers ( Re ⩽ 1000), relatively high heat/mass transfer regions like cell shapes appear on both pressure- and suction-side walls due to the secondary vortex flows called Taylor–Görtler vortices perpendicular to the main flow direction. However, at high Reynolds numbers ( Re > 1000), these secondary flow cells disappear and boundary layer type flow develop on pressure-side wall. On the suction-side wall, high heat/mass transfer region appears by the flow reattachment. The average heat/mass transfer coefficients are higher than those of the smooth circular duct and pressure drop increases due to the secondary flows inside wavy duct.