Flow and Heat Transfer Behaviors in a Two-Pass Rotating Channel with Rib Turbulators using Computational Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

The flow and heat transfer characteristics of three rib geometries: 90°, V-60°, and broken V-60° in a two-pass rotating square channel have been numerically studied. In this study, the ratio of channel length, rib height, rib pitch, and channel radius were all set to 8, 0.1, 10, and 5, respectively. The rotation number was varied from 0 to 0.3 under the Reynolds number of 10,000. The Reynolds stress model was used for calculations. The majority of the heat transfer enhancement on the trailing side (TS) was larger than on the leading side (LS) in the 1st passage, while the enhancement on the TS in the 2nd passage was much lower when compared to the LS. The enhancement in the case of broken V-60° ribs was about 4.1% greater than the enhancement in the case of V-60° and 90° ribs of about 35.2% and 68.9% for without ribs, respectively. However, the enhanced heat transfer came at the expense of a higher-pressure penalty. V-60° ribs had a friction factor that was 5.7% greater than broken V-60° ribs, 13.7% higher than 90° ribs, and 70.5% higher than without ribs. Broken V-60° ribs gave the best overall performance of the designs examined.