Forced convection of turbulent flow in triangular ducts with different angles and surface roughnesses

Abstract

The experimental investigations were consisting of two parts. The first part was carried out to study the effect of corner geometry on the steady-state forced convection inside horizontal isosceles triangular ducts with sharp corners. The electrically-heated triangular duct was used to simulate the triangular passage of a plate-fin compact heat exchanger. The isosceles triangular ducts were manufactured with duralumin, and fabricated with the same length of 2.4 m and hydraulic diameter of 0.44 m, but five different apex angles (i.e. θ a =15∘,30∘, 40∘,60∘, and 90∘) respectively. The investigation was performed under turbulent flow condition covering a wide range of Reynolds number (i.e. 7000≤Re D ≤20000). It was found that the best thermal performance is achieved with the apex angle of 60∘. The second part was performed to investigate the effect of surface roughness on the forced convection of the same system. Horizontal equilateral triangular ducts with an apex angle of 60∘ were fabricated with the same length and hydraulic diameter, but different average surface roughnesses of 1.2 m,3.0 m and 11.5 m respectively. It was concluded that the duct with a higher surface roughness will have a better heat transfer performance. Non-dimensional expressions for the determination of the heat transfer coefficient of the triangular ducts with different apex angles and surface roughnesses were also developed.