Graetz problem in curved pipes with uniform wall heat flux

Abstract

The thermal entrance region heat transfer problem (Graetz problem) for fully developed laminar flow in curved pipes with uniform wall heat flux is approached by an alternating direction implicit method for Dean numbers ranging from 0 to an order of 100. The effects of using several different finite-difference approximations for convective terms due to secondary flow in the energy equation on heat transfer result are studied. The effect of secondary flow on developing temperature field in the thermal entrance region is studied by considering the temperature profiles, isothermals and axial distributions of average wall temperature and bulk temperature. Heat transfer results are presented for Pr = 0.1, 0.7, 10 and 500.