Laminar flow in elliptic ducts with and without central circular cores for constant wall temperature

Abstract

The Galerkin integral method is applied to calculate the Nusselt number for laminar flow in elliptic ducts imposed by constant wall temperature at the boundaries. The value of C fRe are also computed for elliptic ducts with and without central circular core. The flluid is assumed to be hydrodynamically fully developed laminar, and Newtonian. The thermally fully developed temperature can be obtained when the local Nusselt number approaches asymptotically to constant value. A six-term solution provides accurate predictions for the value of Nu T in elliptic duct having a larger aspect ratio b/a. However, for duct with a smaller aspect ratio, a larger number of basis functions must be used.