Mixed convection heat transfer in rotating vertical elliptic ducts

Abstract

This paper presents an investigation into the solution of laminar mixed convective heat transfer in vertical elliptic ducts containing an upward flowing fluid rotating about a parallel axis. The coupled system of normalized conservation equations are solved using a power series expansion in ascending powers of rotational Rayleigh Number, Rat - a measure of the rate of heating and rotation as the perturbation parameter. The results show the influence of rotational Rayleigh number, Rat and modified Reynolds number, Rem on the temperature and axial velocity fields. The effect of Prandtl number, Pr, in the range 1 to 5, and eccentricity, e on the peripheral local Nusselt number are also reported. The mean Nusselt number is observed to be highest at duct eccentricity, e=0 for a given Prandtl number. However, results indicate insensitivity of peripheral local Nusselt number to Prandtl number at eccentricity, e=0.866, which is an important result to a designer of rotating vertical heat exchanger. The effect of eccentricity on the friction coefficient is also presented. The parameter space for the overall validity of the results presented is Rat RemPr<820.