Numerical Simulations of Natural Convective Heat Transfer in Vertical Concentric and Eccentric Annular Channels

Abstract

Natural convective heat transfer in a concentric and a highly eccentric, vertical, open ended, annular channel has been investigated numerically. The inner to outer diameter ratio was 0.61, and the height to hydraulic diameter ratio was 18:1. Three heating modes were considered, all having uniform heat flux applied to one or both of the two walls, while the unheated wall was kept adiabatic. The wall temperature distribution, mass flow rate, and midchannel Nusselt number for the case with both walls heated were found to be in excellent agreement with available experimental results. For the same heating conditions, the heat transfer rate in the concentric annular channel was found to be greater than that in the highly eccentric channel, while the mass flow rate was higher in the eccentric channel. A novel finding for the eccentric channel was that the location of maximum velocity was intermediate between the narrow and wide gaps. Another novel observation, which was attributed to radiation effects, was that the fluid temperature in the wide gap region was lower than that of an adiabatic wall. The paper contains additional observations that would be of interest to designers of systems containing annular channels.