On heat transfer of weakly compressible power-law flows

Abstract

This paper completes a numerical research on steady momentum and heat transfer in power-law fluids in a channel. Weakly compressible laminar fluids are studied with no slip at the walls and uniform wall temperatures. The full governing equations are solved by continuous finite element method. Three thermal conductivity models are adopted in this paper, that is, constant thermal conductivity model, thermal conductivity varying as a function of temperature gradient, and a modified temperature-gradient-dependent thermal conductivity model. The results are compared with each other and the physical characteristics for values of parameters are also discussed in details. It is shown that the velocity curve from the solution becomes straight at higher power-law index. The effects of Reynolds numbers on the dilatant fluid and the pseudo-plastic look similar to each other and their trends can be easily predicted. Furthermore, for different models, the temperature curves also present pseudo-plastic and dilatant properties.