Research on heat transfer characteristics of fractal-generated turbulence based on large eddy simulation

Abstract

Turbulence plays an important role in the fields of heat and mass transfer and enhanced chemical reaction. In order to explore the effect of grid-generated turbulence on flow heat transfer, in this paper, three different fractal grid structures with the same blocking ratio ?, effective mesh size Meff and thickness ratio tr= t max/t min (Case1: The grid cross-section is a triangle, Case2: the grid cross-section is an inverted triangle, Case3:the grid cross-section is square, Case4:no grid) and without the grid were simulated based on large eddy simulation. The aim of this simulation is to explain the evolution characteristics and heat transfer mechanism of turbulent flow field under the four cases. The results show that, in the same initial condition, Case 2 can generate the highest turbulence intensity and the feature of heat transfer on the cylindrical surface is more uniform. In Case 3, the boundary-layer in the flow field is separated earlier, and more vortices are excited to enhance the heat transfer than other cases in the boundary-layer region. The surface average Nusselt number is 1.3 times than that of Case 4.