The computation of turbulent flow through stationary and rotating U-bends with rib-roughened surfaces

Abstract

This study focuses on the numerical computation of turbulent flow through stationary and rotating U-ducts of square cross-section, with rib-roughened inner and outer walls along the straight sections. Square-sectioned ribs, normal to the flow direction are employed in a staggered arrangement. The rib height-to-diameter ratio is 0.1 and the rib pitch-to-rib height ratio is 10. The bend curvature ratio (R c /D) is 0.65 and the flow Reynolds number is 100000. The duct rotates about an axis parallel to that of curvature, at a rotation number (R 0 ≡ ± 0.2). The preliminary computations presented suggest that grid requirements can be significantly reduced, through a combination of body fitted grids and high-order convective discretisation schemes in all transport equations. The presence of regions of flow separation, necessitates the use of low Re second-moment closures