The effect of bend angle on pressure drop and flow behavior in a corrugated duct

Abstract

In the present study, the effect of bend angle on pressure drop and flow behavior in a small-diameter corrugated duct is numerically investigated and experimentally validated under a fully developed flow condition. The large eddy simulation, together with the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) method, is employed to study the pressure drop, mean flow pattern, and unsteady flow evolution for a corrugated duct with various bend angles. The results show that the pressure drop exhibits a monotonic increase with increasing bend angle. Specifically, as the bend angle increases from $$0^{\circ }$$ to $$90^{\circ }$$ , the pressure drop of the corrugated duct experiences a striking increase of about 43%. Accordingly, a larger bend angle is found to induce the occurrence of stronger Dean cells or larger swirl intensity downstream the duct bend. Meanwhile, as for larger bend angles, the main turbulent properties of the Dean cells could be, to some extent, governed by the first few POD modes, which appear to be featured with one or a few large-scale vortices. Generally, the larger bend angle causes stronger swirl intensity and wave-like structures, thus rendering severer pressure drop or larger pressure loss coefficient in the corrugated duct.