The Effect of the Corrugation Rib Angle of Attack on the Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer Characteristics Inside Corrugated Ribbed Passage

Abstract

Heat transfer enhancement using corrugated ribbed passages is one of the common enhancement techniques inside heat exchangers. The present study investigated numerically the effect of the corrugation rib angle of attack on the fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics inside the corrugated ribbed passage. The commercial computational fluid dynamics code PHOENICS 2006 was used to perform the numerical analysis by solving the Navier–Stokes and energy equations. The experimental part of this study was used only to validate the numerical model, and a good agreement between the experimental results and the model was obtained. The flow field characteristics and heat transfer enhancement were numerically investigated for different corrugated rib angles of attack as follows: 90 deg, 105 deg, 120 deg, 135 deg, and 150 deg. The corrugation rib angle of attack has a great effect on the reversed flow zone, the flow reattachments, and the enhancement of the heat transfer coefficient through the duct. The recommended rib angle of attack, which gives the optimum thermohydraulic performance, is found to be between 135 deg and 150 deg. The value of the maximum thermohydraulic performance is about 3.6 for the 150 deg rib angle of attack at a Reynolds number equal to 10,000.