Turbulent Forced Convection Research Articles

Thermal management and power generation characteristics in a bifurcating channel by using a piezo-embedded inclined elastic fin assembly during turbulent forced convection of ternary nanofluid

Numerous engineering systems use piezoelectric energy harvesters (PE-EHs), which have several benefits including low cost, simplicity, better power density, and ease of installation. They can be used in different applications for energy harvesting and different external sources such as wind and vortex induced vibrations due to fluid–structure interaction can be utilized. This study uses a unique elastic fin PE/EH assembly for power generation, thermal management, and flow control in a bifurcating channel. Performance of the system is improved by using ternary nanofluid in the channel cooling system. Galerkin weighted residual FEM with ALE is used as the solution method. The convective heat transfer performance and power generation by the EH device are investigated in relation to the varying following parameters: Reynolds number (Re between 10000 and 30000), PE-EH inclination (γ between 0 and 60), fin horizontal location (xf between −H and H), and nanoparticle loading in the base fluid (ϕ between 0 and 0.03). The vortex size and distribution near the junction are significantly influenced by the fin inclination and horizontal location of the fin assembly within the bifurcating channel. When varying other parameters of interest, using nanofluid at the highest loading results in significant deflection of the fin assembly and power generation within the PE-EH. Enhancement factors (EFs) for power generation becomes 15.6 and 39.8 when cases of lowest and highest Re are compared with pure fluid and nanofluid while they are 2.93 and 3.38 for thermal performance improvements. Fin inclination of γ=30 is found as the optimum inclination for achieving the highest power from the assembly. Higher inclination of elastic fin/PE-EH assembly results in cooling performance deterioration while average Nu reduces by a factor of 2.94 by varying inclination from γ=30 to γ=60 with nanofluid. For power generation, effects of using nanofluid with varying inclination is significant and EF becomes 252 from γ=0 to γ=30. There are opposing tendencies for the device’s power generation and cooling performance enhancement when the fin’s horizontal placement is changed. EF for average Nu is 7.25 for varying fin location. As the loading of nanoparticle inside the base fluid increases, the average Nu and generated power exhibit non-linear rising characteristics. Polynomial type correlations are provided for the average Nu and power from the device by varying elastic fin assembly inclination and nanoparticle solid volume fraction. Potential of using hybrid nanofluid in PE-EH embedded thermo-fluid system is shown. The design, development, and optimization of self-sufficient power production systems that may be used to various thermo-fluid systems, such as electronic cooling and thermal control in a range of heat transfer devices, may benefit from the findings.

Effects of corrugation on convective heat transfer and power generation in a wavy walled triangular cavity equipped with inclined elastic fin and piezo-energy harvester assembly

Piezoelectric energy harvesters are one of the energy conversion technologies that can be used to convert a variety of external sources, including wind, fluid motion, and vibrations, into electrical energy. This work suggests a novel wall corrugation design in addition to an elastic fin piezo assembly arrangement for power generation and thermal management in a triangular cavity during turbulent forced convection of air. Using the finite element method with ALE, the analysis is conducted for different values of fin inclination (γ between 0 and 60), corrugation amplitude (Af between 0.01H and 0.06H), corrugation frequency (Nf between 1 and 20) and fin distance from the mid-point of the inclined wall in wall direction. The average Nusselt number (Nu) and generated power (PW) show a non-linear increasing trend with increasing fin tilt. Average Nu increment factor becomes 5.17 with the highest fin inclination while the power increments become 11.6 and 4.46 when rising inclination from 30 to 45 and from 45 to 60. The generated power rises with higher corrugation amplitude and wave number. However, increasing the wave number results in thermal performance degradation. Increment of average Nu becomes 1.17 with highest corrugation amplitude while it declines by a factor of 10.3 at the highest wave number. Power enhancement factors of 5.73 and 2.32 are obtained by increasing the corrugation amplitude from Af = 0.0714H to Af = 0.1786H and from Af = 0.1786H to Af = 0.2143H. When fin positions sf = 0.7143H and sf = -0.7143H are compared with the case of fin location at sf = 0, the power increment factors become 12.27 and 4.76, respectively. For the power produced by the piezo device, a polynomial type correlation is suggested by adjusting the parameters of the corrugated wall.

Investigation of thermal performance at forced convection in plate-fin heat sink

Interest in studies on more effective and faster heat dissipation in microelectronic equipment has increased in recent years due to the cooling area and equipment size limitations. This study attempts to focus on the effect of different fin geometry parameters on pure forced convection heat transfer. Total surface areas of plate-fin heat sinks were kept constant and were carried out for ten different heat sinks in these analyses. The Ansys-Fluent 2023 R1 commercial package program was used to perform the thermal and hydrodynamic performance analyses. Three-dimensional turbulent forced convection heat transfer analyses at heat sinks were subjected to fluid flow (500≤Re≤3000). The effects of gap between fins, fin thickness, fin height, fin number, and air velocity on the heat transfer and the friction factor were obtained and discussed for heat sinks. It was observed that there was a maximum difference of 0.27 % between the maximum temperatures obtained as a result of this analysis and the experimental study results in the literature. Among the ten cases examined (from Case 1 to Case 10), the highest heat transfer coefficient was obtained in Case 2 (number of fins 6, gap between fins 4 mm, fin height 17 mm and fin thickness 2 mm) at Re = 3000. The heat transfer coefficient of Case 2 was 41.29 % higher than the heat transfer coefficient of Case 4 at Re = 3000; though, the friction factor of Case 2 is 55.93 % higher than Case 4. Also, a useful correlation for the heat transfer coefficient was generated for the fin geometric parameters and Reynolds number.

Numerical analysis of a parallel triple-jet of liquid-sodium in a turbulent forced convection regime

In the present study, we have applied a combined wall-resolving dynamic Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) (for the velocity field) and Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) (for the temperature field) approach for mixing of parallel triple-jets with different temperatures of liquid sodium in a turbulent forced convection regime. Because of the high thermal conductivity of sodium (a low-Prandtl fluid), we adopted the dynamic Smagorinsky subgrid closure for the unresolved velocity scales, while the thermal scales are fully resolved. Furthermore, the Time-dependent Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (T-RANS) approach with the high-Reynolds number variant (i.e. with the wall functions as boundary conditions along solid boundaries) of the four-equation eddy viscosity model (k−ε−kθ−εθ) was applied. The fine-mesh LES/DNS provided a close agreement with the experimental data for both velocity and temperature fields (for both first- and second-moments). In contrast, the coarse-mesh LES/DNS overestimated the turbulent kinetic energy profiles at different distances from the inlet plane. The T-RANS results confirmed a good agreement with the mean streamwise velocity and turbulent kinetic energy, as well as the mean temperature profiles. Finally, the analysis of power spectral density distributions of the temperature signal revealed that all simulation techniques captured a dominant flow frequency originating from the induced Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities between the side and central jets. The presented combined dynamic LES/DNS approach is recommended for future simulations of the turbulent forced convection flows of low Prandtl fluids, especially if thermal fatigue effects need to be predicted correctly.

Utilization of vortex flow pattern in the design of an efficient solar air heater

In this work, numerical and experimental analyses of a new model of circular solar air heater are carried out to examine the effect of employing vortex flow inside the air vessel of collector for convection enhancement. In three-dimensional numerical CFD-based analysis, the COMSOL Multi-physics is used to solve the flow equations for the turbulent forced convection airflow and conduction equation for the solid parts of the solar heater at different air mass flow rates in the range of 0.003 to 0.012 kg/s. In the calculation of turbulent stresses and heat fluxes, the RNG κ-∊ turbulence model is employed. The surface to surfaces (S2S) radiation model is used to consider the radiations emitted by the hot surfaces in collaboration with the energy equation. For validation, the theoretical findings are evaluated against the experiment. For the studied test cases with different values of solar irradiation and air mass flow rate, thermal efficiencies of up to 80 % are found. In comparison to the conventional rectangular-shaped solar air heaters with smooth ducts, more than 100 % increase in the value of thermal efficiency is delineated from the theoretical and experimental findings. This gain is attributed to the unique flow pattern in the developed solar collector.

Modelling the effect of roughness density on turbulent forced convection

By examining a systematic set of direct numerical simulations, we develop a model which captures the effect of roughness density on global and local heat transfer in forced convection. The surfaces considered are zero-skewed three-dimensional sinusoidal rough walls with solidities, $\varLambda$ (defined as the frontal area divided by the total plan area), ranging from low $\varLambda = 0.09$ , medium $\varLambda = 0.18$ to high $\varLambda = 0.36$ . For each solidity, we vary the roughness height characterised by the roughness Reynolds number, $k^+$ , from transitionally rough to fully rough conditions. The findings indicate that, as the fully rough regime is approached, there is a pronounced breakdown in the analogy between heat and momentum transfer, whereby the velocity roughness function $\Delta U^+$ continues to increase and the temperature roughness function $\Delta \varTheta ^+$ attains a peak with increasing $k^+$ . This breakdown occurs at higher sand-grain roughness Reynolds numbers ( $k_s^+$ ) with increasing solidity. Locally, we find that the heat transfer can be meaningfully partitioned into two categories: exposed, high-shear regions experiencing higher heat transfer obeying a local Reynolds analogy and sheltered, reversed-flow regions experiencing lower and spatially uniform heat transfer. The relative contribution of these distinct mechanisms to the global heat transfer depends on the fraction of the total surface area covered by these regions, which ultimately depends on $\varLambda$ . These insights enable us to develop a model for the rough-wall heat-transfer coefficient, ${C_{h,k}(k^+, \varLambda, Pr)}$ , where $Pr$ is the molecular Prandtl number, that assumes different heat-transfer laws in exposed and sheltered regions. We show that the exposed–sheltered surface-area fractions can be modelled through simple ray tracing that is solely dependent on the surface topography and a prescribed sheltering angle. Model predictions compare well when applied to heat-transfer data of traverse ribs from the literature.

Low-Reynolds-number turbulent forced-convection flow over graded baffle plates

The thermo-hydraulic behaviors of turbulent forced-convection heat transfer flow over a rectangular cross section baffled channel are numerically examined in various graded baffle plate ratio configurations ‘GBR = 0.10, 0.11, 0.12, 0.13, 0.14, and 0.15) at different Reynolds numbers, ranging from 12,000 to 32,000. The governing equations that describe the flow are integrated by the finite volumes method, in two dimensions, employing the Commercial CFD software FLUENT 6.3 with low-Reynolds-number k-E model to describe the turbulence. The velocity and pressure terms of momentum equations are solved with SIMPLE-algorithm. In particular, axial velocity, turbulence intensity, pressure, and temperature fields, average Nusselt number and friction loss are obtained. The numerical runs are carried out for different values of Reynolds numbers and graded baffle ratios at constant wall temperature condition along the top and bottom walls. Results were compared with available experimental data from the literature and good agreement is obtained.

New pressure drop and heat transfer correlations for turbulent forced convection in internally channeled tube heat exchanger ducts

In our previous paper, a novel heat exchanger concept, the so-called internally channeled tube (ICT) was suggested, based on a tubular geometry fitted with specially designed curved channels along the tube length. The enhanced heat transfer in the ICT results from extended surface area between two contacting fluids. To facilitate industrial application, ICT design methods must be developed. This work provides new equations for thermo-hydraulic characterization of ICT under turbulent flow conditions. In particular, new friction factor and Nusselt number correlations are derived based on the validated CFD simulations performed over a wide range of Reynolds numbers and geometrical parameters.

Numerical Study of the Thermal and Hydraulic Characteristics of the SiO2–Water Nanofluid through a Backward-Facing Step

The work of this paper is devoted to the two-dimensional numerical investigation of the turbulent forced convection through backward-facing step. Two cases are taken into account. For the first, the bottom wall is smooth; but for the second case, it is corrugated with a triangular base containing ten corrugations. A uniform heat flux is imposed on the bottom wall. A flow of a nanofluid consisting of silicon dioxide SiO2 nanoparticles dispersed in a base fluid (water) flows through this step.The flow equations were discretized by the finite volume method. For modeling turbulence, the K-ɛ-RNG model was applied to analyze Reynolds number effect, the volume fraction and the size of the particle. Numerical simulations were conducted for various Reynolds between 10,000 and 40,000; volume fractions of nanoparticles which vary from 0 to 5% and particle diameter dp equal to 30; 50 and 70 nm. We noted that the obtained findings are in good conformity with those of the literature.

Single-phase and two-phase models of a hybrid nanofluid traveling through a non-uniformly heated (PTC) receiver: A comparative study

The current study used single and two-phase modeling to numerically explore three-dimen-sional the turbulent forced convection of a hybrid nanofluid passing through a non-uniformly heated parabolic trough solar collector (PTC) for increasing heat transfer. The typical heat flux profile on the receiver’s absorber outer wall was addressed by a finite volume method (FVM) and the MCRT method. The results demonstrated that the single and two-phase models pro-duced almost similar hydrodynamic results but dissimilar thermal ones. It was found that the results of mixture model matched the experimental ones. The results also illustrated that the hybrid nanofluid gives the highest thermal performance for a mixture composed of 1.5% copper + 0.5% alumina dispersed in the water.

Turbulent forced convection flow of water-based nanofluids with temperature-dependent properties over backward-facing step channel with upwardly deflected downstream wall

The heat transfer performances of various water-based nanofluids (NFs) relative to the base fluid in turbulent forced convection flow within a 2-D backward-facing step (BFS) channel with an upwardly deflected downstream wall with a uniform heat flux are analyzed using the package OpenFOAM. The k-ω shear stress transport (SST) model based on the Euler-Euler single-phase framework is used. The performance evaluation criterion (PEC) is defined to assess the relative importance of the enhanced heat transfer and intensified resistance (pressure drop) caused by Cu/water NFs and MWCNT-Fe3O4/water hybrid NFs (low concentration NFs), Fe3O4/water NFs, and Cu-MWCNT/water hybrid NFs (high concentration NFs). At Re = 30215, the maximum enhancement of the average Nusselt number (ANN) is 7% when the copper NPs are added to the water. In addition, the increment of the deflection angle from 0.0 to 1.27 enhances the ANN values by 44 ∼ 45% concerning low-concentration NFs. At Re = 7940, the friction factor increases by 24.3% and 32.1% when copper and MWCNT-Fe3O4 hybrid NPs are dispersed in the base fluid, respectively. The highest PEC value (1.07) is achieved when the copper NPs with ϕ = 0.003 are used in configuration BFS1 at Re = 7940. Using MWCNT-Fe3O4 hybrid NPs is only proposed at lower Re numbers when the downstream wall is deflected and ϕ = 0.001. At Re = 30215, due to the addition of magnetic NPs, the ANN value abates by 28.5% and 30.7%, respectively, in the canonical case and configuration BFS2. Among the high-concentration NFs, the highest PEC (1.05) is obtained using Cu-MWCNT hybrid NPs with ϕ = 0.01 at Re = 30215 when the downstream wall is deflected upwardly. As Mouromtseff (Mo) number-based figure-of-merit (FOM) verifies, the worst scenario (PEC < 1.0) is substituting the base fluid with Fe3O4/water NFs. Cu-MWCNT/water hybrid NFs with ϕ = 0.02 become an effective coolant (PEC > 1.0) when the deflection angle and Re number increase simultaneously.

Computational Study of Crossed-Cavity Hybrid Nanofluid Turbulent Forced Convection for Enhanced Concentrated Solar Panel Cooling

The phenomena of turbulent forced convection were investigated in a cross-shaped enclosure with an (Al2O3-Cu)/water hybrid nano-fluid. This design aims to solve the problem of overheating concentrated solar panels due to crossed solar cells in semiarid climates. The cavity’s upper horizontal and left vertical walls are kept at high temperatures, while the lower flat and suitable vertical walls are considered adiabatic. The cavity contains two inlets and one outlet. Using the finite element method, we solved the equations that controlled our situation and defined the expected turbulent flow regime for Reynolds values between 4000 and 20000. Additionally, the effects of various hybrid nano-fluid concentrations (ranging from 0% to 2%) were assessed. The optimal settings were found to raise the average Nusselt number, decrease the temperature, and improve cell efficiency. The efficiency of concentrated solar panels increased from 30.684% at Re = 4000 to 32.438% at Re = 20000 due to improved cooling.

High-Fidelity Computational Assessment of Aero-Thermal Performance and the Reynolds’ Analogy for Additively Manufactured Anisotropic Surface Roughness

Abstract Direct numerical simulations of incompressible turbulent forced convection over irregular, anisotropic surface roughness in a pressure-driven plane channel flow have been performed. Heat transfer was simulated by solving the passive scalar transport equation with Prandtl number Pr = 0.7. The roughness topographies under investigation here are based on an X-ray computed tomography scan of an additively manufactured internal cooling passage, which had an irregular, multiscale and mildly non-Gaussian height distribution. Three different roughness topographies and three different friction Reynolds numbers (Reτ = 395, 590, 720) were considered, along with reference smooth-wall simulations at matched Reτ. By systematically varying the roughness topography and flow conditions, a direct computational assessment of aero-thermal performance (pressure losses and heat transfer) and the Reynolds analogy factor, i.e., 2Ch/Cf, where Ch is the heat-transfer coefficient (Stanton number) and Cf is the skin-friction coefficient, was conducted. The results highlight the profound impact that the roughness orientation (relative to the flow direction) has upon the aero-thermal performance of additively manufactured internal passages, with transverse-aligned roughness augmenting heat transfer by as much as 33%, relative to its streamwise-aligned counterpart. An interrogation of velocity and temperature statistics in the near-wall region was also performed, which underlined the growing dissimilarity between heat transfer and drag as fully rough conditions are approached.

Computational Framework Development for Heat Transfer Studies in Liquid Metal-Cooled Small-Scale Heat Sinks With Non-Circular Cross Sections

Abstract The present work provides a reliable computational framework to investigate the laminar and turbulent forced convection of sodium and sodium–potassium (Na, NaK) in small-scale heat sinks with hydraulic diameters between 1 mm and 5 mm. Na and NaK flow and heat transfer are studied numerically for a wide range of Reynolds numbers from 600 to 9000 in three sharp-cornered miniature heat sinks with rectangular, pentagonal, and hexagonal cross sections. For a fixed surface area to volume ratio, it is observed that the rectangular minichannel heat sink provides the highest convective heat transfer rates. The rectangular miniature heat sink is shown to provide 280% higher convective heat transfer rates in comparison with the pentagonal heat sink. Moreover, the obtained convective heat transfer coefficients for NaK are almost 20% higher than the ones for Na in the investigated pentagonal heat sink. For the same flow Peclet number in the rectangular and hexagonal heat sinks, both Na and NaK provide nearly identical average Nusselt numbers. However, NaK shows greater local and average Nusselt numbers compared to Na at the same Reynolds number.

Heat transfer analysis of turbulent forced-convection flow in a wavy absorber tube containing a molten salt-based hybrid nanofluid filled with a porous material

The thermal performance of turbulent forced-convection flow was investigated in a wavy absorber tube containing a hybrid nanofluid consisting of salt molten filled with a porous material. The nanoparticles dispersed in the working molten salts are Al2O3 and graphene, which have a spherical shape and a diameter of less than 100 nm. The assessments were performed under turbulent forced convection flow conditions using k--ε model with enhanced wall treatment. The effects of porous media features, nanoparticle concentrations, and molten salt type on flow, thermal exchange, drop pressure, pumping power, skin friction factor, and efficiency are discussed. Outcomes indicated that boosting the values of increases friction coefficient, drop pressure, pumping power, and and system efficiency. Molten Hitec salt has a lower friction coefficient and pressure loss than Hitec XL and solar salt. The use of solar salt improved the heat transfer rate by and compared to Hitec and Hitec XL, respectively.

Analysis of the Thermo-Aeraulic Behavior of a Heated Supply Air Window in Forced Convection: Numerical and Experimental Approaches

This paper presents work intended to characterize air flow and convective heat transfers within a ventilated window. This window is a device that allows for the entry of fresh air into a building while simultaneously preheating it in order to satisfy requirements in terms of air quality and thermal comfort in inhabited spaces. Therefore, this essential component of the building envelope functions herein as a heat exchanger with its own geometric characteristics and exchange conditions. In this research, a dual numerical and experimental approach has been implemented in order to highlight the temperatures, velocities and heat flux fields both at the glazing surfaces and in the ventilated air gaps. Several turbulence models were tested using CFD software (ANSYS-FLUENT®); their results were compared with each other as well as with the experimental results. This study shows that the air gap geometry in the window induces flow disturbances, recirculation phenomena and non-uniform heat exchanges, all of which prove to be important in terms of overall component performance. With regard to modeling and, in particular, at the level of turbulence models, the results obtained indicate that the model GEKO is best suited to the configuration under study when the phenomena of turbulent forced convection dominate the dynamics of the transfers. The k-ε models reveal a tremendous weakness in precisely estimating the problem’s characteristic quantities. From an experimental point of view, local measurements of thermal fluxes and temperatures demonstrate high efficiency with regard to experimental technique, which in turn could be extended to many different configurations for the local evaluation of convection heat transfer.

Retraction Note: Numerical assessment of the influence of helical baffle on the hydrothermal aspects of nanofluid turbulent forced convection inside a heat exchanger

Retraction Note: Numerical assessment of the influence of helical baffle on the hydrothermal aspects of nanofluid turbulent forced convection inside a heat exchanger

Turbulent forced convective flow in a conical diffuser: Hybrid and single nanofluids

Turbulent forced convective flow of hybrid and single nanofluids in a conical diffuser is investigated numerically. Simulations are conducted for various Reynolds (Re=10000-70000) and different concentrations (ϕ=0-1.5 vol%) at equal ratio of TiO2:SiO2. The impact of using theoretical and experimental correlations for dynamic viscosity and thermal conductivity on turbulent forced convection of TiO2 showed that the mean Nusselt (Nu) number is considerably reduced with the use of the experimental model. However, when the theoretical model is used, Nu varies insignificantly. Addition of TiO2 nanoparticles decreases the heat transfer inside the diffuser, whereas addition of TiO2–SiO2 nanoparticles either enhances or decreases the heat transfer rate. Compared to the pure fluid, hybrid nanofluids show a maximum enhancement of 5% and a maximum decrease of 9.7% at ϕ= 0.5 vol% and ϕ= 0.5 vol% at Re=10000, respectively. However, TiO2 nanofluids show a maximum decrease of 19% at ϕ=1.5 vol% and Re= 30000. As Re increases, the deviations between TiO2 and SiO2-TiO2 nanofluids diminish. Moreover, the Gene Expression Programming model can accurately evaluate Nu versus Re number and nanoparticle concentration.

Investigation of novel turbulator with and without twisted configuration under turbulent forced convection of a CuO/water nanofluid flow inside a parabolic trough solar collector

&lt;abstract&gt; &lt;p&gt;In this study, we numerically investigated the hydrothermal performance of a parabolic trough solar collector system in which nanofluids are used to transfer thermal energy. The single-phase model has been used to evaluate the respective influences of the spherical shape of nanoparticles with a volume fraction of (φ = 3%), Reynolds number varying between 50,000 ≤ Re ≤ 250,000 and the insertion of a turbulator with and without a twisted configuration on the hydrothermal characteristics created by the turbulent forced convection of a CuO/water nanofluid. The shaped turbulator (+) inserted in the absorber tube had a length turb_L = 2.4 m, a height turb_H = 40 mm and a width turb_t = 2 mm. In the second configuration, the considered turbulator was twisted (N_twist = 5, 10 and 15 twists). The turbulator was positioned at 0.6 m from the inlet of the tube and 1 m from the outlet of the collector. The studied performances included the heat transfer characteristics, pressure drop, friction factor, thermal efficiency, temperature and velocity distribution of the outlet field. The most significant contribution of this study is the proposal of the best parameters to increase the thermal and hydraulic efficiency of parabolic troughs by adding a new turbulator with the considered twists.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/abstract&gt;

Development of heat transfer correlation of turbulent forced convection in subchannels with rough surfaces based on CFD

Changes in roughness caused by crud deposits on the surface of nuclear fuel rods can impact the convective heat transfer characteristics of the fuel assembly. Therefore, it is necessary to establish Nusselt number correlations to estimate the heat transfer in subchannels with different surface roughness. In this paper, an analytical Nusselt number of rough round tubes was first driven by integrating the product of the wall temperature and velocity distribution functions. Then, the realizable k-ε turbulence model with the standard wall function is verified using the Dittus-Boelter correlation for smooth tubes, the analytical Nusselt number correlation for the rough tubes, and Markcozy bundle heat transfer correlation for smooth subchannels, respectively. Finally, the convective heat transfer in different rough subchannels is calculated using the verified realizable k-ε turbulence model. And a new single-phase heat transfer correlation for the rough subchannels is proposed based on the CFD results.