Numerical Investigation of Flow and Heat Transfer in Microchannels

Author(s):  
Emrah Deniz ◽  
I. Yalcin Uralcan

Mini and microchannel applications have become an important and attractive research area during the past decades. For micro systems design purposes, numerical and experimental studies have been conducted on flow and heat transfer characteristics of mini and microchannels and various friction factor and Nusselt number correlations have been proposed. Some researchers have tried to apply conventional tube correlations to mini and micro channels, rather than deriving new correlations. In this study, using commercial CFD software, flow and heat transfer characteristics in laminar and turbulent flow through circular channels are analyzed numerically. The applicability of conventional correlations in calculating the friction factor and Nusselt number is investigated. It is concluded that, in laminar regime conventional correlations can be used to calculate the friction factor for the channel sizes considered. In turbulent regime, however, numerical results for friction factor yielded greater values than those calculated by the conventional correlations. Numerical Nusselt numbers are found to be closer to the conventional values in laminar and turbulent regimes. In turbulent regime, on the other hand, Nusselt number values calculated with the microchannel correlations are determined to be greater than the numerical results and the values calculated with the conventional correlations.

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 1633-1648 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oguz Turgut ◽  
Erkan Kizilirmak

In this study, steady-state three-dimensional turbulent forced convection flow and heat transfer characteristics in a circular pipe with baffles attached inside pipe have been numerically investigated under constant wall heat flux boundary condition. Numerical study has been carried out for Reynolds number Re of 3000-50,000, Prandtl number Pr of 0.71, baffle distances s/D of 1, 2, and 3, and baffle angle a of 30o-150o. Ansys Fluent 12.0.1 software has been used to solve the flow field. It is observed that circular pipe having baffles has a higher Nusselt number and friction factor compared to the smooth circular pipe without baffles. Maximum Nusselt number and friction factor are obtained for the baffle angle of 90o. Nusselt number increases while baffle distance increases in the range of studied; however, friction factor decreases. Periodically fully developed conditions are obtained after a certain module. Thermal performance factor increases with increasing baffle distance in the rage of studied but decreases with increasing Reynolds number; maximum thermal performance factor is obtained for the baffle angle of 150?. Results show that baffle distance, baffle angle, and Reynolds number play important role on both flow and heat transfer characteristics. The accuracy of the results obtained in this study is verified by comparing the results with those available in the literature for smooth circular pipes. All the numerical results are correlated within accuracy of ?10 and ?15% for average Nusselt number and Darcy friction factor, respectively.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Zhanwei Liu ◽  
Xinyu Li ◽  
Tenglong Cong ◽  
Rui Zhang ◽  
Lingyun Zheng ◽  
...  

The prediction of flow and heat transfer characteristics of liquid sodium with CFD technology is of significant importance for the design and safety analysis of sodium-cooled fast reactor. The accuracies and uncertainties of the CFD models should be evaluated to improve the confidence of the numerical results. In this work, the uncertainties from the turbulent model, boundary conditions, and physical properties for the flow and heat transfer of liquid sodium were evaluated against the experimental data. The results of uncertainty quantization show that the maximum uncertainties of the Nusselt number and friction coefficient occurred in the transition zone from the inlet to the fully developed region in the circular tube, while they occurred near the reattachment point in the backward-facing step. Furthermore, in backward-facing step flow, the maximum uncertainty of temperature migrated from the heating wall to the geometric center of the channel, while the maximum uncertainty of velocity occurred near the vortex zone. The results of sensitivity analysis illustrate that the Nusselt number was negatively correlated with the thermal conductivity and turbulent Prandtl number, while the friction coefficient was positively correlated with the density and Von Karman constant. This work can be a reference to evaluate the accuracy of the standard k-ε model in predicting the flow and heat transfer characteristics of liquid sodium.


2013 ◽  
Vol 448-453 ◽  
pp. 3291-3295
Author(s):  
Ge Ping Wu ◽  
Jun Wang ◽  
Ping Lu

Flow and heat transfer characteristics in the microchannel cooling passages with three different types of the MTPV systems are numerically investigated. Reynolds ranged from 100 to 1000 and hydraulic diameter from 0.4mm to 0.8mm. The steady, laminar flow and heat transfer equations are solved in a finite-volume method. The local heat transfer characteristics, thermal resistance, Nusselt numbers, friction factor and pressure losses of the different types are analyzed. A comparison of the heat transfer coefficient, pressure losses and friction factor of the different microchannels are also presented. The heat transfer performance of the rob bundles microchannel is found to be much better than others. However, the rectangular passage has the lowest thermal resistance than the other types of microchannels.


2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Du ◽  
Lei Luo ◽  
Songtao Wang ◽  
Jian Liu ◽  
Bengt Sunden

Abstract Heat transfer characteristics in a latticework duct with various sidewalls are numerically investigated. The crossing angle is 90 deg and the number of subchannels is eleven on both the pressure side and suction side for each latticework duct. The thickness of the ribs is 8 mm and the distance between adjacent ribs is 24 mm. The investigation is conducted for various Reynolds numbers (11,000 to 55,000) and six different sidewalls. Flow structure, pressure drop, and heat transfer characteristics are analyzed. Results revealed that the sidewall has significant effects on heat transfer and flow structure. The triangle-shaped sidewall provides the highest Nusselt number accompanied by the highest friction factor. The sidewall with a slot shows the lowest friction factor and Nusselt number. An increased slot width decreased the Nusselt number and friction factor simultaneously.


Author(s):  
Tarek M. Abdel-Salam

This study presents results for flow and heat transfer characteristics of two-dimensional rectangular impinging jets and three-dimensional circular impinging jets. Flow geometries under consideration are single and multiple impinging jets issued from a plane wall. Both confined and unconfined configurations are simulated. Effects of Reynolds number and the distance between the jets are investigated. Results are obtained with a finite volume computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code. Structured grids are used in all cases of the present study. Turbulence is treated with a two equation k-ε model. Different jet velocities have been examined corresponding to Reynolds numbers of 5,000 to 20,000. Results of the three-dimensional cases show that Reynolds number has no effect on the velocity distribution of the center jet. Results of both two-dimensional and three-dimensional cases show that Reynolds number highly affects the heat transfer and values of the Nusselt number. The maximum Nusselt number was always found at the stagnation point of the center jet.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anjana Narottambhai Prajapati ◽  
Andallib Tariq

Abstract Matrix cooling has opened new possibilities for enhancing the convective heat transfer coefficients without compromising upon the structural rigidity and the life of the gas turbine blade at elevated temperatures. However, the dense structure of the matrix significantly increases the flow resistance, and imposes the limitation to its usage. Recently, a matrix with a gap on the sidewalls called open matrix has been proposed by few researchers to reduce the associated pressure penalties. This detailed experimental investigation aims to study the open matrix channel flow, and presents the effects of varying sidewall gaps on heat transfer characteristics and friction factor in the open matrixes having rib angle 45o for three different sub-channel aspect ratios 1.2, 0.8, and 0.4. Liquid crystal thermography has been utilized to discern the detailed heat transfer characteristics. Results have been evaluated in terms of augmentation Nusselt number, friction factor ratio, and overall thermal performance factor over the Reynolds numbers 5800 -14000. The closed matrixes provided the highest augmentation in Nusselt number, and the gaps on the sidewall have shown an overall reduction in augmentation Nusselt number in most cases. However, the suitable sidewall gap showed the effective reduction in pressure penalties for the smaller sub-channel aspect ratios. The highest augmentation Nusselt number amongst the open matrixes has been found as 3.83 with a reduced friction factor ratio for the matrix with a 4 mm gap in sub-channel aspect ratio = 0.8 (i.e. 4 sub-channels) at Re = 8100.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
S. G. Sam Stanley ◽  
K.Kalidasa Murugavel Kumar Reddy ◽  
M. Blessy Queen Mary

Investigations are carried out on artificial roughened absorber plates on Solar air heater. The roughness parameters are identified in to five basic profiles A, B, C, D and E. The profiles A, B and C are basic cubical and cylindrical profiles and the profiles D and E are categorized as rod arrangement of inline and staggered nature. Both frictional and heat transfer characteristics have been studied. Optimum results of frictional and heat transfer characteristics have been arrived out. Results show a higher value of frictional factor for the profile E. All reasons of variations have been justified and discussed. The deviation of friction factor from modified Balsius equation is within the limit of 4.32 %. Results also show higher value of Nusselt number for the inline rod arrangement of SAH than the other profiles.


Author(s):  
P. Zhang

Flow and heat transfer characteristics of liquid nitrogen in mini/micro-channels own many particular aspects and are very important for applications. In the present study, the investigation of flow and heat transfer characteristics of liquid nitrogen in mini/micro-channels is presented. It is found that small viscosity enables the flow state in mini/micro-channels to be turbulent state, which proves that the classical theory for pressure drop is still valid if the surface roughness of the passage is properly taken into consideration. Experiments of flow boiling of liquid nitrogen are conducted under both adiabatic and diabatic conditions. It is shown that confinement number Co = 0.5 can be applicable in classifying the heat transfer characteristics of liquid nitrogen in macro- and micro-channels. Flow visualization in micro-channels at low temperatures poses big challenges in image magnification and illumination. These two problems have been subtly overcome in the investigation and clear images have been obtained. The flow patterns and flow regimes of two-phase flow of liquid nitrogen indicate different features from the room-temperature fluidss. Furthermore, a very simple but effective method for 3D flow visualization by one high-speed camera is proposed and implemented. Finally, numerical analysis of the flow boiling of liquid nitrogen in mini/micro-channel is carried out to deepen the understanding of mechanism.


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