Numerical Investigation of Heat Transfer Enhancement in Corrugated/Wavy Channel

Abstract

In the present work, a numerical investigation is made on the flow characteristics and heat transfer enhancement in 2D channel having corrugated wall covering a wide range of Reynolds numbers. For better understanding, the investigation is carried out by varying the wall-geometry (sinusoidal, triangular and trapezoidal corrugated wall), amplitude of the geometries and boundary condition at the wall. The phenomena are studied by plotting the wall-Nusselt number along the length of channel by varying the shape and size of the wall-geometry and Reynolds numbers. To capture the hydrodynamics, the variation of the flow characteristics (such as velocity, temperature, pressure) along the channel are also studied. Two types of boundary conditions used are (constant wall temperature and constant heat flux) at the channel-wall where at the inlet, velocity-profile (using user defined function) is completely specified. In this study, it is observed that heat transfer enhancement increases with the increment of the amplitude and Reynolds number. It is found that heat transfer enhancement is maximum for trapezoidal corrugated channel. It is also obtained that pressure loss is minimum with sinusoidal corrugated channel.