A Numerical Analysis of Convection Heat Transfer and Friction Factor for Oscillating Corrugated Channel Flows

Abstract

The aim of this article is to understand numerically the flow and heat transfer characteristics under oscillating flow conditions for periodically corrugated wavy channel. For the same channel, under steady-state flow conditions, experimental and numerical studies were done under steady-state flow conditions by our two previous studies. Three turbulence models are used, namely the k–ω, the Shear Stress Transport (SST), and the transition SST. According to the previous study, the best agreement with experiments was obtained using the SST turbulence model. Therefore, the SST turbulence model is applied in this study on the oscillating flow. The finite volume method is used as the numerical method. Investigations are performed for air flowing through corrugated channel which has sharp wavy peaks with an inclination angle of 30° and 5 mm minimum channel height. Reynolds number is varied within the range 6294–7380, while keeping the Prandtl number constant at 0.70. Four different sinusoidal oscillating flow conditions are used. Variations of the Nusselt number, friction factor, and thermo-hydraulic performance factor with the Reynolds number are studied. © 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.