Heat Transfer to a Power-Law Fluid in Arbitrary Cross-Sectional Ducts

Authors: İBRAHİM UZUN

Abstract: Numerical solutions for laminar heat transfer of a non-Newtonian fluid in the thermal entrance region for triangular, square, sinusoidal, etc. ducts are presented for constant wall temperature. The continuity equation and parabolic forms of the energy and momentum equations in Cartesian coordinates are transformed by the elliptic grid generation technique into new non-orthogonal coordinates with the boundary of the duct coinciding with the coordinate surface. The effects of axial heat conduction, viscous dissipation and thermal energy sources within the fluid are neglected. The transformed equations are solved by the finite difference technique. As an application of the method, flow and heat transfer results are presented for ducts with triangular, square, sinusoidal and four-cusped cross sections and square cross sections with four indented corners. The results are compared with the results of previous works.

Keywords: Heat Transfer, Laminar Flow, Non-Newtonian, Elliptic ducts

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