%0 Journal Article
%T Thermohydraulic Performance of a Series of In-Line Noncircular Ducts in a Parallel Plate Channel
%A Siddharth D. Mhaske
%A Soby P. Sunny
%A Sachin L. Borse
%A Yash B. Parikh
%J Journal of Thermodynamics
%D 2014
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2014/670129
%X Heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics for two-dimensional laminar flow at low Reynolds number for five in-line ducts of various nonconventional cross-sections in a parallel plate channel are studied in this paper. The governing equations were solved using finite-volume method. Commercial CFD software, ANSYS Fluent 14.5, was used to solve this problem. A total of three different nonconventional, noncircular cross-section ducts and their characteristics are compared with those of circular cross-section ducts. Shape-2 ducts offered minimum flow resistance and maximum heat transfer rate most of the time. Shape-3 ducts at Re£¿<£¿100 and Shape-2 ducts at Re£¿>£¿100 can be considered to give out the optimum results. 1. Introduction The heat transfer enhancement in most of the engineering applications is a never ending process. The need for better heat transfer rate and low flow resistance has led to extensive research in the field of heat exchangers. Higher heat transfer rate and low pumping power are desirable properties of a heat exchanger. The duct shape and its arrangement highly influence flow characteristics in a heat exchanger. Flow past cylinders, especially circular, flat, oval, and diamond arranged in a parallel plate channel, were extensively studied by Bahaidarah et al. [1¨C3]. They carried domain discretization in body-fitted coordinate system while the governing equations were solved using a finite-volume technique. Chhabra [4] studied bluff bodies of different shapes like circle, ellipse, square, semicircle, equilateral triangle, and square submerged in non-Newtonian fluids. Kundu et al. [5, 6] investigated fluid flow and heat transfer coefficient experimentally over a series of in-line circular cylinders in parallel plates using two different aspect ratios for intermediate range of Re 220 to 2800. Grannis and Sparrow [7] obtained numerical solutions for the fluid flow in a heat exchanger consisting of an array of diamond-shaped pin fins. Implementation of the model was accomplished using the finite element method. Tanda [8] performed experiments on fluid flow and heat transfer for a rectangular channel with arrays of diamond shaped elements. Both in-line and staggered fin arrays were considered in his study. Jeng [9] experimentally investigated pressure drop and heat transfer of an in-line diamond shaped pin-fin array in a rectangular duct. Terukazu et al. [10] studied the heat transfer characteristics and flow behaviours around an elliptic cylinder at high Reynolds number. Gera et al. [11] numerically investigated a two-dimensional unsteady
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jther/2014/670129/