Thermohydraulic Performance of a Series of In-Line Noncircular Ducts in a Parallel Plate Channel

Abstract

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.