Numerical Analysis of Turbulent Heat Transfer in the Case of Minijets Array

Abstract

The presented numerical investigations show an analysis of the turbulent single-phase array of ten minijets impinging a heated surface, which lead to the intensification of heat transfer between the fluid and the surface. Attention was devoted to the comparison between phenomena occurring for the heated flat and concave surface geometry. The selection of the shapes was based on the impinging jets applications. From the numerical point of view, the focus was placed on a comparison of the Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) turbulence model implementations in ANSYS Fluent software, and their impact on the modeling precision of the thermal and hydrodynamic boundary layers phenomena. The 3D numerical model was based on the continuity, momentum, and energy transport equations, together with three various RANS turbulence models: k-ω SST Kato-Launder, k-ε RNG Kato-Launder, and Intermittency Transition. The water submerged minijets, characterized by three various values of Reynolds number, were considered. Average surface Nusselt number values for all analyzed cases were compared with the experimental correlations and exhibited the same tendency but differed in detail. Numerically obtained average Nusselt number values agreed with the results of two from three correlations in the range of 10–20%. The flat surface was characterized by higher heat transfer than the concave one and an influence of the cross flow, changing the symmetrical distribution of the Nusselt number, was more visible for it. A cross flow impact was found in fuzzy hexagonal or tetragonal symmetry of this distribution. Additionally, the areas of high temperature gradient values were identified in the region of the strongest jets’ interactions, which can be important for mechanical strength analysis.