Heat Transfer Between Blockages With Holes in a Rectangular Channel

Abstract

Experiments have been conducted to study steady heat transfer between two blockages with holes and pressure drop across the blockages, for turbulent flow in a rectangular channel. Average heat transfer coefficient and local heat transfer distribution on one of the channel walls between two blockages, and overall pressure drop across the blockages were obtained, for nine different staggered arrays of holes in the blockages and Reynolds numbers of 10,000 and 30,000. For the hole configurations studied, the blockages enhanced heat transfer by 4.6 to 8.1 times, but significantly increased the pressure drop. Smaller holes in the blockages caused higher heat transfer enhancement, but larger increase of the pressure drop than larger holes. The heat transfer enhancement was lower in the higher Reynolds number cases. Because of the large pressure drop, the heat transfer per unit pumping power was lower with the blockages than without the blockages. The local heat transfer was lower nearer the upstream blockage, the highest near the downstream blockage, and also relatively high in regions of reattachment of the jets leaving the upstream holes. The local heat transfer distribution was strongly dependent on the configuration of the hole array in the blockages. A third upstream blockage lowered both the heat transfer and the pressure drop, and significantly changed the local heat transfer distribution.