Hot-Wire Measurements of Turbulence Correlations in a Triangular Duct

Abstract

Previous studies by flow visualization have indicated that the flow through a duct of triangular cross section is in its characteristics quite different from flow through a duct with circular cross section. They revealed among others that purely laminar flow exists in the corners of the duct even though the bulk of the fluid moves in turbulent motion. Heat-transfer measurements in such a duct appear to indicate that the turbulent transport in the direction of the height of the duct is considerably smaller than expected from circular tube measurements. The present paper reports the measurements of turbulent correlations for turbulent flow through such a duct. These measurements have been made with hot wires of very small dimensions. They again reveal the existence of a laminar corner region. In the bulk of the fluid, the differences of the correlations to those in a round tube turned out to be smaller than originally suspected.