Time-Dependent Conjugate Heat Transfer Characteristics of Self-Sustained Oscillatory Flows in a Grooved Channel

Abstract

Convective heat transport in a grooved channel is numerically investigated using a time-dependent formulation. Conjugate conduction/convection and uniform heat-flux representations for the solid domain are considered. For the conjugate representation, the solid domain is composed of multiple materials and concentrated heat generation. The associated cooling flows include laminar and transitional regimes. Steady and time-dependent contours of the streamfunction and local skin-friction coefficients are presented. Additionally, local distributions of Nusselt number and surface temperature are displayed for both the conjugate and convection-only representations. These results are contrasted over the range of Reynolds numbers explored to demonstrate the significance of including time-dependency and conjugation in the study of convective heat transport. Such considerations are found to be important in the design and analysis of heat exchanger configurations with spatially varying material composition and concentrated heat generation.