Heat transfer performance of steam/air flow in inverted V-shaped rib-roughened channels

Abstract

The heat transfer performance of steam and air flow in a rough rectangular channel with different inverted V-shaped ribs was investigated by infrared thermal imaging technology. Under the conditions that the Reynolds number is in the range of 4000–15,000, the effects of the rib angle on the heat transfer enhancement of the two coolants were obtained. The rib pitch ratio of the flow channel is 10, the ratio of the rib height to the channel hydraulic diameter is 0.078, and the inverted V-shaped rib angle varies from 45° to 90°. The results show that in the inverted V-shaped ribbed channel, the Nu number on both sides of the channel is greatly increased, while the Nu number in the middle of the channel is lower. The local Nu distribution on the surface of the ribbed channel is highly related to the shape of the rib. For different medium cooling, the value and unevenness of the heat transfer coefficient are different, but the shape of the high and low heat transfer coefficient distribution is hardly affected. The heat transfer of both coolants increases as the rib angle decreases from 90° to 45°. Compared with air flow, steam flow cooling shows higher convective heat transfer enhancement. For rib angles of 45°, 60°, 75°, and 90°, under the operating condition of the Reynolds number = 12,000, the area-averaged Nusselt numbers of the steam flow is 23.6%, 27.4% and 13.9% higher than that of the air flow, respectively. Based on the experimental heat transfer data, the correlation in terms of the Reynolds number and the rib angle was developed, which is used to estimate the Nu number for steam and air cooling in the inverted V-shaped rib-roughness channels.