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3957 (2010)
tube separation, tube banks, channel confinement, flow and heat transfer characteristics, finite volume
1. INTRODUCTION
Cylindrical geometries often appear in
engineering
applications.
Although
such
cylindrical bodies are of regular and simple shape,
the behavior of fluid flow and heat transfer
around them is quite complicated. The circular
cylinder is a common bluff body and forms a
large separated stagnant wake. The characteristics
of separated wakes cannot be predicted
analytically and hence must be analyzed either
numerically or experimentally. Unlike square or
rectangular cylinders, where the flow separates
from the leading edges, the flow separation may
occur from any location of a circular cylinder,
further complicating the analysis. The difficulties
in predicting flow and heat transfer around
circular cylinders get multiplied when two or
more of these cylinders are placed in proximity to
each other. The large separated wakes behind
each of the cylinders interact with each other to
give rise to a flow that is characteristically much
more different than the flow past a single cylinder.
The exact form of the interaction is highly
dependent on the cylinder spacing and the
Reynolds number (Re). There exist a large
number of ways in which cylinders may be placed
in proximity of one another.
Numerical solutions to the Navier-Stokes
equations obtained for flows based on the size of
the recirculation region downstream of separation
2. COMPUTATIONAL DOMAIN
The computational domain for flow past circular
tubes, cross-confined and built-in with a
rectangular channel is shown in Fig. 1. The
channel is designed to mimic a passage formed by
any two neighboring fins in a fin-tube heat
exchanger. In the computational domain, the
location of the upstream tube is fixed whereas the
location of the downstream tube is suitably
altered to study the effect of tube separation and
also to represent inline and staggered
arrangements. All the length scales have been
non-dimensionalized with respect to tube
diameter, D. The computational domain is of
dimension 120.5 along X and Z-directions
respectively. The dimension along Y-direction is
dependent on the tube separation in such a way
that the Y-dimension equals the span-wise tube
separation for staggered arrangement of tubes.
For staggered tube arrangement, the centers of an
upstream tube and the two respective downstream
tubes lie at the vertices of an equilateral triangle.
3. GRID GENERATION AND GEOMETRY
OF CELL ELEMENTS
The physical space of the computational domain
is sub-divided into a number of grid cells
quadrilaterals in two-dimensional, hexahedra in
three-dimensional. Several descriptions and
Fig. 1
Computational domain.
42
(a)
Fig. 2
(b)
Schematic of two-dimensional projection of grid-mesh in X-Y plane: (a) inline and (b) staggered arrangement
of tubes.
3.1
Fig. 3
(1)
V
n dS
d
S
t
grad n dS q d
S
(2)
d V n dS
t P
S
grad n dS
q d
cd
dS
f e , w,n , s ,t ,b S f
cd
dS
(4)
d
S
S
cd , f
f
cd
Discretization technique
(5)
Sf
Q d Q
QP P
Fig. 4
(3)
Grid independence for variation of span-averaged Nusselt number: (a) inline arrangement of tubes and
(b) staggered arrangement of tubes.
44
(6)
4.2
Solution method
Side walls; u w 0,
v 0,
p
2
u 3 2 U 1 2 z H , v w 0,
0 and T T
x
Channel exit U av 0 , (Orlanski, 1976)
t
x
Tube surfaces;
u v w 0,
p
0 and T Tw ;
n
45
Fig. 5
Instantaneous streamlines in the stagnant wake of the tubes for different values of tube separation:
(a) upstream tube, (b) downstream tube of inline arrangement and (c) downstream half-tubes of staggered
arrangement.
46
Fig. 6
Instantaneous temperature distribution in the stagnant wake of the tubes for different tube separations:
(a) upstream tube, (b) downstream tube of inline arrangement and (c) downstream half-tubes of staggered
arrangement.
47
Fig. 7
Instantaneous temperature distribution on tube surfaces for different tube separations: (a) upstream tube,
(b) downstream tube of inline arrangement and (c) downstream half-tubes of staggered arrangement.
dp 1
f D / V 2
dx 2
(8)
Nu ( x , y )
48
1 b
z z 0, H
(9)
( x, y, z ) u( x, y, z ) dA
b
b ( x )
Ac
u( x, y, z ) dA
(11)
Ac
Nu sp ( x )
Fig. 8
1 b
r r R
(12)
Nu ( x , y )
1
Nu( x, y ) dy
B 0
(10)
Fig. 9
Span-averaged Nusselt number variation along the flow direction: (a) inline arrangement of tubes and (b)
staggered arrangement of tubes.
Fig. 10 Span-averaged-normalized pressure variation along the flow direction for (a) inline arrangement of tubes
and (b) staggered arrangement of tubes.
j Nu o / Re Pr 0.33
(13)
Nuo
Nu( x, y) dx dy Nu( x, y) dx dy Nu( , z) r d dz Nu( , z) r d dz
Atotal top
downstream
bottom
upstream
tube surface
wall
tube surface
wall
(14)
where A total = 2(A bottom wall + A tube surface).
50
Fig. 11 Velocity profile at different X location for varying tubes spacing: (a) inline arrangement of tubes and
(b) staggered arrangement of tubes.
Fig. 15 Comparing height-averaged Nusselt number variation along tube surface for inline arrangement of tubes:
(a) upstream tube and (b) downstream tube.
n
Pr
p
q
ReD
position vector
r
surface vector
S
temperature
T
time
t
free stream velocity
V
axial velocity component
u
volume
6. CONCLUSIONS
A 3-D computational code to solve
incompressible form of flow and energy equations
using finite volume method has been presented.
Air flow past inline and staggered tube bundles
confined between channel walls has been
investigated as the practical application of a tubefin heat exchanger. Effect of tube separation for
both the arrangements has been investigated on
heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics.
The results show that overall heat transfer and in
particular, heat transfer from tube surfaces are
enhanced with decreasing tube separation for both
inline as well as staggered arrangement of tubes.
Moreover, with decreasing separation, the
staggered arrangement of tubes is relatively more
effective in heat transfer enhancement compared
to inline arrangement of tubes. The results also
show that the decrease in tube separation
increases the heat transfer, but at the cost of
increase in pressure drop. For the investigated
range of tube separation, 2D lsd 5D, lsd =4.5D is
associated with highest goodness factor (j/f) for
both the arrangements of tubes.
Greek symbols
difference/increment
diffusion coefficient
dynamic viscosity
kinematic viscosity
transport property (u, v, w or T )
non-dimensional temperature
[= (T T)/(Tw T)]
density
angle measured clockwise from forward
stagnation point with respect to tube
center
Subscripts
1
2
3
b
c1
NOMENCLATURE
A
CV
D
F
f
H
j
k
l
Nu
Nu
normal to surface
Prandtl number
pressure
span-averaged and height-averaged
pressure
volumetric source term
area
control volume
diameter of circular tube
flux vector
friction factor
channel height (= l3)
Colburn factor
thermal conductivity
length
Nusselt number
average Nusselt number
e
m
max
n
norm
o
s
sd
sp
w
54
span-wise direction
transverse direction
direction normal to channel wall
bulk
centre of upstream tube from the
channel inlet
east
mean
maximum
north
normalized
overall
south
separation distance
span-averaged
west
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