Wall thermal inertia effects of pulsatile flow in a ribbed tube: A numerical approach

Abstract

In present paper, heat transfer of pulsatile flow in ribbed tube was investigated numerically by considering the effect of thermal inertia of solid wall thickness. To this purpose, CVFV (Control Volume Finite Volume) technique with collocated grids arrangement was adopted to discretize momentum and energy equations. Rhie and Chow interpolation method was employed to avoid checker-board of pressure field in numerical simulation. The well-established SIMPLE (Semi-Implicit Method for Pressure Linked Equations) method was utilized to deal with the coupling of pressure and velocity in momentum equation. Stone’s Strongly Implicit Procedure (SIP) was used to solve the set of individual linear algebraic equations. Womersley number, Reynolds number, velocity amplitude and wall thickness ratio are four essential parameters which influence heat transfer and Nusselt number in pulsatile flow in a ribbed tube. It was deduced by varying Womersley number Nu does not change. Nu enhances almost 19% by augmentation of wall thickness ratio from 0.125 to 1. It was shown by increasing velocity amplitude from 0.1 to 0.8, Nu reduces almost 4.7%.

Keywords

• pulsatile flow
• conjugate heat transfer
• womersley number
• wall thickness
• ribbed tube