The reason induced unique characteristics of local Nusselt number in straight and twisted square tubes for laminar flow

Abstract

The velocity contribution and velocity gradient contribution to the transport of the heat flux defined by Fourier's law, q, are numerically investigated in this paper to investigate the reason induced the unique characteristics of Nusselt number in twisted and straight square tubes for periodically fully developed laminar flow. The reason of local Nusselt number in straight square tube at some regions is larger than that in twisted square tube are reported. It is found that the summation of velocity and its gradient contributions determines local Nusselt number under UWT. Both velocity and velocity gradient contributions are not uniformly distributed in the cross section in straight and twisted tubes. Velocity and its gradient both promote the transport of the local heat flux components along the normal direction of the wall surface which have larger values in straight square tube at some regions and result local Nusselt number has larger values. The summation contributions of velocity and its gradient are much larger in twisted square tube, especially in the region close to the wall surface. Thus the averaged heat flux components have much larger value and averaged Nusselt number in twisted square tube is larger than that in straight square tube.

Keywords

• Twisted square tube
• Convective heat transfer
• Contribution of velocity
• Contribution of velocity gradient
• Transport of heat flux
• Mechanism