Effects of Flow Pulsation and Surface Geometry on Heat Transfer Performance in a Channel With Teardrop-Shaped Dimples Measured by Transient Technique

Abstract

This study focuses on the heat transfer performance of a pulsating flow over a channel surface with teardrop-shaped dimples. Heat transfer measurements were performed by a transient technique with compensation of three-dimensional heat conduction under a bulk Reynolds number of 25,000. Seven types of surfaces with the teardrop-shaped dimples were examined, where dimple arrangement (in-line/staggered) and inclination angle (0–60 deg) were varied. A pulsating flow with the Strouhal number of 0.15 was generated by vibrating a rubber film section on the channel wall using a vibration generator. The pulsation amplitude was evaluated by calculating the root-mean-square value of the phase averaged velocity. Two conditions of the pulsation amplitudes were examined (0.09 and 0.12 of mean velocity). The results showed that the surface-averaged Nusselt number and friction factor for the pulsating flow increased from those for the steady flow. The highest increases of the surface-averaged Nusselt number and heat transfer efficiency index appeared in the 30 deg in-line arrangement, and those were 16.1% and 9.8%, respectively, at most as compared with the steady case. Due to the flow pulsation, the local Nusselt number was enhanced at the leading-edge region of the dimples, and supplementary Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS)/unsteady RANS (URANS) results showed that the flow separation size was shrunk by the flow pulsation there.