The Effect of U-Bend Zone, Rotation, and Corrugation on Two-Pass Channel Flow

Abstract

Further consideration on the two-pass channel flow is still necessary due to the complexity of 180-deg turn, rotation, and wall ribs. Numerical investigations have repeatedly revealed differences from experiments, with the primary focus of the smooth walls. Thus, this work deals with newly added ribs and three-equation variant of the shear stress transport (SST) k–ω model to the current fluid flow and heat transfer depending on an existing experiment as a reference. The adapted turbulence model thought to be more susceptible to U-bend zone, rotation, and wall corrugation is applied using comsolmultiphysics program. A two-pass profile with leafy characteristics, derived from a prior work by the first author, is implemented for the first time and contrasted against alternative corrugation designs. The findings demonstrated that applying the suggested model reduces the percentage error between the computational and experimental data to less than 20%. The Nusselt numbers computed at different leafy-corrugated channel divisions are augmented to 30% with 70% surface temperature reduction; however, the friction penalty rises too.