Simulation of conjugate heat transfer in thermal processes with open source CFD

Abstract

A verification and validation study was performed using the open source computational fluid dynamics software package OpenFOAM version 6-dev for conjugate heat transfer problems. The test cases had a growing complexity starting from a simple steady state problem over unsteady heat transfer to more realistic engineering applications. First, a fin effectiveness study was performed. Then, the external convection at pipes and internal pipe heat transfer were investigated. The validity of the techniques was shown for each test case by comparing the simulation results with experimental and analytic data available in the literature. Finally, a simplified shell-and-tube heat exchanger was simulated to demonstrate how these methods can be applied to plant scale engineering problems.