Three Dimensional CFD Analysis of Rectangular Roughened Channel

Abstract

In this paper three-dimensional CFD simulations are carried out to investigate heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics of artificially roughened duct using Ansys-Fluent. Heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of the rectangular duct are investigated for Reynolds numbers ranging from 8070 to 18480. Model geometry is designed, meshed, analysed, and post-processed using Ansys-fluent software. Fluid flow and heat transfer of different roughness configurations are simulated and results compared using turbulent flow model (k-ω, with SST), with steady-state solvers to calculate pressure drop, flow, and temperature fields. Rectangular duct has an aspect ratio of 5, while the domain length for numerical analysis is kept 450 mm long. The bottom wall of the duct is roughened by two different geometries of discrete ribs. Reasonable difference is found between the heat transfer simulation data for different roughness configurations, and the Ansys-Fluent software has been sufficient for simulating the flow fields in rectangular duct.