Simulation of swirling turbulent heat transfer in a vortex heat exchanger

This article presents a numerical simulation of swirling turbulent flow and heat transfer in a novel vortex heat exchanger. A new algebraic Reynolds stress/heat flux model (ASM/AFM) is applied to the simulation. The computation is performed under different air flow rates for both swirling and nonswirling flows. The calculated mean heat transfer coefficients on both inner and outer walls of the annular duct are compared with the measured data. They are generally improved over the results predicted by the new ASM/k-epsilon model. The effects of swirl on enhancing heat transfer in the annular duct are illustrated. The heat transfer performance of the vortex heat exchanger under different air flow rates is obtained.