Calculation of turbulent flow and heat transfer in periodically converging-diverging channels

A numerical study of flow in a sinusoidally varying, periodic converging-diverging channel is performed to examine turbulent flow and heat transfer characteristics. The method is based on the fully conserved control-volume representation of fully elliptic Navier-Stokes, and energy equations in body-fitted orthogonal curvilinear coordinate system. Turbulence is simulated via two-equation (k-epsilon) model. The study comprises computed velocity and streamline distributions, the kinetic energy of turbulence, pressure drop, friction factor, and local,average and maximum Nusselt number distribution. Systematic variations are made in Reynolds number (40 000-100 000) and the aspect ratio (2a/lambda = 0.27 add 0.34), The present study is further extended to flows with different ranges of inlet swirl. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.