Forced convection in partially compliant channel with two alternated baffles

• Published in: International journal of heat and mass transfer 2019-10, Vol.142, p.118455, Article 118455
• Main Author: Ismael, Muneer A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Baffles; Cauchy number; Compliant channel; Computational fluid dynamics; Convective heat transfer; Finite element method; Flexible wall; Fluid flow; Fluid-structure interaction; Forced convection; FSI; Heat flux; Performance evaluation; Pressure drop; Reynolds number; Upstream; Vortex generators
• ISSN: 0017-9310; 1879-2189
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2019.118455

[Display omitted] •Unsteady forced convective with Fluid-structure interaction is been studied.•Parallel plates channel with two baffles and compliant wall is inserted.•Galerkin finite element method together with ALE technique is followed.•Higher and lower Re numbers cause positive and negative deflections, respectively.•The best length of the downstream baffle is 0.2 times the channel height. This paper investigates the fluid-structure interaction (FSI) and the forced convective heat transfer in a channel partly heated by constant heat flux. The FSI is represented by the 2-dimensional benchmarked geometry; a compliant segment wall. Two alternatives, upstream and downstream, baffles acting as vortex generators bound the compliant segment. The unsteady problem is formulated by arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian scheme based on finite element method. The thermal-hydraulic enhancement criterion is computed to evaluate the performance of the channel. Cauchy number and the length of the baffles respectively control the flexibility of the compliant segment and the force exerted on it, while Reynolds number is imposed to assess the competitive roles of the inertia and viscous forces. It is found that the Nusselt number of a certain compliant baffled channel enhances 94% compared with non-baffled channel at Re = 250, while the pressure drop increases by 210%. The thermal-hydraulic analysis shows that the best performance can be obtained at Cauchy number of 10−7 when the lengths of the upstream and downstream baffles are 0.6 and 0.2 times the channel height, respectively. The results show also that the compliant wall segment lowers the thermal performance of the non-baffled channel.