ARTICLE:

• NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF TRANSIENT LAMINAR FORCED CONVECTION IN A RECTANGULAR DUCT  download article

Nedim Sozbir
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sakarya University, Sakarya, Turkey

Unal Uysal
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sakarya University, Sakarya, Turkey

Ibrahim Sarac
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli, Turkey

Ismail Calli
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sakarya University, Sakarya, TURKIYE

Sadik Kakac
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Miami, P.O. Box 248294 - Coral Gables, Florida - 33124-0624 - USA

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on a numerical investigation and experimental study of transient laminar forced convection in a rectangular duct due to a sinusoidal heat input at the inlet with hydrodynamically developed and thermally developing air flow. The experiments were conducted over with range of Reynolds number (1120 ≤ Re ≤2220) and inlet frequencies (0.02 Hz ≤ β ≤ 0.24 Hz) of the periodic heat input. The transient heat transfer problem is solved in the thermal entrance region of the duct. Numerical as well as experimental results are reported. A second order accurate explicit finite difference scheme is used in the numerical solution to the energy equation. Numerical results are obtained with the fully developed parabolic velocity profile under the boundary condition of the fifth kind which was verified by the experiments. Temperature variations along the centerline of the rectangular duct are observed to be thermal oscillations with the same frequency as the inlet periodic heat input and amplitudes that decayed exponentially with distance along the duct. The results are compared with those from experiments. Satisfactory agreement between the numerical and experimental results are obtained.

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