Numerical and experimental investigation of heat transfer and flow structures around three heated spheres in tandem arrangement

Abstract

The objective of this work is to evaluate the convective heat transfer and flow characteristics around three heated spheres in a tandem arrangement. Numerical simulation and Experimental verification were performed using stationary copper spheres located inside a cylindrical channel with constant channel-to-sphere diameter ratio. Numerical simulation is done for three-dimensional steady-state flow using ANSYS-FLUENT by solving the Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) equations. Over the test range of Reynolds numbers (2500-55000), the numerical results of the average surface temperature and heat transfer coefficient obtained are a reasonably good agreement with those obtained by experimental measurements. The distributions of the heat transfer coefficient, temperature profiles, velocity field and pressure coefficient around the sphere's surface are calculated and analyzed. © 2020 Institute of Physics Publishing. All rights reserved.