Prediction of pressure loss and heat transfer in internal cooling passages

This paper reports CFD-simulations of the turbulent flow, pressure loss and heat transfer occurring in ribbed passages. The channel section is rectangular, with an aspect ratio of 2.04. Ribs are square cross-section, their height is 10% of the channel height, and their inclination is varied from 90 degrees to 33 degrees. Reynolds number is 30,000. Three turbulence models (k-epsilon wall functions and 2-layer, V2F) are used and compared to the experimental data of Cho et al. All three models accurately predict the pressure losses due to the ribs and the qualitative heat transfer distribution on the ribbed wall. However, only the V2F model can accurately reproduce the absolute heat transfer levels, this at all inclination angles. The correlation developed by Han and co-workers for smaller rib-heights under-predicts the friction factor and wall heat transfer level on the current configuration. This shows the danger of using a correlation outside of its application range.