Mass transfer in developing flow of a reactive mixture through a curved cylindrical tube

Mass transfer to the reactive wall of a curved cylindrical tube is analyzed in the combined entry region where both momentum and concentration boundary layers are developing. The velocity and concentration distributions developing from uniform inlet profiles are obtained using perturbation analysis, accounting for acceleration of the inviscid flow outside the boundary layer arising from channel curvature and flow displacement. The enhancement in the average flux of the reactive species at the tube wall downstream of the inlet is determined and compared to predictions of numerical simulations. A regression model is presented for the cross-sectional average of the Sherwood number, valid for distances up to ten tube diameters downstream of the tube inlet over a wide range of Reynolds and Schmidt numbers.