Numerical analysis of convective heat transfer in a triangular duct with radiation boundary conditions

Abstract

Finite difference has been used to model a laminar, fully developed flow through a isosceles triangular duct with based fully insulated and the other two sides subjected to radiation boundary condition. Taking into account on practical application in the industries, radiation boundary conditions are considered in the analysis as this reflect big potential of application in the heat transfer equipment. Various aspect ratios have been analysed to investigate the behavior of the temperature and velocity profile as well as the mean bulk temperature and the Nusselts number. Numerical method using finite difference has been selected to solve the governing equations for both momentum and energy equations. SOR (Successive Overrelaxation) and explicit finite difference method have been adopted to solve the momentum and energy equation respectively. These methods are proven and reliable to solve Poisson and parabolic equations as demonstrated in many literatures and give reasonable fast rate of convergence. The results of mean bulk temperature and Nusselts numbers for three different aspect ratios correspond to 15o, 30odan 45o were presented. The asymptotic Nusselts numbers obtained are 1.9, 7.6 and 13.2 respectively.