Heat transfer in laminar and turbulent liquid-metal MHD flows in square ducts with thin conducting or insulating walls (Q1388264)

We analyze the heat transfer in fully-developed liquid-metal flows in a square duct in a uniform, transverse magnetic field. Velocity profiles obtained for laminar and turbulent regimes are employed to solve the heat transfer equation through finite differences, in a duct with one side wall (parallel to the magnetic field) uniformly heated and three adiabatic walls. Turbulent effects are introduced through eddy viscosity and thermal diffusivity models from the renormalization group theory of turbulence. Analysis focuses on determining how the structure of the side-layer flow, influenced by the wall conductance ratio and Hartmann and Péclet numbers in the ranges of interest of fusion blanket applications, affects the heat transfer processes.