Fully developed mixed convection and flow reversal in a vertical rectangular duct with uniform wall heat flux (Q5956669)

A theoretical study is presented on laminar mixed convection and flow reversal in a vertical rectangular duct with uniform wall heat flux. The velocity field, temperature field, skin friction factor and local Nusselt number are evaluated analytically by employing finite Fourier transform method. The thermal boundary condition considered is an axially uniform wall heat flux and a peripherally uniform wall temperature called H1 boundary condition. The H1 boundary condition is encountered in some practical problems of heat exchanger technology, design of solar collectors or modeling of cooling processes in electronic devices which involve convective flows in non-circular ducts. The analysis in this paper refers to the region of fully developed flow where the velocity field is parallel. The Boussinesq approximation has been invoked and a reference temperature for lineariziation of the equation of state \(\rho= \rho(T)\) has been chosen, where \(\rho\) is the density and \(T\) is the fluid temperature. The governing non-dimensional equations involve two parameters, namely, the aspect ratio \(\sigma\) and the mixed convection parameter Gr/Re, where Gr is the Grashof number and Re is Reynolds number. A necessary and sufficient condition for the onset of flow reversal is obtaned for the cases of either upward flow in a cooled duct or of downward flow in a heated duct. In particular, it is shown that a sufficiently intense flow reversal in a vertical rectangular duct can yield a pre-heating or pre-cooling of the fluid. The analytical solution obtained in this paper for the skin friction factor and for Nusselt number has been compared with other existing solutions referring to the same heat transfer problem or to special cases. It is mentioned, however, that there are some discrepancies in the values of skin friction factor and Nusselt number which are due to the different choices of the reference temperature for the linearization of the equation of state \(\rho= \rho(T)\).