Thermo-Hydraulic Characteristics of a Stepped Micro-Channel Under Pulsating Inlet Flow Condition

Abstract

Present work constitutes of numerical analysis of fluid flow as well as heat transfer for a flow through a corrugated micro-channel. Water, which has a Pr = 7, is apprehended to be the fluid flowing through the corrugated channel. A sinusoidal pulsation was introduced at the inlet to regulate the inlet velocity as well as incoming volume flow rate towards the channel. A commercial code ANSYS FLUENT 19.2 was used for the inspection purpose. The flow is apprehended to be laminar and a laminar flow model was employed accordingly. The solution is carried out employing a finite volume based method. Isothermal wall boundary condition was engaged for the case, to realize the fluid flow and thermal performance of the proposed geometry. Reynolds number (Re) ranging from 1–100 was engaged for the analysis purpose. Also, a wide range of amplitude (A) of the pulsation and the frequency (f) which is represented by dimensionless Strouhal number (St), was taken on. Nusselt number, friction factor are reported characteristics to assess the overall thermal performance of the enhanced geometry.