Oronzio Manca, Sergio Nardini, Daniele Ricci

Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer (FHMT) 2 - 013007 (2011)

Convective heat transfer may be enhanced passively by adopting rough surfaces. Ribs break the laminar sub-layer and create local turbulence in the channel, reducing thermal resistance and enhancing the heat transfer. However, higher losses are expected. In this paper a numerical investigation is carried out on air forced convection in a rectangular ribbed channel. A three-dimensional model is developed to study the effect of the angle between the fluid flow direction and the ribbed surface, provided with rectangular turbulators, in the turbulent flow. Simulations s that Nusselt numbers as well as the pressure drops increase as the inclination angles increase.