Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Nusselt numbers in rectangular ducts with laminar viscous dissipation

Journal Article · · Journal of Heat Transfer
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1115/1.2826061· OSTI ID:20005639

The need for high thermal performance has stimulated the use of rectangular ducts in a wide variety of compact heat exchangers, mainly in tube-fin and plate-fin exchangers, in order to obtain an enhancement in heat transfer, with the same cross-sectional area of the duct. In this paper, the steady temperature distribution and the Nusselt numbers are analytically determined for a Newtonian incompressible fluid in a rectangular duct, in fully developed laminar flow with viscous dissipation, for any combination of heated and adiabatic sides of the duct, in H1 boundary condition, and neglecting the axial heat conduction in the fluid. The Navier-Stokes and the energy balance equations are solved using the technique of the finite integral transforms. For a duct with four uniformly heated sides (4 version), the temperature distribution and the Nusselt numbers are obtained as a function of the aspect ratio and of the Brinkman number and presented in graphs and tables Finally it is proved that the temperature field in a fully developed T boundary condition can be obtained as a particular case of the H1 problem and that the corresponding Nusselt numbers do not depend on the Brinkman number.

Research Organization:
Univ. di Ferrara (IT)
OSTI ID:
20005639
Journal Information:
Journal of Heat Transfer, Journal Name: Journal of Heat Transfer Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 121; ISSN 0022-1481; ISSN JHTRAO
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Similar Records

Further finite element analyses of fully developed laminar flow of power-law non-Newtonian fluid in rectangular ducts: Heat transfer predictions
Journal Article · Tue Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 1996 · International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer · OSTI ID:372287

Non-Newtonian fluid laminar flow and forced convection heat transfer in rectangular ducts
Journal Article · Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 1992 · International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer; (United States) · OSTI ID:6902785

Thermally developing convection from Newtonian flow in rectangular ducts with uniform heating
Journal Article · Wed Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 1993 · Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer; (United States) · OSTI ID:6092961