Turbulent natural convection along a vertical backward-facing step

Book · Tue Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1996

OSTI ID:445541

Yuan, X; Chen, T S; Armaly, B F ^[1]

---

1. Univ. of Missouri, Rolla, MO (United States)

Flow separation with reattachment occurs in many flows of practical interest. In this paper a two-equation turbulence model by Ince and Launder (1989) with Yap correction and a four-equation turbulence model by Abe et al. (1995) are utilized to predict turbulent natural convection along a vertical backward-facing step. Numerical computations were performed for a Prandtl number of 0.7 for three step heights (1.1, 2.2 and 4.4 cm) and with a temperature difference of 30 C between the heated plates and the free stream. Results are presented for mean flow velocity and temperature distributions, turbulence kinetic energy and its dissipation rate, turbulent heat flux, intensity of turbulent temperature variance and its dissipation rate, local Nusselt number, and reattachment length. A comparison between the predicted results from the two turbulence models shows that the differences in the maximum Nusselt number and in the reattachment length range, respectively, from 4% to 24% and 10% to 2% as the step height increases from 1.1 to 4.4 cm.

• Sponsoring Organization: National Science Foundation, Washington, DC (United States)
• OSTI ID: 445541
• Report Number(s): CONF-961105--; ISBN 0-7918-1520-X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
AIR FLOW
CONFIGURATION
ENERGY LOSSES
NATURAL CONVECTION
NUSSELT NUMBER
PRANDTL NUMBER
TEMPERATURE DISTRIBUTION
THEORETICAL DATA
TURBULENT FLOW