Abstract
The present study numerically simulates the flow and heat transfer characteristics of rib-induced secondary flow in a cooling channel with staggered V-shaped ribs, extruded on both walls. The rib pitch-to-height ratio (p/h) varies from 2.8 to 10 with the rib-height-to-hydraulic diameter ration ($h/D_h$) of 0.07 and the Reynolds number of 50,000. Shear stress transport (SST) turbulence model is used as a turbulence model. Computational results show that complex secondary flow patterns are generated in the duct due to the snaking flow in the streamwise direction for all tested cases. In the range of p/h=5 to 10 the staggered V-shaped rib gives about 3 times higher heat transfer augmentation than the reference smooth channel with high heat transfer on both front side and the area around the leading edge of the ribs, while the former cases give about 2.5 times higher streamwise pressure drop than the latter ones. Consequently, for the thermal performances, based on the equal pumping power condition, the staggered ones give about 2 times higher values than the latter ones with more uniform heat transfer distribution.
