Fluid-solid Interaction-a New Trend

摘要

Almost two and a half decades ago, while a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, I studied internal flow and heat transfer in circular tubes [1]. Single tubes had been studied a long time before, and their analysis and correlations were available in almost any heat transfer textbook. Laminar flow was treated analytically, while turbulent flow was mostly based on empirical correlations that had emerged from extensive experimental efforts of the past. Tube flow was important because of its widespread application in industrial heat exchangers. Although single-tube results were a classical topic in heat transfer textbooks, flow interaction and competition among tubes for more flow rate, as occurs in a shell-and-tube heat exchanger, was still missing from the published literature. This flow competition, which gives rise to maldistribution of the flow and uneven heating or cooling of devices, is still an important issue in thermal engineering design.