Experimental Validation of a Computational Fluid Dynamics Methodology for Transitional Flow Heat Transfer Characteristics of a Steady Impinging Jet

摘要

This paper presents a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methodology to accurately predict the heat transfer characteristics of an unconfined steady impinging air jet in the transitional flow regime, impinging on a planar constant-temperature surface. The CFD methodology is validated using detailed experimental measurements of the local surface heat transfer coefficient. The numerical model employs a transitional turbulence model which captures the laminar-turbulent transition in the wall jet which precisely predicts the intensity and extent of the secondary peak in the radial Nusselt number distribution. The paper proposes a computationally low-cost turbulence model which yields the most accurate results for a wide range of operating and geometrical conditions. A detailed analysis of the effect of mesh grid size and properties, inflow conditions, turbulence model, and turbulent Prandtl number Pr_t is presented. The numerical uncertainty is quantified by the grid convergence index (GCI) method. In the range of Reynolds number 6000 ≤ Re ≤ 14,000 and nozzle-to-surface distance 1 ≤ H/D ≤ 6, the model is in excellent agreement with the experimental data. For the case of H/D = 1 and Re = 14,000, the maximum deviations are 5%, 3%, and 2% in terms of local, area-averaged and stagnation point Nusselt numbers, respectively. Experimental and numerical correlations are presented for the stagnation point Nusselt number.