Research Article

Heat transfer convection of a power law fluid flow within a parallel plate channel provided with two generating obstacles

Faculty of Mechanical and Process Engineering, University of Science and Technology Houari Boumediene, USTHB, Algiers, Algeria

^* Corresponding author: e-mail: ahlem.boudiaf@gmail.com

Received: 17 July 2016
Accepted: 15 September 2017

Abstract

The main objective of this work is to examine the heat transfer changes induced by the presence of heat generating obstacles and that for non-Newtonian fluid flow within a parallel plate channel. The effects of the two obstacle height and the distance between them, on the flow structure and Nusselt number are examined. The Finite Volume Method is used to discretize the conservation equations of mass, momentum, and energy. The SIMPLER algorithm is applied to remove the checkerboard pressure problem. The results are discussed in terms of streamlines and the Nusselt number for three combinations of height and separation distance of the two obstacles. Two recirculation zones are observed for all the cases with different intensity varying with the size of the obstacle and the separation distance. Likewise the results show that the heat removal, occurring by the Nusselt number variations, is widely affected by the size of the obstacles as well as by the distance between them.