Pulsed Flow in a Vertical Channel with Discrete Heat Sources

Abstract

This work is a numerical simulation of pulsed flow in an adiabatic vertical parallel plate channel with four discrete heat sources on one wall of the channel and subjected to a sinusoidal profile velocity at the inlet. The finite volume method was used to solve governing equations using open source OpenFoam free code. The effects of certain topical parameters such as pulsation amplitude and frequency and Richardson number are studied. The results reveal the flow behaviour and temperature distribution are strongly affected by the pulsation of the velocity at the inlet and the rate of heat transfer during a pulsation cycle increases considerably by increasing the pulsation amplitude.