Numerical Study of Laminar Flow and Heat Transfer in Curved Pipe Flow

A three dimensional numerical simulation of laminar flow and heat transfer in fully developed curved pipe flow has been performed to study the effects of Dean number and pipe curvature on the flow and temperature fields under the thermal boundary condition of axially uniform wall heat flux. The Reynolds number under consideration ranges from 100 to 4000, and the Prandtl number is 0.71. The curvature ratios are 0.01, 0.025, 0.05 and 0.1. The axial velocity and temperature profiles and the local Nusselt number obtained from the present study are in good agreement with the previous numerical and experimental results currently available. To show the effects of pipe curvature on the flow and heat transfer, the resistance coefficients and heat transfer coefficients are computed and compared with the results of the previous theoretical and experimental studies. The averaged Nusselt number is correlated with Dean and Prandtl numbers. Furthermore, the critical Reynolds number for transition to turbulent flow is observed to depend upon the curvature ratio.