Application of shear-thinning and shear-thickening fluids to computational fluid mechanics of high-Reynolds impinging turbulent jets for cooling engineering

In the present paper a numerical study on the heat transfer from a heated flat plate to a shear-thinning/shear-thickening high-Reynolds impinging jet is developed. Only laminar jet flows have been considered in the literature to date for this type of application. This investigation is focused on the study of the impact of nozzle-to-plate distance, generation of swirl and Power Law flow index in the quantities of interest for heat transfer. It has been found that the cooling of the plate is highly influenced by the shear-thinning and shear-thickening behaviour of the working fluid. The most relevant conclusion is that surface-averaged heat transfer is enhanced by a shear-thinning fluid, but the cooling at the stagnation point is enhanced by a shear-thickening fluid. Mathematical correlations are also provided based on the training data generated in the present investigation. Surprisingly, there are no engineering applications nor studies using high-Reynolds non-Newtonian jet flows yet, so this novel numerical investigation intends to show the advantages/drawbacks of several configurations.