Numerical Investigation of the Thermohydraulic Performance of Double-Wave Cross-Corrugated Passages.

A numerical study on flow and heat transfer in double-wave cross-corrugated passages with different structure parameters was conducted. The three-dimensional governing equations for mass, momentum, and heat transfer were solved using a control volume finite difference method and a validated low-Reynolds number k-ϵmodel. The effects of Reynolds number and structure parameters, including pitch ratio (P1/P2) and height ratio (H1/H2), were studied. It was found that with a decrease in height ratio, the mainstream flow changed from a pattern dominated by L-shaped flow to one dominated by Z-shaped flow, whereas pitch ratio had almost no influence on the flow pattern. The average Nusselt number Nuavfirst increased and then decreased gradually with either an increase in the pitch ratio or a decrease in the height ratio. Pressure drop showed the same trend as heat transfer performance. The best performance evaluation criterion number (g) of double-wave passage was nearly 20% higher than that of the corresponding single-wave passage, whereas the worst was nearly 40% lower. On the whole, the double-wave plate with H1/H2 = 5 showed better overall performance. The double-wave plate with P1/P2 = 1 had better overall performance for Re < 5,000, whereas that with P1/P2 = 3 was better for Re > 7,500. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]