A Numerical Study of Eccentricity Effect to Heat Transfer Under Single Phase Force Convection Inside a Vertical Annulus

Because annulus channel can be used to develop high efficiency compact heat exchangers, the heat transfer in annulus channel has become great interest to researchers in recent years. Most of the studies focus on the vertical concentric and horizontal eccentric annulus. The investigations about single phase force convection heat transfer inside a vertical eccentric annulus are not enough. In this work, force convection heat transfer is numerically studied to determine the eccentricity effect inside a vertical annulus. For this purpose, full Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations along with energy equations are solved in a 3-D grid. The discrete method of the equations is based on finite-volume method and the turbulence model is RNG k-ε model. The radius ratio of the annulus is 0.8 in this work. Heat flux of one wall is constant while the other is insulated. Firstly, the feasibility and exactness of the numerical method is proved by comparing the Nusselt number with experiment in concentric annulus. Then the effect of eccentricity is studied in detail.