Heat Transfer Enhancement in Annular Shear-Thinning Flows Over a Sudden Pipe Expansion

Heat transfer enhancement in suddenly expanding annular pipe flows of a shear-thinning non-Newtonian fluid is studied within the steady laminar flow regime. Conservation of mass, momentum, and energy equations, along with the power-law constitutive model are numerically solved. The impact of inflow inertia, annular-nozzle-diameter-ratio, k, power-law index, n, and Prandtl numbers, is reported for: Re = {50, 100}, k = {0, 0.5, 0.7}; n = {1, 0.8, 0.6}; and Pr = {1, 10, 100}. Heat transfer enhancement downstream of the expansion plane, i.e., Nusselt numbers, Nu, higher than the fully developed value, in the downstream pipe, is observed only for Pr = 10 and 100. Higher Prandtl numbers, power-law index values, and annular diameter ratios, in general, reflect a more dramatic heat transfer augmentation downstream of the expansion plane. Heat transfer augmentation for Pr = 10 and 100, is more dramatic for suddenly expanding annular flows, in comparison with suddenly expanding pipe flow. For a given annular diameter ratio and Reynolds numbers, increasing the Prandtl number from Pr = 10 to Pr = 100, always results in higher peak Nu values, for both Newtonian and shear-thinning non-Newtonian flows.