Heat Transfer Downstream of an Abrupt Expansion in the Transition Reynolds Number Regime

The heat transfer downstream of an axisymmetric abrupt expansion in a pipe in the transition Reynolds number regime has been investigated experimentally. In these experiments the wall of the downstream pipe was heated to give a constant heat flux into the air flow. The ratio of the upstream to downstream pipe diameters was 0.8 and the downstream Reynolds number ranged from 1420 to 8060. Within a narrow range of Reynolds numbers, around 5000, the position of the maximum Nusselt number was found to shift considerably. This interesting behavior may be associated with the flow instabilities in sudden expansions which have been observed by others.