Fully Coupled Large Eddy Simulation-Conjugate Heat Transfer Analysis of a Ribbed Cooling Passage Using the Immersed Boundary Method

The study focuses on evaluating fully coupled conjugate heat transfer (CHT) simulation in a ribbed cooling passage with a fully developed flow assumption using large eddy simulation (LES) with the immersed boundary method (IBM-LES-CHT). The IBM-LES and the IBM-CHT frameworks are validated by simulating purely convective heat transfer in the ribbed duct, and a laminar boundary layer flow over a 2D flat plate with heat conduction, respectively. For the main conjugate simulations, a ribbed duct geometry with a blockage ratio of 0.3 is simulated at a bulk Reynolds number of 10,000 with a conjugate boundary condition applied to the rib surface. The nominal Biot number is kept at 1, which is similar to the comparative experiment. It is shown that the time scale disparity between turbulent fluid flow and heat conduction in solid can be overcome by using an artificially high solid thermal diffusivity. While the diffusivity impacts the instantaneous fluctuations in temperature and heat transfer, it has an insignificant effect on the predicted Nusselt number. Comparison between IBM-LES-CHT and iso-flux heat transfer simulations shows that the iso-flux case predicts higher local Nusselt numbers at the back face of the rib. Furthermore, the local Nusselt number augmentation ratio (EF) predicted by IBM-LES-CHT is compared with experiment and another LES conjugate simulation. The present LES calculations predict higher EFs on the leading face of the rib and show a different trend at the trailing face when CHT is activated.