A numerical investigation of heat transfer in a rotating enclosure

Abstract

This numerical investigation studies the heat transfer from a fluid in a rotating enclosure. First, heat transfer from a fluid in a cylindrical enclosure with forced convection boundary conditions was numerically computed and compare to analytical results. A case study was developed using computational fluid dynamics analysis in order to study the heat transfer and internal flow behavior in a container that is rotating at different angular velocity. The same numerical study was repeated but with varying the shape of the container and angular velocity. Velocity and temperature distributions were observed in order to have a good approach between the numerical and analytical solutions. For Reynolds number less than 1000, temperature distribution in a full container does not depend on the rotation rates and this result agrees with analytical findings from the non-dimensional energy equation. The second part of this analysis shows that varying the shapes of the container and the rotation rates affect the temperature distribution with respect to time.