Forced convection in a wavy-wall channel

The rates of heat transfer for flow through a sinusoidally curved converging-diverging channel has been analyzed using a simple coordinate transformation method and the spline alternating-direction implicit method. The effects of the wavy geometry, Reynolds number and Prandtl number on the skin-friction and Nusselt number have been studied. Results show that the amplitudes of the Nusselt number and the skin-friction coefficient increase with an increase in the Reynolds number and the amplitude-wavelength ratio. The heat transfer enhancement is not significant at smaller amplitude wavelength ratio, however, at a sufficiently larger value of amplitude wavelength ratio the corrugated channel will be seen to be an effective heat transfer device, especially at higher Reynolds numbers. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.