EFFECT OF NEAR-WALL MODELLING ON PREDICTION OF IMPINGEMENT HEAT TRANSFER

Due to enhanced transport characteristics, impinging jets are widely used in industry to dry large surface area products such as paper and textiles. The present numerical study concerns the modelling of convective heat transfer for impingement drying. Flow and heat transfer under a confined two dimensional turbulent air jet impinging on a flat surface were modelled by solution of two-dimensional Navier-Stokes and energy equations. The turbulence model used was the high-Re number version of the well known two-equation (κ-ε) model and numerical solution was by the upwind finite difference scheme. The specific objective was to evaluate the accuracy of schemes for modelling the near-wall turbulent flow.

The mean flow properties such as centerline velocity decay and the pressure distribution at the impingement surface show no dependence on the near-wall model used. Heat transfer predictions were found to be quite sensitive to the choice of near-wall model. Best agreement between predictions and experiments was obtained for a Chieng-Launder type model with a new modification, use of k_p instead of k_v in the calculation of τ_w.