Performance optimisation of laminar fully developed flow through square ducts with rounded corners

A study on combined first and second law based optimisation of thermal-hydraulic performance of laminar fully developed flow through square ducts with rounded corners has been presented in this paper. The objective functions have been considered according to suggestions of Webb and Bergles [7]. Four specific geometric constraints have been imposed on the shape of the ducts and these ducts have also been subjected to three different thermal and (or) hydraulic constraints. Two different thermal boundary conditions have been considered and the correlations for friction factor and Nusselt numbers have been adopted from the study of Ray and Misra [21]. The results obtained from the present study clearly show that the optimal duct geometry strongly depends on geometric and thermal-hydraulic constraints, as well as, the objective functions and hence, no general comment can be made with respect to the superiority of a particular geometry of the ducts. Nevertheless, the present study also shows that although entropy generation minimisation may be considered to be an important tool, one requires being careful in using it for thermal-hydraulic optimisation since it may lead to contradictory results for some of the performance evaluation criteria.