CFD Online Discussion Forums - Cyclic conjugate heat transfer

Hello,

I am investigating water flow through a heated internally rifled tube, using chtMultiRegionSimpleFoam (modelling heat transfer in both water and the tube). Until now I have been using a mesh with entrance region to ensure fully developed flow before the heating section, but I am interested in trying a cyclic approach. I have come across som examples for cyclic heat transfer of internal flows (as descirbed in Fully Developed Flow and Heat Transfer in Ducts Having Streamwise-Periodic Variations of Cross-Sectional Area by Patankar & Sparrow, 1977).

The basic idea is to define a modified pressure field,

$p^*(x,y,z) = p(x,y,z) - \beta z,$
where

is the streamwise direction and $\beta z$ is the pressure drop across the domain. The same can be done for temperature (assuming constant heat flux),
$T^*(x,y,z) = T(x,y,z) + \gamma z,$

where $\gamma$ is the temperature gradient, defined as
$\gamma = \frac{\dot{Q}}{\dot{m}C_p L}.$

However, this is not shown for conjugate heat transfer, which I am interested in. I have not managed to find any examples of this yet, so I thought I should ask here if anyone has experience with this. If not, I think it should be possible to implement this in OpenFOAM without too much trouble. Any help is appreciated.

Best regards,
Johan