Effect of the Broken Rib Locations on the Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow in a Rotating Latticework Duct

A numerical method was used to study the effect of the broken rib locations on the heat transfer and flow structure in the latticework duct with various rotational numbers. The latticework duct had eleven subchannels on both the pressure side and the suction side. The crossing angle for each subchannel was 45 deg. The numerical studies were conducted with five different broken rib locations and six rotational numbers (0–0.5). The Reynolds number was fixed as 44,000. The flow structure, wall shear stress, and Nusselt number distributions were analyzed. It was found that the upward spiral flow and helical flow dominated the flow structure in the latticework duct. In addition, the impingement region (at the beginning of the subchannel) induced by the upward spiral flow was responsible for the high Nusselt number and wall shear stress. After adoption of the broken rib in the latticework duct, the Nusselt number was increased by 6.12% on the pressure endwall surface and increased by 6.02% on the rib surface compared to the traditional latticework duct. As the rotational number was increased, the Nusselt number on the pressure endwall surface was decreased by up to 5.4%. However, the high rotational number enhanced the heat transfer on the suction side. The high rotational number also decreased the friction factor in the latticework duct. Furthermore, the overall thermal performance was increased by 12.12% after adoption of the broken ribs on both the turn region and the impingement region.