SADHANA-ACADEMY PROCEEDINGS IN ENGINEERING SCIENCES, vol.31, pp.31-46, 2006 (SCI-Expanded)
Choked converging nozzle flow and heat transfer characteristics are numerically investigated by means of a recent computational model that integrates the axisymmetric continuity, state, momentum and energy equations. To predict the combined effects of nozzle geometry, friction and heat transfer rates, analyses are conducted with sufficiently wide ranges of covergence half angle, surface roughness and heat flux conditions. Numerical findings show that inlet Mach and Nusselt numbers decrease up to 23.1% and 15.8% with surface heat flux and by 15.13% and 4.8% due to surface roughness. Considering each convergence half angle case individually results in a linear relation between nozzle discharge coefficients and exit Reynolds numbers with similar slopes. Heat flux implementation, by decreasing the shear stress values, lowers the risks due to wear hazards at upstream sections of flow walls; however the final 10% downstream nozzle portion is determined to be quite critical, where shear stress attains the highest magnitudes. Heat transfer rates are seen to increase in the streamwise direction LIP to 2.7 times; however high convergence half angles, heat flux and surface roughness conditions lower inlet Nusselt numbers by 70%, 15.8% and 4.8% respectively.