A. Barletta et E. Zanchini, LAMINAR FORCED-CONVECTION WITH SINUSOIDAL WALL HEAT-FLUX DISTRIBUTION- AXIALLY PERIODIC REGIME, Heat and mass transfer, 31(1-2), 1995, pp. 41-48
Stationary and laminar forced convection in a circular tube with a sin
usoidal axial distribution of wall heat flux is studied under the hypo
thesis that both axial heat conduction and viscous dissipation in the
fluid are negligible. Two cases are considered: a sinusoidal wall heat
flux distribution with a vanishing mean value; a sinusoidal wall heat
flux distribution which does not change its sign. In both cases, the
temperature field and the local Nusselt number are evaluated analytica
lly in the fully developed region, i.e. where the local Nusselt number
depends periodically on the axial coordinate. It is shown that, in th
e first case, the fully developed region presents an infinite sequence
of axial positions where the local Nusselt number is singular. In the
se positions, the wall heat flux has a non-vanishing value even if the
wall temperature equals the bulk temperature.