A NUMERICAL STUDY OF FULLY-DEVELOPED LAMINAR-FLOW AND HEAT-TRANSFER IN A CURVED PIPE WITH ARBITRARY CURVATURE RATIO

A finite-difference numerical method is applied to solve the full Navi er-Stokes equations for the fully developed flow and heat transfer in an axially uniformly heated curved pipe with arbitrary curvature ratio (the ratio of the pipe radius to the pipe curvature). Previous studie s were restricted to within a range of the curvature ratio less than 0 .3. In this study, the ranges of the parameters are the curvature rati o varying from 0.01 to 0.9, the Reynolds number varying from 1 to 2,00 0, and the Prandtl number varying from 0.7 to 300. The results of the friction ratio and the Nusselt-number ratio are correlated with the pa rameters of the curvature ratio, the Dean number, and the Prandtl numb er.