Computation of Turbulent Flow Through Parallel Plates with Streamwise Periodic Ribs by a Method with Self-Adjusted Relaxation Factor

In this study, the flow-field and forced-convection characteristics of turbulent flow through plates with streamwise periodic ribs is simulated by a faster converged numerical method. The method based on self-adjusted under relaxation factors is motivated from the concept of Bi-CGSTAB algorithm, which updates the solution vectors by the 2-norm minimization of the residual vectors of the governing equations, thus the optimal selection of the under relaxation factors for each control volume can be determined and hence the faster convergence for the numerical simulation can be achieved. In the flow-field, the upper wall is assumed thermally insulated, whereas the bottom plate with streamwise rectangular periodic ribs is provided with a uniform heat flux. The flow field and heat transfer characteristics are predict by Durbin’s k 2 ε v − − model, the numerical approach is based on the finite volume technique with staggered grid arrangement, and the PISO algorithm is adopted to obtain the pressure and the velocities. The local Nusselt number distribution along the bottom wall is calculated and compared with the experiment results concluded by Lorenz et al. It also compared with the computed results of Luo et al. The proposed method adopts the self-adjusted under relaxation factor provides the accurate flow-field and the forced-convection characteristics, furthermore, it indeed accelerates the convergence in this numerical simulation.