Annals of Nuclear Energy 47 (2012) 8590

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Annals of Nuclear Energy

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Experimental study of transition from laminar to turbulent ow in vertical

narrow channel
Wang Chang, Gao Pu-zhen , Wang Zhan-wei, Tan Si-chao
Key Discipline Laboratory of Nuclear Safety and Simulation Technology, College of Nuclear Science and Technology, Harbin Engineering University, Heilongjiang 150001, PR China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 29 November 2011
Received in revised form 10 April 2012
Accepted 13 April 2012
Available online 20 May 2012
Keywords:
Flow characteristic
Heat transfer characteristic
Laminar to turbulent transition
Narrow channel

a b s t r a c t
Experimental investigation of ow and heat transfer characteristics of a vertical narrow channel with uniform heat ux condition are conducted to analysis the effect of wall heating on the laminar to turbulent
transition. The friction factor in the heating condition is compared with that in the adiabatic condition
and the results show that wall heating leads to the delay of laminar to turbulent transition. In addition,
the heat transfer characteristic indicates that the critical Reynolds number at the point of laminar ow
breakdown increases with the increase of uid temperature difference, and the local Nusselt number
at the point of laminar breakdown increases with the increase of the inlet Reynolds number. The analyses
of the ow and heat transfer characteristics both indicate that the heating has a stabilizing effect on the
water ow at present experimental scale.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Compact heat exchangers are widely adopted in nuclear industries due to their high heat transfer performances. More and more
designers prefer to use the array of rectangular channels with large
aspect ratio in compact heat exchangers. Up to now, most of the
investigations of friction factor and heat transfer are focused on
the fully developed laminar and turbulent ow, and the designers
always avoid ows in the transition regime due to the considerable
uncertainties. However, there are some situations that the transition regime cannot be avoided, such as upgrading the system as
it working originally in the laminar ow or in the accidental scenarios. Until now, limited work in the transition region has been
reported due to the complexity of the inuence factors.
Gajusingh and Siddiqui (2008) investigated the impact of wall
heating on the ow structure in the near wall region inside a horizontal square channel through use PIV measure the two-dimensional velocity elds. It was found that when an originally
laminar ow is heated from below, the turbulence is generated
in the ow mainly due to buoyancy. However, as the ow is rstly
in the turbulent regime, additional wall heating from below reduces the magnitude of turbulent intensity due to the working of
turbulence against the buoyancy forces. In addition, Behzadmehr
et al. (2008) studied the unsteady phenomena in the case of airows approaching transition inside a uniformly heated vertical
tube, they found instability occurs in the buffer region and then
propagates towards the whole section of the tube as the Grashof
Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +86 451 82569655.
E-mail address: gaopuzhen@hrbeu.edu.cn (G. Pu-zhen).
0306-4549/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2012.04.018

number is increased. Tam and Ghajar (1997) experimentally studied the pressure drop characteristics in the transition region of a
horizontal circular pipe with different inlet shapes under adiabatic
and uniform ux boundary conditions. The results indicate that the
lower and upper limit of the non-isothermal transition boundaries
increases owing to the effect of secondary ow. Serkan (2004)
modied the incompressible stability equations through introducing the variation of uid properties over the cross-section. The results show that wall heating shifts the neutral stability curves
towards higher Reynolds numbers and hence have a stabilizing effect. In addition, Sameen and Govindarajan (2007) conducted a
comprehensive theoretical research on the effect of wall heating
on the linear transient and consequential growth of instability in
a channel ow. The results show that the decrease in viscosity
has a substantial stabilizing effect and vice versa.
Recently, Abraham et al. (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011), Minkowycz
et al. (2009) conducted a series of theoretical analyses and numerical simulations on the laminar ow breakdown in pipe ow. They
developed some models for predicting the heat transfer coefcient
and friction factor in the transition region. In addition, Silin et al.
(2010a, 2010b) experimentally studied the effect of wall heating
on the laminar to turbulent transition in a rectangular channel
and found that the reduction of viscosity has a stabilizing effect
on the ow.
The literature survey reveals that there are two typically types
of transition process, one is the buoyancy induced type transition
in a horizontal heated pipe, such as in the case of Taylor-Couette
ow and RayleighBenard ow, and the other is the so-called
breakdown type transition, such as that in the heated laminar
Poiseuille ow. However, as mentioned above, most of the studies

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W. Chang et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 47 (2012) 8590

Nomenclature
A
b
Cp
Dh
Gr
h
k
L
_
m
Nu
P
q
Re
T
u
us
y

area (m2)
half length of the narrow side (m)
specic heat (J kg1 C1)
equivalent diameter (m)
Grashof number
heat transfer coefcient (W m2 C1)
thermal conductivity (W m1 C1)
length (m)
mass ow rate (kg s1)
Nusselt number
Perimeter (m)
heat ux (kW m2)
Reynolds number
temperature (C)
velocity (m s1)
shear velocity (m s1)
distance perpendicular to the wall (m)

on the breakdown type transition are based on theoretical and

numerical investigation. It is the primary motive to experimentally
study the effect of wall heating on the breakdown type transition
from laminar ow to turbulent in the channel.
2. Experimental instruction
The setup of the experimental loop is displayed in Fig. 1. The
centrifugal pump circulates de-ionized water through the magnetic ow rate meter, preheater, test section and then the watercooled condenser at which hot water condensed before it returned
to the pump. A control valve at the inlet of the test section enables
the accommodation of ow rate.
The detail of the test section can be seen in Fig. 2. The test section is a single rectangular channel made of stainless steel with the
internal size of 2 mm  40 mm. The channel is heated directly
using a DC power supply which provides a uniform heat ux on
both sides. In addition, the channel is electrically and thermally
insulated through sandwiched by micanite plates. Furthermore,
four Teon washers are used to keep the test section electrically
insulated from the other parts of experimental loop. The system
pressure is controlled by connecting to a high pressure nitrogen
gas source.
Fluid bulk temperature at the inlet and outlet of the test section
is measured by two N-type thermocouples inserted into the main
ow. However, wall temperatures at six locations are measured
using N-type thermocouples which are attached to the exterior
wall surface. The locations of these thermocouples relative to channel hydraulic diameter are as follows: Lx/Dh = 37, 140, 201, 242,
284 and 307. All thermocouples used in the experiment have a calibration accuracy of 0.5 C. Additionally, the pressure drop at the
fully developed ow region is measured by the differential pressure transducer, and the absolute pressure at the inlet of the test
section is measured by a pressure gauge. The accuracy of differential pressure transducers is within 0.2% of the test span. In addition, the accuracy of the water ow meter is within 0.3% of the
test span.
3. Experimental procedure and data reduction
Prior to conduct the heating condition experiment, the friction
factor in adiabatic condition is measured to dene the transition

Greek symbol
aspect ratio
b
thermal expansion coefcient (K1)
l
viscosity (Pa s)
k
friction factor

Subscripts
f
uid
in
inlet
m
cross section average
out
outlet
PLB
point of laminar breakdown
w
wall
x
location (m)
Superscript

dimensionless parameter

boundary and check the reliability of the data collection system.

In addition, ve sets of experiments are conducted in the wall heating condition as the inlet bulk uid temperature is xed at 40 C.
Additionally, as the mass ow rate increases, the heat ux is adjusted simultaneously to keep the temperature of outlet bulk uid
unvaried in each set of experiment. The uid temperature difference between the inlet and outlet of the test section approximately
equals to 20, 32, 53, 60 and 74 C. At present the system pressure is
kept in 0.8 MPa.
The local bulk temperature of the uid owing into the test section at each position is determined as follows,

_ pm DT=PLx
q_ mC

DT T out  T in

_ x =mC
_ pm
T f ;x T in qPL

_ is the water mass ow rate, C pm is the

where q_ is the heat ux, m
water mean specic heat at the bulk temperature, T fx is the bulk
temperature of water at position x, Tin and Tout is the measured inlet
and outlet ow temperature, respectively, P is the perimeter of the
channel cross section and Lx is the distance of a position from the
inlet of test section.
Buyukalaca and Jackson (1997), Herwig and Mahulikar (2006)
and Liu et al. (2008) theoretically studied the effect of variable
property on the thermal hydraulics and found the change of property resulted in marked inuence on the velocity prole and heat
transfer in the near wall region. In addition, Li et al. (2007) compared the Average property and Variable property method in
the analyses of friction and heat transfer characteristics and found
the Variable property method is superior in engineering application since it more accurately and reasonably characterizes the actual phenomenon by nature. Therefore, in the present study, the
local Reynolds number, local heat transfer coefcient and local
Nusselt number based on the local uid property are dened as
follows,

_ h =lx A
Rex mD

_
hx q=T
w;x  T f ;x

Nux hx Dh =k

W. Chang et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 47 (2012) 8590

Fig. 1. Experimental loop.

Fig. 2. Cross section of the rectangular channel.

where Rex and Nux is the local Reynolds number and local Nusselt
number, respectively, k is the water thermal conductivity, Dh is
the hydraulic diameter, A is the heat transfer area, Tw,x is the local
inner surface temperature. lx is the local dynamic viscosity determined by the local uid temperature Tf,x.
In addition, as shown in Fig. 1, the special layout of the current
experimental loop gives rise to a natural convection superimposed
on the forced convection. However, it is well known that the relative importance of natural and forced convection can be evaluated
by the ratio of Gr/Re2. If Gr/Re2 is on the order of one, the natural
convection cannot be neglected and the ow is mixed convection.
Whereas the ratio of Gr/Re2 is small compared to one, the ow is
forced convection (John and John, 2006). Thus the magnitude of
Grashof number should be considered as can be expressed as
follows,

Grx gbx T w;x  T f ;x D3h =m2x

In which, bx is the local thermal expansion coefcient, K
the kinematic viscosity, m2/s.

Fig. 3. Effect of natural convection.

7
1

, mx is

4. Results and discussion

Fig. 3 demonstrated that the natural convection can be ruled
out in present study due to the effect of buoyancy is very weak,
therefore, the ow in essentially is forced circulation. The accepted
friction factor and Nusselt number prediction correlations for lam-

Fig. 4. Comparison of the experimental data and the predicted values.

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W. Chang et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 47 (2012) 8590

introduces an increase of the lower and upper limit of the transition boundaries.
As we know, the wall heating affects the ow characteristic via
two approaches. One is the wall heating changes the waters temperature and then the viscosity of the water changes greatly, the
other is the velocity prole alters due to the variation of uid properties On considering this, we will analyse this two inuential factors separately.

Fig. 5. Friction characteristic with different heat ux in transition regime.

inar ow of forced circulation in the rectangular channels were reported by Hartnett and Kostic (Hartnett and Kostic, 1989),

k 96=Re1  1:3553a 1:9467a2  1:7012a3 0:9564a4

 0:2537a5

Nu 8:2351  2:0421a 3:0853a2  2:4765a3 1:0578a4

 0:1861a5

In which, a is the aspect ratio. Re is the Reynolds number based

on the hydraulic diameter.
As seen in Fig. 4, the experimental data agrees well with the
predicted values calculated from Eqs. (7) and (8).

4.1.1. The effect of viscosity variation

As concluded by Schlichting and Gersten (1999), the laminarturbulent transition can be described as a stability problem. It is
well known that the viscosity has two effects on the stability phenomenon. Firstly, it diffuses the vortices created by high shear
forces near the wall and appears as a destabilizing effect. Secondly,
it dissipates the disturbance energy and presents as a stabilizing
effect.
As the Reynolds numbers are small, the stabilizing effect of the
viscosity is large enough to ensure the small perturbations die
away. However, as the Reynolds number is large enough, the viscosity is no longer sufcient to damp the disturbance energy and
the perturbations are accumulated, thus eventually initiate the
transition to turbulent ow.
Therefore, if the effect of viscosity variation is in the highest
ight of the transition process, the decreased kinematic viscosity
near the wall as a result of heating will destabilize the ow and
introduce the transition appears earlier than that of the isothermal
condition. However, as seen in Fig. 4, the initiation of transition
Reynolds number increases with the increase of temperature difference. As mentioned in the experimental procedure, the viscosity
of water will decrease with the increasing temperature difference
at a given inlet uid temperature. Therefore, the variation of viscosity is not the dominant factor that inuences the ow
transition.

4.1. Friction factor in transition region

As seen in Fig. 5, there is a signicant distinction of friction factor between the wall heating condition and isothermal condition in
the transition regime. The larger the temperature difference, the
bigger the region of laminar ow. In other words, the wall heating

4.1.2. The effect of velocity prole variation

The typical velocity proles under different heat ux conditions
at a xed mass ow rate are simulated through the CFD. The velocity proles shown in Fig. 6 reveals the remarkably difference of
velocity prole between the heated and isothermal condition.

Fig. 6. Variation of velocity distribution and its derivatives with wall heating.

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W. Chang et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 47 (2012) 8590

Fig. 8. Local Reynolds number at the point of laminar breakdown.

Fig. 9. Local Nusselt number at the point of laminar break down.

u uy =uy 0

Fig. 7. The axial distribution of local Nusselt number.

Due to the reduced kinematic viscosity, the velocity prole become steeper in the near wall region, accordingly, the velocity defects f(y) become signicantly less when the heat transfer rate is
increased.

f y uy 0  um =us

y y=b

10
11

12

In which, b is the half length of the narrow side, m; u is the velocity,

m, u is dimensionless uid velocity in the channel; um the dimensionless cross-section average velocity; us is dimensionless shear
velocity; y is length perpendicular to the wall, m; y is the dimensionless distance from the wall.
As concluded by Serkan (2004), velocity proles with smaller
velocity defects are more stable as demonstrated by Falkner-Skan
proles. Therefore, one of the reasons that the stabilizing effect
in heated water ows may be attributed to this factor.
In addition, as mentioned by Schlichting and Gersten (1999)
and Serkan (2004), there is an inection point (@u2 =@y2 0) occurs in the boundary-layer prole which is named Rayleigh instability when the water ows with cooled pipe wall, and the
presences of a point of inection in the velocity prole in the
boundary layer is the adequate and essential conditions for the
instability. However, it can be seen from Fig. 5c that the curvature
of the velocity prole is negative over the whole boundary layer
thickness and its moves away gradually towards the point of
@u2 =@y2 0 with the increase of heat ux. Therefore, the ow becomes more stable as the heat ux increases within certain limits.
As the fact mentioned above that the change of viscosity in the
near wall region due to the high heat ux on the wall will lead to
the variation of velocity prole, the curvature of the velocity prole
at the wall can be expressed as (1999)

@ 2 u
@y2

!

w

lw

@l
@y

  
@u

w @y
w

13

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W. Chang et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 47 (2012) 8590

Here, lw is the uid viscosity near the wall, Pa.

The ow in present large aspect ratio rectangular channel can
be deem as a two dimensional shear ow, thus the variable of
@u =@y can be approximately regard as the vortices distribution.
As the physical explanation for Rayleighs inection-point theorem
presented by Lin (1966), if uid with lower vorticity moves up to a
region of higher vorticity the net feedback is to force the uid back
to its original location. Similarly, if uid of high vorticity moves
down into a region of lower vorticity, the net feedback forces the
uid back to the zone of higher vorticity. Thus, as long as the vorticity is monotonically increasing, the vorticity feedback provides
stability.
4.2. Local heat transfer characteristic
The local heat transfer characteristic can be seen in Fig. 6, the
local Nusselt number decreases gradually along the channel in
the entrance region owing to the increasing thickness of the
boundary layer, and then it increases sharply in the further downstream. As demonstrated by Silin et al. (2010a, 2010b), the local
Reynolds number of the water increases gradually along the ow
direction in a heated channel. So after reaching the critical Reynolds number, the turbulence intensity will become signicantly
important and lead to the laminar breakdown, then the ow will
entrance the fully developed intermittent or turbulent ow,
accordingly, the heat transfer will be obviously changed in this
process. In addition, from Fig. 6b and c one can nd that the local
Nusselt number has a signicant decrease at the end of the channel
for certain conditions. The results can be attributed to the effect of
axial conduction (Tiselj et al., 2004).
To be in accordance with the criteria introduced by Abraham
et al. (2008) and Silin et al. (2010a, 2010b), we also believe the
laminar breakdown takes place where the convection coefcient
has a steep increase. From Fig. 6 one can nd that the Reynolds
number at the point of laminar breakdown RePLB increases with
the increasing temperature difference. It means that heating on
the water has a stabilizing effect. In addition, it also indicates that
the change of viscosity is not the predominant factor in the transition process as referred in the above section.
As shown in Fig. 7, the local Nusselt number at the point of laminar breakdown does not change with the increase of heat ux for a
given inlet Reynolds number. However, the comparison of Fig. 6a, b
and c indicates that the local Nusselt number at the point of laminar breakdown increases with the increase of the inlet Reynolds
number. The phenomenon can be attributed to the difference of inlet velocity prole and turbulence intensity (Minkowycz et al.,
2009).
Furthermore, as seen in Figs. 8 and 9, the comparison of present
data and Silin et al. (2010a, 2010b) data shows a consistent of tendency, both of the experimental results shows a stability effect.
5. Conclusions
From the above discussions, we can get the conclusions that the
heating on the water ow in a channel has a signicant effect on
the location of transition initiation and shifts it downstream,

delaying the beginning of the turbulent ow. The local Nusselt

number at the point of laminar breakdown depends on the inlet
Reynolds number. In addition, the results also manifest that the local Reynolds number at the point of laminar breakdown depends
on the inlet Reynolds number and the heat ux. Both the ow
and heat transfer characteristics in the transition regime indicates
the change of viscosity is not the dominant factor that introduces
the delay of transition.
Acknowledgment
This work is nancial supported by the Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities (Program No. HEUCFZ1008).
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