A numerical study on heat transport in turbulent Couette flows in concentric annuli

A numerical study is performed to investigate turbulent Couette flow and heat transfer characteristics in concentric annuli with a slightly heated inner cylinder moving in the flow direction. A two‐equation k‐ε turbulence model is employed to determine the turbulent viscosity and the turbulent kinetic energy. The turbulent heat flux is expressed by Boussinesq approximation in which the eddy diffusivity for heat is given as functions of the temperature variance t^2‐ and the dissipation rate of temperature fluctuations ε_t, together with k and ε. The governing boundary‐layer equations are discretized by means of control volume finite‐difference technique and numerically solved using a marching procedure. It is disclosed from the study that the streamwise movement of the inner core causes substantial reductions in the turbulent kinetic energy and the temperature variance, particularly near the inner wall region, resulting in the deterioration of the Nusselt number, and that an attenuation in heat transfer performance is induced by the velocity ratio of the moving inner cylinder to the fluid flow.