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research-article

# Large Eddy Simulation of liquid metal turbulent mixed convection in a vertical concentric annulus

[+] Author and Article Information
Luca Marocco

Department of Energy, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy 20156
luca.marocco@polimi.it

Francesco Garita

Department of Energy, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy 20156
garita.f@hotmail.it

1Corresponding author.

ASME doi:10.1115/1.4038858 History: Received June 06, 2017; Revised September 08, 2017

## Abstract

In the present study turbulent forced and mixed convection heat transfer to a liquid metal flowing upward in a concentric annulus is numerically investigated by means of \mbox{Large Eddy Simulation (LES)}. The inner-to-outer radius ratio is 0.5. The Reynolds number based on bulk velocity and hydraulic diameter is 8900, while the Prandtl number is set to a value of 0.026. A uniform and equal heat flux is applied on both walls. LES has been chosen to provide sufficiently accurate results for validating Reynolds-Averaged turbulence models. Moreover, being the thermal sublayer thickness of liquid metals much larger than the viscous hydrodynamic one, liquid metals present a separation between the turbulent thermal and hydrodynamic scales. Thus, with the same grid resolution it is possible to perform a LES for the flow field and a thermal Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) for the temperature field. Comparison of the forced convection results with available DNS simulations shows satisfying agreement. Results for mixed convection are analyzed and the differences with respect to forced convection at the same Reynolds number are thoroughly discussed. Moreover, where possible, a comparison with air is performed.

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