Forced convection in a wavy-wall channel

The rates of heat transfer for flow through a sinusoidally curved converging–diverging channel has been analyzed using a simple coordinate transformation method and the spline alternating-direction implicit method. The effects of the wavy geometry, Reynolds number and Prandtl number on the skin-friction and Nusselt number have been studied. Results show that the amplitudes of the Nusselt number and the skin-friction coefficient increase with an increase in the Reynolds number and the amplitude–wavelength ratio. The heat transfer enhancement is not significant at smaller amplitude wavelength ratio, however, at a sufficiently larger value of amplitude wavelength ratio the corrugated channel will be seen to be an effective heat transfer device, especially at higher Reynolds numbers.