Forced convection of low temperature nitrogen gas in rectangular channels with small aspect ratio Original Research Article

Forced convection of low temperature (80–150 K) nitrogen gas flowing through rectangular channels with hydraulic diameters of 0.513–1.814 mm and aspect ratios of 0.013–0.048 has been investigated experimentally. Close attention was focused on the effects of channel depth and heat addition on the heat transfer and flow characteristics, the transition from laminar to turbulent flow and the existence of an optimum channel depth. A dimensionless heating number was adopted to characterize the heating effect. The experimental correlation developed for the Nusselt number shows that the heat addition is the most important effect, followed by the channel aspect ratio, Reynolds number and Prandtl number.