Simulations of Flow in Curved Tubes

Flow patterns in curved tubes have important applications to fundamental problems in engineering (e.g., heat and mass transfer analyses) and practical problems in aerosol science and technology (e.g., instrumentation for aerosol generation and characterization). Quite different from flow in a straight tube, flow in a curved tube has secondary motion in the plane perpendicular to the axial direction. The new elements of the flow pattern will affect particle and gas transport mechanisms. Although the effects of the curvature of tubes on internal flow patterns have been realized for a long time, the problem is still studied due to the complexities introduced in specific applications. A major difficulty in describing the problem has been recognition of the importance of flow development at the entrance of a curved tube. Therefore, the formulation of transport mechanisms should portray developing conditions. In this work, flows in curved tubes were simulated numerically using FIDAP. The findings were compared with the classic analytical solution of Dean (1927) and the experimental data of Muguercia et al. (1993). The flow patterns for axial and secondary motions were examined in both the developing and fully developed regions. As detailed herein, the agreement between theory and experiment is reasonable. The modeling techniques may be employed to simulate flow patterns and their commensurate effects on transport processes in research related to fundamental engineering and practical aerosol science and technology problems