Parametric Design and Optimization for Impingement Jet Heat Transfer Over Dimpled Topologies

A large number of experimental and theoretical studies investigating heat transfer of impinging jet and jet arrays exist in the literature. However, there are only a few experimental and numerical studies that consider the heat transfer performance of the impinging jet and jet array over complex impinging surface topologies. In spite of these studies, several other factors concerning the dimpled target plate configuration such as dimple height, diameter, pitch spacing between dimples, and their effects on the heat transfer coefficient have not yet been well apprehended. The purpose of the present study is to address some of these aspects through a detailed computational investigation of 3D impinging jet interaction on dimpled target plates. The initial section of the study is focused on the evaluation of different turbulence models in capturing the complex flow features associated with dimpled topology. These models are validated for Nusselt number against previous experimental data in literature. This is followed by a parametric study in which geometric parameters of the dimpled target plate such as dimple diameter, pitch spacing between dimples and dimple height are varied to understand their role on heat transfer enhancement. The final section of the study deals with the optimization of the above geometric parameters based on three factorial design of parametric space. Results from these designed simulations are used to construct a surrogate model based on response surface analysis and the optimized configuration is determined. The objective functions for optimization include maximizing the average Nusselt number, Nu_avg, and minimizing the deviation of maximum Nusselt number, Nu_max-sd. With respect to the reference configuration there is 12% and 8.58 % increase in the average Nusselt number values for the optimized case corresponding to Reynolds number of 3000 and 8200 respectively. Enhancement in terms of Nusselt number is observed with the dimpled target plate over corresponding non dimpled target plates.