Passive techniques for the enhancement of convective heat transfer in single phase duct flow

This review presents the main results of the experimental campaign on passive techniques for the enhancement of forced convective single phase heat transfer in ducts, performed in the last years at the Laboratory of the Industrial Engineering Department of the University of Parma by the Applied Physics research group. The research was mainly focused on two passive techniques, widely adopted for the thermal processing of medium and high viscosity fluids, based on wall corrugation and on wall curvature. The innovative compound heat transfer enhancement technique that couples together the effect of wall curvature and of wall corrugation has been investigated as well. The research has been mainly focused on understanding the causal relationship between the heat transfer surface modification and the convection enhancement phenomenon, by accounting the effect of the fluid Prandtl number. The pressure loss penalties were also evaluated. The principal results are presented and discussed.