Buoyancy effects in turbulent liquid metal flow Buchkatalog

The very low ratio of kinematic viscosity to thermal diffusivityof liquid metals proves favorable in applications of heattransfer, especially for high thermal loads, and otivatestheir application as heat transfer medium. Their low Prandtlnumber leads to a scale separation between the velocity andtemperature fi elds with the latter being much smoother thanthe former. In buoyancy affected fl ows, this scale separationlso affects, both, the velocity fi eld and turbulence due to thebuoyancy force term driving the fl ow. To account for theseeffects in turbulence models, according data is needed ortheir validation. Such data is presented by this work whichinvestigates the impact of buoyancy on the fl ow of liquidsodium and heat transfer in the confi gurations of a verticalbackward-facing step and a square duct. Both, the forced andthe mixed convection regime with aiding buoyancy conditionsare considered.