Exp Fluids (2013) 54:1520
DOI 10.1007/s00348-013-1520-8
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Flow and heat transfer investigation behind trapezoidal rib using
PIV and LCT measurements
Md Shaukat Ali • Andallib Tariq • B. K. Gandhi
Received: 13 December 2012 / Revised: 3 March 2013 / Accepted: 12 April 2013
Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
Abstract The present work is an experimental investiga-
tion inside a rectangular duct for flow behind a trapezoidal
type of rib with chamfering angle a (toward the direction of
flow) at different Reynolds numbers. Chamfering angle a has
been varied in between 0° and 20° with an increment of 5°
and subsequently detailed fluid flow and heat transfer
experiments have been performed at four different Reynolds
numbers, that is, 9,400, 27,120, 44,600, and 61,480 (based on
hydraulic diameter of the duct). In order to investigate the
detailed fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics together, a
distinct experimental setup has been designed while using
2-D particle image velocimetry and liquid crystal thermog-
raphy, respectively. Flow investigations have been restricted
within the streamwise location of x/e B 11, while the region
of interest for heat transfer measurement goes up to x/e B 50.
The emphasis is toward assessing and analyzing the potential
impact of varying chamfering angle over the flow structures,
and its subsequent effect on far downstream heat transfer
enhancement, as well as its role in obviating the hot spots in
the adjacent vicinity behind the chamfered rib turbulators.
Transient heat transfer investigation has been performed for
evaluating the surface heat transfer enhancement. Results are
documented in terms of stream traces, mean and rms velocity
fields, streamwise Reynolds stresses and vorticity distribu-
tion, and surface and spanwise averaged augmentation
Nusselt numbers. The reattachment length has been identi-
fied for all of the configurations, and the turbulent charac-
teristics have been discussed in reference to the reattaching
shearing layer and its potential impact on the size of the
M. S. Ali  A. Tariq (&)  B. K. Gandhi
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, Indian
Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee 247667, India
e-mail: atariq.iitr@yahoo.co.in; tariqfme@iitr.ernet.in
URL: http://www.iitr.ac.in/*ME/tariqfme
recirculation bubble for different configurations and condi-
tions. The result showed the successful impact of changing
the trapezoidal angle a by manipulating the small-scale
vortices at the leeward corner of the rib which helps in
obviating the hot spots. Furthermore, the presence of large
scale unsteady vortical structure within the shear layer has
been confirmed, and it has been subsequently associated with
heat transfer enhancement in the far downstream region.
List of symbols
Dh Hydraulic diameter (m)
h Convective heat transfer coefficient (W/m2K)
k Thermal conductivity of perspex substrate (W/mK)
Nu Local Nusselt number of the surface with a rib
Re Reynolds number based on duct hydraulic
diameter
Reh Reynolds number based on boundary layer
momentum thickness
Ur Centerline velocity (m/s)
u Time-averaged streamwise velocity component
(m/s)
v Time-averaged cross-stream velocity component
(m/s)
()av Area averaged quantity
()rms Root mean square quantity
-u0 v0 Time-averaged Reynolds shear stress
a Trapezoidal angle of the rib
xz Time-averaged vorticity along Z-direction (s-1)
1 Introduction
The surface heat transfer from the wall is limited by the
formation of boundary layer in the near wall vicinity. In
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recent years, rib turbulators have been intensively studied
passive technique, which promotes near wall turbulence by
artificially disturbing the boundary layer, thus ensuing
enhanced heat transfer over the internal passages of heat
transfer devices. Some of the practical applications of rib
turbulators include gas turbine blade cooling channels,
compact heat exchanger surfaces such as rib-roughened
radiator tubes/ducts, solar collectors, gas-cooled reactor
fuel elements, and electronic component’s cooling devices.
Inevitably there exists a trade off between the pressure
penalty and heat transfer enhancement. The control of
unsteady and possibly turbulent flow field for the desired
effect is therefore a non-trivial problem even for the sim-
plest geometry.
Basically, the ribbed passage flows are unsteady in
nature with complex time dependency and strong non-
linearity. Analytical methods for predicting the friction
factors and the heat transfer coefficients for turbulent flow
over rib-roughened surfaces are not available due to the
complexity of flow with the presence of separation,
reattachment, and recirculation created by periodic rib-
roughness elements. Complexity of the flow field calls for
detailed investigation toward understanding the flow field
and its subsequent role in surface heat transfer enhance-
ment. And therefore, recent investigations in the field
have witnessed the impetus in implementing the sophis-
ticated experimental tools in order to improve the
understanding of flow physics behind single/pair of sur-
face mounted ribs toward selecting an efficacious design
of rib for obviating the local hot spots, which adversely
affect the performances and reliability of the equipment.
On the other hand, the geometry of a rib has also an
essential influence on the flow separation and reattach-
ment (Wang et al. 2007). Therefore, apart from the sharp/
round cornered square/rectangular rib, the effect of
changing the rib shape has gained interest by various
investigators.
The list of investigations in terms of detailed funda-
mental flow and heat transfer investigations behind surface
mounted rib turbulators, which enhance our understanding
of the flow and heat transfer characteristics in ribbed ducts
and shed light on the design optimization of various
cooling systems are numerous, and few of them indicating
the role of detailed measurements as well as geometrical
configurations of the ribs have been discussed below:
Using holographic interferometry, Liou and Hwang
(1993) investigated three rib shapes, namely square,
semicircular, and triangular cross-sections. The results
showed that the lowest friction factor was obtained for the
semicircular, which was attributed to its most streamlined
shape. It was also observed that square ribs are more prone
to local hot spot just behind the ribs than the semicircular
and triangular ribs.
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Exp Fluids (2013) 54:1520
Chandra et al. (1998) studied the effect of different rib
shapes on turbulent channel flow heat transfer and friction
characteristics. Square rib was observed to produce highest
heat transfer augmentation for a given friction factor,
whereas negligible differences in performance of triangular
and chamfered ribs and the performance of the circular and
semicircular ribs were observed.
Ahn (2001) studied the heat transfer and friction char-
acteristics of square, triangular, circular, and semicircular
rib shapes in a rectangular duct. Triangular rib was
reported to provide the highest heat transfer performance as
opposed to the previous works.
Tariq and co-workers (Panigrahi and Tariq 2003; Tariq
et al. 2004) reported the detailed flow and heat transfer
behind slit rib of different open area ratio using liquid
crystal thermography, hot-wire anemometry, cold-wire
anemometry, and flow visualization. They showed the
interaction between the reattaching flow past the rib with
the flow through the slit to successfully modify the near
wall and wake region mean flow and fluctuation.
According to Fröhlich et al. (2005), separation from
continuous and curved surfaces displays a strong spatial
and temporal fluctuation of the separation line; meanwhile,
the mean location of reattachment is sensitively dependent
on that of separation. These characteristics imply that the
separation from contoured protrusions is more elusive than
that from obstacles with a sharp edge.
Wang and Sunden (2007) obtained inter-rib local heat
transfer coefficient distribution using steady state Liquid
Crystal Thermography (LCT) for square, triangular, cham-
fered upstream, and chamfered downstream ribs (trapezoi-
dal-shaped ribs with inclination angle 38°) placed
transversely to the main flow direction. The heat transfer
results have been captured for the inter-rib region
(27 \ X/Dh \ 29 from the inlet of duct). For the range of
Reynolds number studied (Re = 8,000–20,000), chamfered
downstream ribs with decreasing height in the flow direction
provided the highest heat transfer enhancement and friction
factor, and were found useful in eliminating local hot spots
which usually occurs in the region just behind the ribs.
Kamali and Binesh (2008) have numerically simulated the
experimental condition of Wang and Sunden (2007), and
found that the inter-rib distribution of the heat transfer coef-
ficient was strongly affected by the rib shape. They found that
trapezoidal ribs with decreasing height in the flow direction
provided higher heat transfer enhancement and pressure drop
than other shapes. LCT and numerical investigations revealed
that trapezoidal ribs with decreasing height in flow direction
are advantageous from the point of view of heat transfer
enhancement and prevention of local hot spots.
Karwa et al. (2008) investigated experimental results of
flow visualization and mass transfer studies for fully
developed turbulent flow in square tunnel with repeated
Exp Fluids (2013) 54:1520
chamfered rib on the bottom wall at different pitch ratios
with three chamfer angles of -15°, 0°, and 15°. For the
positively chamfered closely spaced ribs p/e B 5, vigorous
vortex shedding has been observed, whereas reattachment
length is found to be a function of chamfer angle within the
range of angles under observation. The performance of the
negatively chamfered ribs is the poorest of all, and better
performance of the positively chamfered ribs has been
observed, while mass transfer studies have been confined to
the inter-rib region.
The above literature establishes the importance of pas-
sive flow control on flow past surface-mounted ribs. The
role played by production and manipulation of secondary
vortical structures has been emphasized. However, the
detailed flow field investigation as well as the thermal
characterizations behind the rib other than rectangular/
square cross-sectional shape is limited. Very few experi-
mental works were executed to give high-resolution
velocity measurements and turbulent properties to charac-
terize the flow separation in a ribbed channel with changing
trapezoidal angle, a along the direction of flow.
Preliminary set of reported investigations clearly indicates
well that the solid rib with varying trapezoidal shape will be
able to affect the reattaching shear layer in terms of change in
reattachment length and better mixing behind the rib. In order
to get the understanding about the secondary flow structures
and their interactions with the mean flow behind single trap-
ezoidal rib with decreasing height in the flow direction, the
present investigation has been performed in a rectangular duct
(width, W = 160 mm; height, H = 40 mm) for flow over
single trapezoidal rib (rib height, e = 8 mm). Rib height to
hydraulic diameter ratio (e/Dh) has been fixed as 0.125. Given
the limited body of experimental data, experiments were
carried out over single surface-mounted trapezoidal shape rib
turbulators under four different Reynolds numbers (based on
hydraulic diameters) ranging from 9,400 to 61,480. Angle of
chamfering of the trapezoidal rib under investigation is in the
direction of flow, which is varied from 0° to 20° with an
increment of 5° (Fig. 1b).
Recently, Ali et al. (2012) presented the effect of trap-
ezoidal angle on flow structures and discussed the result at
few specific Reynolds number. With the help of detailed
set of parameters, the emphasis of the present study is to
assess potential impact of varying chamfering angle, a over
the flow structures and its subsequent effect on heat
transfer enhancement as well as in obviating the hot spots
in the vicinity behind the chamfered rib turbulators.
2 Experimental setup
The entire experimental facility comprises of open loop
flow circuit along with the heating section. The setup is
Page 3 of 15
designed to facilitate the heat transfer as well as fluid flow
investigations using liquid crystal thermography (LCT) and
particle image velocimetry (PIV) system, respectively. The
three-dimensional model of the complete experimental
setup and the instrumentations used in present work are
illustrated in Fig. 1a. The surface temperature of the
heating section has been sequentially captured by using
liquid crystal sheets along with the 3-CCD camera sup-
ported imaging system. Whereas for investigating, the flow
field information and the laser illuminated seeding particles
have been captured with the help of a PIV system, while no
heating has been made during PIV measurements. The
room air is drawn into a rectangular test section (Fig. 1d)
through a honeycomb section, three anti-turbulence
screens, and a 9:1 contraction cone. Temperature and
pressure drop measurements all along the heating section
has been made while using thermocouple connected with
data acquisition system and digital micro-manometer
(FCO12: Furness Control, Ltd) respectively.
2.1 LCT measurement and instrumentations
The main components that are involved during liquid
crystal thermography measurements are the image acqui-
sition system, the lighting arrangement for properly illu-
minating the LC coated surface, and heated test surface for
evaluating the cooling effect due to the rib turbulators.
The image acquisition system is consisted of a high-
resolution 3-CCD-based three megapixel (2,048 9 1,536)
progressive scan color video camera (IK-TF9C, Toshiba), a
high-speed frame grabber, a workstation, and four halogen
lamps for properly illuminating the test surface. The
camera is mounted vertically just above the center of the
test section giving spatial resolution of 1.04 mm between
the two pixels on the heating section.
Due to ease in availability, low cost, excellent color
rendering even in the long run, a reasonably high efficacy,
high luminance and compact size, the tungsten-halogen
lamp is found to be suitable by most of the researchers
(Tariq et al. 2003; Chan et al. 2001; Jeschke et al. 2000;
Wiberg and Lior 2004), and the same has been used in the
present investigation. Uniform illumination from all of the
four sides over the liquid crystal-coated test surface has
been ensured, which provided the background intensity of
the liquid crystal-coated black test surface between the
range of 80 and 120 points on an eight bit scale (0–255).
This value of background intensity is appropriate to avoid
too dark or too bright image captured by the camera (Ekkad
and Han 2000).
Transient heater-foil techniques with liquid crystal
thermography were applied in varieties of configurations
for heat transfer investigations by many of the researcher
(Tariq et al. 2004; Heidmannn 1994; Jeschke et al. 2000),
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Fig. 1 Complete experimental facility for PIV and LCT measurements

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Exp Fluids (2013) 54:1520
and a similar has been implemented here. The heating
section fitted beneath the test section consists of several
layers of the composites, as shown in Fig. 1c. The top layer
of the heating block has been pasted with pre-fabricated
TLC sheet (R35C05W, Hallcrest Ltd., UK), whereas a
stainless steel foil of 50 lm thickness has been used to heat
the perspex substrate. Two of the rectangular copper blocks
(Fig. 1c) have been placed in the far up- and downstream
of the perspex substrate, which help in situ calibration for
implementing the liquid crystal thermography techniques
for local heat transfer measurements. Finally, the stream-
wise ends of the heating foils are spot welded to the thick
copper busbars, which is electrically connected to a well-
regulated DC power source.
2.1.1 Transient liquid crystal thermography
The experimental strategy for the present heat transfer
investigations has been carefully designed to produce
reliable temperature information, which consists of cali-
bration experiments followed by the actual transient
experiments.
A typical calibration run (in situ) involves heating the
calibration block to a specified temperature (just above the
bandwidth of the LC sheet in use) and then allowed the
system to cool gradually. Temperature of the thermocou-
ples mounted beneath the calibration spot, and LC-based
images over the region of interest were recorded together,
which allows the development of calibration curve corre-
lating the displayed hue with temperature by using 7th
order polynomial curve fitting (Tariq et al. 2003). The
calibration procedure ensemble the actual transient runs in
the best possible manner, which involves the cooling due to
the rib turbulators.
Actual transient experiments include: pre-heating of the
substrate to the temperature above the clearing point (same
as during the calibration run), and then, it is allowed to be
exposed with a step change in temperature by suddenly
initiating the flow of the air over the heating section.
Heating of the substrate is stopped only when the tem-
perature of substrate get stabilizes within the variation of
5.0 % of the mean value. Once the flow gets stabilized
(\2 s), the 3-CCD video camera is triggered to start
recording images of the preset region of interest (ROI) of
the test surface. A total of 1,000 sequential images have
been captured precisely at the frame rate of 20 Hz that
takes an experimental run time of 50 s; and based on the
calibration data set, precise temperature information at
individual location (pixel) on the surface has been extrac-
ted in the form of 1,000 set of temperature matrices indi-
cating the local temperature variation at different time
intervals.
Page 5 of 15
The local heat transfer coefficient (HTC) over a surface
coated with liquid crystals having a low thermal conduc-
tivity, low thermal diffusivity material can be obtained by
using a 1-D semi-infinite solid assumption for the test
surface. Based on the criteria (Schultz and Jones 1973), a
simple calculation with the standard thermo-physical
properties of perspex will reveal that the maximum per-
missible penetration time of the 12 mm thick perspex sheet
(which has been used as the substrate in the present setup)
is of the order of 90 s, which is much larger than the total
duration (B50 s) of the test run. Solving the 1-D transient
conduction equation with prescribed initial surface tem-
perature, Tw,i, and boundary conditions (convective
boundary condition at x = 0, and t [ 0), one obtains the
non-dimensional temperature at the convective boundary
surface as (Ekkad and Han 2000):
 2   pffiffiffiffi
Tw  Ti h at h at
¼ 1  exp 2
erfc ð1Þ
Ta  Ti k k
where t is the total time during which the temperature at
any location (x, z) of the TLC-coated surface reduces to a
definite value (Tw) from the initial temperature (Ti) due to
the forced flow of room air (Ta) over the test surface, h is
the convective heat transfer coefficient, a is the thermal
diffusivity, and k is the thermal conductivity of the sub-
strate. The value of total time t varies independently at each
pixels of the LC-coated surface and depends upon the
cooling rate of individual locations (x, z). A linear variation
of air temperature between the inlet and outlet has been
assumed in the present investigation, which is more real-
istic as compared to single bulk mean temperature for
entire surface, especially in case of long test section (Chyu
et al. 1998).
In order to get the correct estimate of HTC at individual
locations (pixels) hx,z on the surface from set of sequential
temperature matrices Tw(t), the transient non-dimensional
temperature variation of the test surface has been solved
independently at each temperature pixels with the corre-
sponding initial condition; that is, initial local wall tem-
perature in order to avoid the effect of non-uniformity in
initial wall temperatures. Present methodology helps in the
precise estimation of detailed local HTC distribution across
the TLC-coated surface with greater spatial resolution.
2.2 PIV measurement and instrumentations
A commercially available 2-D particle image velocimetry
(2-D-PIV) system developed by TSI, Inc, USA has been
used for detailed flow field investigation. The image
acquisition system for PIV along with the illustration of
corresponding measurement planes, as shown in Fig. 2,
mainly consists of a double-pulsed Solo Nd-YAG laser
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system (Solo III, Make: New Wave Research), a combi-
nation of lenses to transform the laser beam into a light
sheet, a high resolution 4 Mega Pixel (2,048 9 2,048) 12
bit digital CCD-based PIV camera (PowerView Plus:
630159) equipped with standard Nikon 50 mm F1.8 lens to
capture the illuminated flow field, seeded with tracer par-
ticles, a synchronizer (TSI: 610035), a powerful worksta-
tion loaded with the frame grabber and the software for
image acquisition, processing, analysis, and display. In
addition, the PIV system also has a computer-controlled
traverse mechanism (TSI: T3DE) for easy mounting and
precise positioning of the laser head and the camera.
The double-pulsed Solo Nd-YAG laser emits light beam
of 3.5 mm diameter at a wave length of 532 nm with a
maximum power output of 50 mJ per pulse. The pair of
laser pulse (A and B) can be fired at the maximum repetition
rate of 15 pulses per second with pulse width of 3–5 ns. The
maximum separation time between laser pulse A and laser
pulse B is 200 ls; therefore, the double-pulsed laser is
mostly suitable for flow velocities higher than 1 m/s.
In a turbulent flow, strong velocity variation within the
interrogation volume causes gradient bias as well as the
detection bias and affects the measurement due to out-of-
plane particle motion (Keane and Adrian 1990, 1991). A
one-quarter rule has been suggested in deciding the optimal
pulse delay Dt where ratio of out-of-plane displacement to
the laser sheet thickness must be smaller than 0.25.
Therefore, laser pulse separation time has to be adjusted in
order to optimize both the maximum cross-correlation
value and dynamic range; and henceforth, the time interval
between laser pulses is set such that particle moves at the
most eight pixels (25 % of interrogation window size)
between the pair of images within the interrogation size of
32 9 32 with 50 % overlap resulting in 83 9 46 vectors
within spatial domain of 72 9 40 mm. In the present
Fig. 2 PIV image acquisition system along with the measurement planes and masking area
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Exp Fluids (2013) 54:1520
investigation as per the velocity magnitude and the desired
resolution, pulse separation time Dt has been varied from
15 to 100 ls, whereas the laser sheet thickness &1 mm has
been collimated by the combination of spherical and
cylindrical lenses at the measurement region at the cen-
terline of the duct. The PIV camera is focusing the laser
sheet perpendicularly from a distance, resulting in terms of
a spatial resolution of &54.1 lm per pixel during
calibration.
The sample size is another source of error for evaluating
the mean and fluctuating statistics. In order to meet the
statistical requirement for the mean and fluctuation velocity
component measurements, a sufficient number (N) of PIV
images must be recorded and processed. Son et al. (2002)
has examined the data convergence up to 2000 PIV real-
izations for the smooth wall U channel flow at
Re = 30,000, and it has been concluded that for all the
mean velocities and the lower turbulent flow data, the
convergence lines are quite stable after 500 realizations.
Gao (2002) has also found the similar observations for the
flow over ribbed surfaces and recommended that 250
instantaneous velocity samples could provide a reasonably
accurate results. Most of the researchers in the pertinent
field have found &1,000 PIV realizations to be suitable
(Wang et al. 2007; Panigrahi et al. 2006; Son et al. 2002).
In the present investigations, 1000 PIV realizations have
been adopted; and therefore, during each of the experi-
ments, 500 instantaneous image pairs at a frequency of
7.25 Hz were acquired. FFT-based cross-correlation algo-
rithm coupled with a two-dimensional Gaussian fit is
applied further to find the correlation peak positions.
A commercially available six-jet atomizer (TSI-9306) is
used to generate a polydisperse aerosol in high concen-
trations for use as seed particles for PIV. In the present
investigation, it has been used in conjunction with the
Exp Fluids (2013) 54:1520
compressor to evaporate the olive oil as the tracer particle.
Seeding has been introduced at entrance of the wind tunnel
with the help of a customized arrangement, consisting of
fine holed (&1 mm) circular tubes (&5 mm) connected to
the atomizer through a rectangular-shaped seeding distri-
bution box.
The PIV results frequently contain spurious vectors
(outliers) that show abrupt deviation in magnitude and
direction as compared to neighbors. Spurious velocity
vectors, which are found to be less than 5 %, have been
removed by local median filtering with kernel size of 3 9 3
and replaced by using a bilinear least square fit technique
between neighboring vectors. These spurious vectors
develop due to missing particle image pairs, high velocity
gradients, and low densities of particles in some of the
interrogation spots. The vorticity at each grid point has been
calculated from the circulation within 3 9 3 surrounding.
2.2.1 Measurement planes and flow conditions
An illustration of PIV measurement planes is shown in
Fig. 2. The PIV measurements have been carried out in the
streamwise (X–Y) direction. It has been ensured that the
Fig. 3 Flow conditions-velocity profile at X/Dh = 8
Page 7 of 15
alignment of laser light sheet plane and focusing plane of
the PIV camera (i.e., image plane), carried out during the
calibration process, remain unaltered while conducting the
actual PIV experiments. An area of 72 9 40 mm equiva-
lent to longitudinal distance x & 10e behind the rib has
been selected for processing the acquired images.
The velocity profile for the case of smooth duct at
X/Dh = 8, along with laminar velocity profile (Blasius
profile) and turbulent velocity profile (1/7th power law
profile), has been plotted in Fig. 3, where X is streamwise
distances from the upstream end of the heating section
(Fig. 1a, d). It clearly indicates the laminar nature of flow
at lowest Reynolds numbers of 9,400 and 27,120, whereas
at higher Reynolds numbers of 44,600 and 61,480, the
velocity profile approaches to turbulent regime.
3 Uncertainty analysis
An estimate of experimental uncertainty has been per-
formed using the procedure proposed by (Kline and
McClintock 1953) to ensure the reliability of the present
transient LCT method. Uncertainty in the value of h is due
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to the combined effect of individual uncertainty in the
values of Ta, Ti, Tw, and t. The measurement uncertainty for
Ta is estimated as 0.5 °C. Based on a number of calibration
experiments, the uncertainty in the liquid crystal response
is found as 0.2 °C. Therefore, uncertainty estimate for both
of Ti and Tw is ±0.2 °C. The uncertainty in t is ±0.05 s
which is calculated from the frame rate of the captured
video, which is 20 frames per second. Using Eq. (1), the
internal estimate of the relative uncertainty of the local heat
transfer coefficient is found to be within ±5 %. Major
source of uncertainty in velocity measurement lies in the
measurement of particle displacement. Assuming the
maximum uncertainty in the measurement of particle dis-
placement as 0.1 pixels, which is the commonly accepted
value (Wang et al. 2007), the uncertainty in the instanta-
neous velocity measurement is estimated to be well within
2.5–5.5 % (depending upon the Reynolds number).
4 Results and discussion
A trapezoidal-shaped rib has been placed upon the test
surface at the streamwise location of X/Dh = 8 from the
upstream end of the heating section, and subsequently, the
effect of taper angle (a) on the flow parameters and heat
transfer behind the surface-mounted trapezoidal rib turbu-
lators have been assessed with the help of investigating
mean and instantaneous velocities, velocity fluctuations,
mean and instantaneous vorticities, coherent structure dis-
tribution in the flow field, and surface heat transfer
enhancement with respect to the surface without a rib (i.e.,
augmentation Nusselt number, Nu/Nuo). The fluid flow and
heat transfer characteristics have been plotted against the
non-dimensional streamwise distance x/e; where x origi-
nates from the leeward corner of the rib, and e represents
the geometrical parameters of rib (Fig. 1b).
The fluid flows as well as heat transfer measurements
have been performed for all the four different Reynolds
numbers ranging from 9,400 to 61,480; however, for the
sake of brevity, selected results have been presented in
terms of various parameters explaining the effect of taper
angle flow physics and its subsequent role in surface heat
transfer enhancement. For the range of Reynolds number
considered, all the configurations lead to the heat transfer
enhancement with respect to the flat surface without a rib.
The normalized time-averaged velocity field (U/Ur) has
been superposed with stream traces from the velocity field
in the streamwise plane indicating the flow structures, as
well as the nature of mean flow motions. A vorticity dis-
tribution indicates the interaction between these flow
structures. The wall normal component of velocity indi-
cates the motion of fluid toward the outer flow region and
vice versa.
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Exp Fluids (2013) 54:1520
4.1 Flow measurements
The results of the present investigation have been discussed
in terms of (1) mean streamwise and transverse velocities
components (u and v), (2) turbulent stresses in terms of
urms, vrms, and Reynolds shear stress, -u0 v0 , and (3) vor-
ticity, xz distribution.
4.1.1 Mean velocities
Figure 4 shows the normalized average velocity field
(U/Ur) behind ribs of different taper angle (a = 0°, 5°, 10°,
15°, 20°) superposed with stream lines for Reynolds
number of 9,400, 27,120, 44,600, and 61,480, respectively.
The average streamline pattern shows definable time-
averaged flow structure for all rib geometries. At lower
Reynolds number, the primary recirculation pattern is not
the strong function of trapezoidal angle a; however, the
definite effect in terms of reattachment length indicating
the size of recirculating zone is eminent at higher Reynolds
number. The reattachment point is identified with the
center of the zero velocity regions near the wall, which is
based on the approach of locating the region with negative
mean u-velocity field as recirculating region (Panigrahi
et al. 2008). The distance of the reattachment point from
the leeward corner of the rib is referred as the reattachment
length (xr). A summary of the reattachment length corre-
sponding to different Reynolds number and taper angle has
been presented in Table 1, and it has been compared and
discussed further along with the LCT observations (Sect.
4.2).
The formation of the large recirculation bubble has been
observed for the entire configuration in the downstream
region of the ribs. Increase in Reynolds number resulted in
terms of the significant growth of the recirculation bubble,
which stabilizes further in the streamwise direction for the
set of rib configuration, with an exception at Re = 27,120.
The reason can be associated with the transitional nature of
flow conditions, which finally turns out to be turbulent as
shown in Fig. 3. A secondary bubble is perceived in the
leeward corner as the reverse flow approaches the vertical
surface, which has also been reported by Panigrahi et al.
(2008) and Wang et al. (2010). The most striking feature is
the diminishing effect of this secondary recirculation
bubble at higher Reynolds number, which fades further
with respect to the increase in trapezoidal angle a and
hence can be seen as the potential benefit of trapezoidal rib
in obviating the hot spot in the leeward vicinity of the solid
rib.
Although it is not directly evident from the streamlines
(Fig. 4), but can be inferred conclusively that the changing
angle has the significant effect in changing the location of
separation over the top surface of the rib and has been
Exp Fluids (2013) 54:1520 Page 9 of 15

Fig. 4 Time averaged normalized velocity distribution behind ribs with different trapezoidal angle a at varying Reynolds numbers

Table 1 Reattachment length (PIV) and location of maximum aug- indicating the shearing layer within the flow pattern. The
mentation heat transfer based on LCT technique
streamwise (x) extent of this strong positive v-velocity zone
Re PIV LCT is minimal for the solid rib and maximizes with increase in
Angle 0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20 trapezoidal angle a. The change in the separation node over
(a) the slant edge of the trapezoidal rib is responsible for the
increase of upward shear layer deflection.
9,400 7.2 7.2 7.2 7.2 7.2 9.5 9.5 9.5 9.5 9.5
27,120 5.5 6.1 6.3 6.9 7.3 5.0 5.9 7.0 9.0 9.0
4.1.2 Turbulent stresses
44,600 7.8 8.8 9.1 9.5 10.1 5.0 9.0 12.0 12.0 12.0
61,480 7.8 8.8 9.2 9.6 9.7 5.0 12.0 12.0 10.0 12.0
Turbulent measurements are discussed in the present sec-
tion, where the normal stresses have been plotted in terms
corroborated further by the plot of turbulent stresses. The of the rms values (urms and vrms). Distribution of urms
wall normal flow components, that is, v-velocity distribu- replicates itself in terms of turbulent intensities and shows
tion in the far downstream region shows insignificant effect the definite effect of trapezoidal angle a for most of the
of trapezoidal angle a B 20° and found to be negative, that Reynolds numbers under investigation. Beyond the rib
is, directed toward the wall within and above the reat- (x/e C 3.0), both urms and vrms increase with distance
taching shearing layer. The entangled zone of negative v- normal to the wall, attain a maximum within the shearing
velocities in the downstream of the rib does exists along the layer, and subsequently reduce to the respective free stream
shearing layer for y C 0.5e, and diminishes well near the values. Figure 5 shows a typical plot indicating the urms
wall, indicating the deflected motion from the surface. and vrms distribution at Reynolds number of 44,600. The
Gradual advent of positive v-velocity zone over shapes of the normal stresses within shearing layer and the
(y [ 1.0e) and ahead (x \ 1.0e) of the slant edge of trap- recirculation zone can be explained well while relating the
ezoidal rib indicates the separation and subsequent upward transverse gradient in the mean streamwise velocity with
deflection of the shearing layer. This shows the strong urms and pressure gradient between the wake and the
dependence over the Reynolds number and also correlates external flow with vrms, respectively. Trapezoidal ribs
well with normalized average velocity distribution indicate higher level of normal stresses as compared to the

123
Page 10 of 15
Fig. 5 Time averaged normalized urms and vrms velocity distribution behind trapezoidal ribs at Re = 44,600
solid rib. Large value of urms in the far downstream region
correlates to the high velocity gradient, leading to larger
turbulence production due to the deflection of the shear
layer. The region of high urms values is seen at a later
streamwise location compared to that of the vrms distribu-
tion for solid rib. The vrms values and its spread inside the
reattaching shear layer are highest for the trapezoidal rib
with angle a = 20°.
The Reynolds stress stems from momentum transfer by
the fluctuating velocity field and large value of Reynolds
shear stress and indicate the separated shear stress behind
the rib. The production of this quantity is linked to spatial
gradients in time-averaged velocity. Figure 6 compares the
Reynolds stresses between different rib configurations for
the Reynolds number value of 44,600. The Reynolds shear
stresses are higher inside the shear layer compared to the
near wall and free stream region. The -u0 v0 magnitude is
found to be significant inside the shear layer at similar
region as that of vrms distribution for various rib configu-
rations. Overall, the magnitude of -u0 v0 for the trapezoidal
rib is found to be more than the square rib for the entire
trapezoidal angle a. Panigrahi et al. (2008) has linked the
contribution of Reynolds stress magnitude toward the
change in reattachment length, and a similar observation
has been made in the present context. As stated above, the
maximum Reynolds stress occurs within the shearing layer
in the far downstream region behind the rib. In order to
explain the rise of Reynolds stress occurring in the similar
situation, Wang et al. (2010) has investigated the proba-
bility density function distribution of -u0 v0 values and
concluded that the -u0 v0 is most often a small value but it
burst occasionally, and therefore, its distribution is sup-
posed to be intermittent. Present Reynolds stresses pre-
sentation shown in Fig. 6 does also indicates an
intermittent distribution well within the shearing layer, as
against the normal stress distributions and hence confirms
the observations.
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Exp Fluids (2013) 54:1520
4.1.3 Vorticity
In contrast with the Reynolds stresses, the fluctuating
vorticity field is associated with the smaller vortical
structures in the flow field. In order to measure the total
turbulent dissipation rate, the spatial resolution of mea-
surement should be of the order of Kolmogorov length
  1=4
scale g ¼ m3 e . Since the energy dissipation rate e
attains its maximum value at the wall, the smallest g is at
the wall; and within the present range of the Reynolds
number, it translates into g & 30–160 lm. And therefore,
with a spatial resolution of &54.1 lm (Sect. 2.2), the
tiniest turbulent eddies may not be captured precisely in the
near vicinity of the wall while experimenting for
Re C 44,600. However, Visscher et al. (2011) has dis-
cussed about the direct numerical simulation results, which
shows that even the vorticity fluctuations and the energy
dissipation rate are reasonably well captured on a spatial
resolution comparable to 5g, which is well within the scope
of the present PIV experimentation.
The spanwise vorticity (xz) distribution behind the rib
has been plotted (Fig. 7), and it has been observed that the
strength of vorticity diminishes within the shearing layer
separating at the downstream edge of the rib at higher
Reynolds number. The vorticity is found to be significant
inside the shear layer and changes its sign near the reat-
tachment region (Y/e & 0.1) as well as in the upper vicinity
of the shearing layer. The streamwise location where the
near-wall vorticity changes its sign is found to be well
within the reattachment length, and the vorticity contours in
the leeward vicinity of the rib may be attributed to the small
secondary recirculation vortex. A similar observation about
the existence of corner vortex behind the rib had been made
by Panigrahi et al. 2008. In tune with the findings, it has been
confirmed again that the location of maximum vorticity
inside the shear layer does not coincide with the foci of the
primary recirculation bubble in Fig. 4, which had been
Exp Fluids (2013) 54:1520
Fig. 6 Time averaged
normalized Reynolds stress
distribution behind trapezoidal
ribs at Re = 44,600
Fig. 7 Time averaged normalized vorticity distribution behind trapezoidal ribs at varying trapezoidal angles a and at varying Reynolds number
elucidated due to the influence of velocity gradient within
the shearing layer altering the precise correlation between
the vortex and the streamline pattern. A typical results of
vorticity distribution for a specific configuration (a = 20°)
at varying Reynolds number have also been shown along
with vorticity distribution of varying trapezoidal angle, a at
a typical Reynolds number of Re = 44,600 in Fig. 7. The
peak value of vorticity indicating the dominant presence of
tiny vortical structures exists at the wall normal distance of
y & 1.0e, and it appears to start negotiating from the point
of separation on the slant edge of rib. A similar observation
has been made for other Reynolds numbers. The wall nor-
mal location of these tiny vortical structures is found to be
insensitive toward changing angle a.
4.2 Heat transfer measurements
Figure 8 shows the augmentation Nusselt number (Nu/Nuo)
distribution for the entire rib configurations at Re = 9,400,
Page 11 of 15
27,120, 44,600, and 61,480, respectively, where Nuo is the
Nusselt number of the smooth test surface without rib. The
spatial distribution of augmentation Nusselt number clearly
indicates the footprints of the flow separation, recircula-
tion, and reattachment of the shearing layer. The region of
minimum heat transfer does exist in the near vicinity
behind the rib for all of the rib configurations and can be
correlated with that of the secondary recirculation bubble
lying behind the leeward edge of the rib. There exists the
typical spanwise variation of augmentation Nusselt number
in the region of high heat transfer zone, indicating the two-
dimensionality of the flow field. The spanwise heat transfer
coefficient distribution seems to be axisymmetric, and the
highest heat transfer enhancement does occur at the cen-
terline of the flow, and reason can be attributed to the wall
effect of the duct. The highest heat transfer enhancement
occurs at the lowest Reynolds number of 9,400, where the
spatial variation of the HTC distribution is quite significant.
Distinctly different spatial variation along the spanwise
123
Page 12 of 15
Fig. 8 Augmentation Nusselt number distribution behind ribs with different trapezoidal angle a at varying Reynolds number
direction of the flow field in the surface heat transfer
enhancement indicates the effect of varying trapezoidal
angle a.
Increase in Reynolds number clearly indicates the shift
in the region of high heat transfer enhancement zone along
the centerline of the flow, and the effect of a is quite
profound at Re = 27,120 in terms of sweeping traces of
high heat transfer region on the surface augmentation
Nusselt number distribution. At this Reynolds number, the
location of maximum heat transfer along the streamwise
direction occurs earlier than that at the Reynolds number of
9,400 for all the angles, a. This is in commensurate with
the PIV results shown in Fig. 4 corresponding to Reynolds
numbers of 9,400 and 27,120, which show shorter reat-
tachment length at the Reynolds number of 27,120 than
that at the Reynolds number of 9,400 for all the angles, a.
Furthermore, the augmentation Nusselt number distri-
bution has been averaged in the spanwise direction along
the rib length and has been suitably plotted along the
streamwise direction of the flow. Figure 9 shows the
spanwise averaged augmentation variation for the entire rib
configurations at different Reynolds numbers ranging from
9,400 to 61,480. It is observed that wall heat transfer
increases in the streamwise direction from the leeward end
of the rib corner, reaches a maximum, and then decreases
further with stabilizing its value in the farther downstream
region of the rib. For all the tested cases, the spanwise
augmentation Nusselt number variation across the possible
123
Exp Fluids (2013) 54:1520
region of reattachment, changes from a classical bell shape
to a plateau-like profile, indicating that the enhanced heat
transfer region expands across the reattaching shearing
layer behind the rib. However, several researchers (Wang
and Sunden 2007; Panigrahi and Acharya 2004; Tariq et al.
2004) have tried to correlate the region of maximum heat
transfer in the streamwise direction with that of reattach-
ment length; and therefore, in the present investigation, an
attempt has also been made to predict the reattachment
length on the basis of LCT results.
It has been found that the prediction of reattachment
length based on the LCT results carries a lot of uncertainty
due to the difficulty in predicting the exact location of
highest heat transfer region along the streamwise direction,
especially on the basis of spanwise averaged augmentation
Nusselt number, which typically attains a plateau-like
profile at some of the higher Reynolds number under
investigation (Fig. 9). Currently, the surface heat transfer
distribution (Fig. 8) appears to be more suitable in visu-
alizing the region of maximum heat transfer; and therefore,
the present effort of predicting the reattachment length is
primarily based on these plots.
The comparison of reattachment length calculated on
the basis of heat transfer results with that of PIV mea-
surements have been summarized and presented together in
Table 1. Evidently, the region of maximum heat transfer
enhancement along the streamwise direction does not
match precisely with the region of reattachment based on
Exp Fluids (2013) 54:1520
Fig. 9 Spanwise averaged augmentation Nusselt number variation behind ribs with different trapezoidal angle a at varying Reynolds number
the flow investigations. The agreement of PIV results is
found to be within ±10–12 % with that of LCT measure-
ments. The reattachment length for the square rib from PIV
measurement of this work at Re = 44,600 is within 12 %
of the LDV results at the comparable Reynolds number of
42,000 reported in literature (Liou et al. 1990; Tariq et al.
2004); however, the present LCT based prediction is well
within 10 % of value reported in literature (Table 2: Tariq
et al. 2004) at a comparable Reynolds number of 45,000.
Apart from the inheriting uncertainty in the evaluation
of reattachment length based on the maximum heat transfer
enhancement, it has been observed that LCT-based results
consistently overpredict the results as against the PIV-
based flow measurements. Overprediction of the reattach-
ment length seems to be quite understandable, and the
reason can be associated with the sweeping flow emanating
out of the region of reattaching shear layer in the stream-
wise direction leading toward maximum heat transfer
enhancement in the immediate downstream vicinity of the
‘reattachment point’, which had been identified on the basis
of center of the zero velocity regions near the wall. Fig-
ure 4 shows that the streamline pattern is initially directed
toward the wall well within the region of reattachment
zone, and subsequently, the reattaching shear layer sweeps
along the direction of the flow carrying the heat away from
the wall in the downstream of the reattachment zone. This
phenomenon is supposed to bring better mixing in the
immediate downstream vicinity of the reattaching shear
layer; and therefore, the region of maximum heat transfer
enhancement along the stream wise direction of the flow
would occur only after the reattachment length evaluated
Page 13 of 15
on the basis of PIV measurement. A strong correlation of
this hypothesis can be seen in the corresponding heat
transfer results (Figs. 8, 9), which conclusively supports
the aforementioned observations. Therefore, any effort
toward the prediction of reattachment length on the basis of
heat transfer results will be an overestimation (Table 1)
and hence should not be treated as the correct indication of
reattachment length as against the flow data-based results.
Yet, an exception of this observation which exists at few of
the Reynolds numbers for a typical case of square rib can
be attributed to the associated uncertainty in locating the
center of the zero velocity regions near the wall and the
region of maximum heat transfer enhancement.
In order to evaluate the overall heat transfer perfor-
mance of the various rib configurations, the average of
augmentation Nusselt numbers has been shown in Fig. 10,
which quantifies the effect of trapezoidal angle a. Superi-
ority of trapezoidal ribs in terms of high value of aug-
mentation heat transfer as compared to square rib is quite
evident at the Reynolds number B27,120. However, there
exist insignificant effect of trapezoidal angle a on the
overall heat transfer enhancement based on the spanwise
averaged augmentation Nusselt number. In general, irre-
spective of the angle a, higher average augmentation
Nusselt number ðNu=Nuo Þav has been observed at lower
Reynolds numbers with gradual decrease in the difference
at higher Reynolds numbers as shown in Fig. 10. This
difference is almost negligible once the flow becomes fully
turbulent at higher Reynolds numbers of 44,600 and 61,480
with still 20 % higher heat transfer enhancement as com-
pared to smooth wall.
123
Page 14 of 15
Fig. 10 Average augmentation Nusselt number for ribs with different
trapezoidal angle a at varying Reynolds numbers
5 Conclusions
The present experimental investigation examines the flow
structures and turbulent properties behind the trapezoidal
rib with changing angle (a = 5°, 10°, 15°, and 20°) and
traces the footprints of heat transfer enhancement in the
downstream of the rib. The Reynolds number based on
hydraulic diameter has been varied in between the 9,400
and 61,480. The formation of large recirculation bubble has
been observed for the entire configuration in the down-
stream of the rib. A secondary bubble is perceived in the
leeward corner as the reverse flow approaches the vertical
surface. The most striking feature is the diminishing effect
of this secondary recirculation bubble at higher Reynolds
number, which fades further with respect to the increase in
trapezoidal angle, and has been seen as the potential cause
for obviating the hotspots in the leeward vicinity of the
solid trapezoidal rib. The augmentation Nusselt number
shows the footprints of reattachment, separations, and
recirculation bubble in terms of spatial HTC distribution.
However, it has been concluded that region of the maxi-
mum heat transfer enhancement along the streamwise
direction does not match precisely with the region of
reattachment based on the flow investigations, and there
exists a deviation of ±10–12 % in predicting the reat-
tachment length with that of LCT measurements. It is
concluded that the heat transfer results would overpredict
the reattachment length and should not be treated as the
correct indication of it as against the flow-based results.
The significant effect of trapezoidal angle has been
observed on the flow structures, but it affect the heat
transfer coefficients in the near vicinity of the rib only,
instead of changing the overall heat transfer enhancement
as compared to the square rib.
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Exp Fluids (2013) 54:1520
Acknowledgments The author acknowledges the financial support
of the Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD), India
for initiating this research activity in Mechanical & Industrial Engi-
neering Department at Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India.
Further authors wish to extend sincere thanks and acknowledge the
support of Department of Science and Technology (DST), India for
providing the financial assistance in order to improve the laboratories
at IIT Roorkee under the FIST Grant.
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