Heat-Transfer Effects on the Developing Laminar Flow Inside Vertical Tubes

A numerical method was developed for the calculation of entrance flows in vertical tubes for the cases of upflow or downflow and constant wall heat flux or constant wall temperature. The solutions were in excellent agreement with experimental data obtained with water flowing upward in a vertical heated tube. The results show that both the density and the viscosity have to be treated as nonlinear functions of temperature. Consequently, for the constant heat flux condition, the velocity and temperature profiles constantly change and never reach “fully developed” states. The transition to turbulent flow was also studied. The experimental measurements demonstrated that the transition process depends on the developing velocity profiles. For the constant heat flux case, transition will always occur at some axial position. For a given entrance condition, the distance to transition is fixed by the fluid flow rate and the wall heat flux. For the experimental results, a tentative transition criterion was obtained, which depends only on the velocity profile shape, fluid viscosity, and the entrance Reynolds number.