Experimental and numerical analysis of heat transfer including viscous dissipation in a scraped surface heat exchanger

Viscous dissipation plays an important role in the dynamics of fluids with strongly temperature-dependent viscosity because of the coupling between the energy and momentum equations. The heat generated by viscous friction causes a local temperature increase in the high shearing zone with a consequent decrease of the viscosity which may dramatically change the temperature and velocity distribution. These processes are mainly controlled by the Brinkman number, the rotating velocity and the thermal boundary conditions. This work analyses forced convection heat transfer including the viscous dissipation in a scraped surface heat exchanger (SSHE). In this study the increase of the temperature due to the viscous dissipation is analysed both experimentally and numerically for Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids. Heat transfer simulations including viscous dissipation were carried out by means of the CFD code of the software Fluent, version 6.3, with solving momentum and energy equations. Two thermal boundary conditions were considered: pseudo-adiabatic wall and constant temperature on the stator wall exchange. In the case of Newtonian fluid (pure HV45), for both considered thermal boundary conditions, an important increase of the temperature was obtained. In the case of non-Newtonian shear thinning fluid (2 wt% CMC solution), viscous dissipation is neglected. The developed numerical model agrees well with experimental results. The validated numerical model was then used to study the effect of index and consistency behaviour of shear thinning fluid using power-law rheological behaviour on the viscous dissipation, and correlation using dimensionless analysis expressed with different dimensionless process numbers is proposed for Newtonian and non-Newtonian shear thinning fluid.