Influence of nozzle arrangement on flow and heat transfer characteristics of arrays of circular impinging jets

The effect of jet arrangements on flow and heat transfer characteristics was experimentally and numerically investigatedfor arrays of impinging jets. The air jets discharge from round orifices and perpendicularly impinge on a surface within arectangular duct. Both the in-line and staggered arrangements, which have an array of 6×4 nozzles, were examined. A jet-toplate distance (H) and jet-to-jet distance (S) were fixed at H=2D and S=3D, respectively (where D is the round orificediameter). The experiments were carried out at jet Reynolds number Re=5,000, 7,500 and 13,400. Temperature distributions onthe impingement surface were measured using a Thermochromic Liquid Crystal sheet, and Nusselt number distributions wereevaluated using an image processing method. The flow characteristics on the impingement surface were visualized using theoil film technique. The numerical simulation employed to gain insight into the fluid flow of jets between the orifice plate andthe impingement wall was via computational fluid dynamics. The results reveal that the effect of crossflow on the impingingjets for the staggered arrangement is stronger than that in the case of in-line arrangement. In the latter case of in-line arrangement, the crossflow could pass throughout the passage between the rows of jets, whereas in the former case the crossflowwas hampered by the downstream jets. The average Nusselt number of the in-line arrangement is higher than that of thestaggered arrangement by approx. 13-20% in this study.