NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF THE FLOW OF A NEWTONIAN FLUID USED IN CURVED PIPES

This paper deals with the numerical simulation of the flow of a Newtonian fluid in curved pipes using the computational fluid dynamics. Settings curved tubes has received attention in the literature due to its use in heat exchangers and process oil exploration, where the flow of crude oil (water, gas and oil) from a reservoir to the maritime unit is carried through pipelines curved rigid applied to heat exchangers. It is considered the main flow (along the axis of curvature of the duct) developed and utilizes a Cartesian coordinate system to express the conservation equations for mass, momentum and energy. The objective of this work is to study the fully developed flow in curved pipes varying some key parameters involved in this process, as the inlet temperature and velocity in the pipe. This problem was investigated in a scale model of a curved duct disk, using water as the working fluid and numerical techniques used to solve using the commercial application CFX version 12. Among the results obtained, it is shown that the effect of elevated temperatures and speeds affecting the input phenomenon being studied as a function of secondary flow generated.