Abstract
Based on a quantitative analogy between laminar flows in curved pipes and orthogonally rotating pipes, a corresponding analogy of forced convective heat transfer is described for a region where both velocity and temperature fields are fully developed. Two types of thermal boundary conditions are studied:an axially uniform heat flux with a peripherally uniform wall temperature and an axially and peripherally uniform wall temperature. When the curvature parameter of curved pipe flow and the Rossby number of rotating pipe flow are sufficiently large, it is shown that the Nusselt numbers for these two flows agree with each other and the temperature profiles show strong similarity when the governing parameters and the Pradtl numbers of the two flows are equal. The remarkable effect of Prandtl number on heat transfer structure is demonstrated. Based on the computed results, semi-empirical formulae common to the two flows are presented for the mean Nusselt number.
