Abstract
An experimental study was conducted on turbulent thermal mixing in rectangular channels with a T-junction, which simulate the HVAC unit used for an automobile air-conditioning system. Experiments were conducted keeping Reynolds number and temperature of the main-channel flow at 2.5×10^4 and 10℃, respectively, and the velocity of the branching-channel flow (65℃) was set at the same value as that of the main channel. The simultaneous measurement of the fluctuating velocity and temperature was conducted using LDV and cold-wire thermometry. The temperature fluctuation and turbulent heat flux in the transverse direction show similar distributions and they become the maximums in the middle of the thermal mixing layer, while the peaks of velocity fluctuations appear in the shear layer around the separation bubble that is located below the mixing layer.
