Laminar Flow and Heat Transfer of Herschel-Bulkley Fluids in a Rectangular Duct; Finite-Element Analysis

Laminar fully developed flow and heat transfer of Herschel-Bulkley fluids through rectangular duct is investigated numerically. The non-linear momentum and energy equations are solved numerically using finite-element approximations. We consider two cases of thermal boundary conditions H1 and T thermal boundary conditions. The velocity, temperature profiles, product of friction factor-Reynolds number and Nusselt number for H1 and T thermal boundary conditions are computed for various values of the physical parameters of the Herschel-Bulkley fluids and aspect ratio of the duct. The present results have been compared with the known solution for Newtonian and power-law fluids and are found to be in good agreement.