Numerical investigation of collecting wire electrode effect on the flow field and heat transfer with electrohydrodynamic actuator

In this paper, the flow and temperature fields affected by electric field in the presence of wire collecting electrode are numerically investigated for the two-dimension, incompressible, turbulent, and steady flow conditions with the finite volume approach. The computational methodology includes the use of a structured, non-uniform quadrilateral grid, and the Standard K- model was adopted as the turbulence model. The computed results are compared with the experimental data and the results agree very well. Then, the effect of different parameters such as collecting electrode radius, the applied voltage, Reynolds number, and the distance between emitting and collecting electrodes on the flow pattern and heat transfer coefficient is evaluated. The numerical results show that the influence of electrohydrodynamic phenomenon on the heat transfer enhancement increases with radius of the grounded electrode and the applied voltage but decreases when the Reynolds number and distance between electrodes are augmented. The results indicate that electrohydrodynamic actuator acts as a generator of secondary flow and these vortices were used to enhance the forced convection heat transfer.