Laminar flow regime

[TaiwoOni]

Why is it necessary to investigate heat transfer and flow characteristics in laminar regime instead of turbulent regime?

 

[racookpe1978]

Because your pipe system might be under laminar flow conditions at certain (and probably unpredictable) times and flow rates.

Turbulent and laminar flow conditions are significantly different - you MUST ensure the system will be safe under both conditions.

 

[zdas04]

Not sure that that answer gets to the heart of the question. The heat transfer process is kind of complex. With Laminar flow some of the computational impossibility goes away because you can remove the swirl terms from the calcs. Also, people often disregard and/or simplify the friction terms in Laminar flow and get usable results. In turbulent flow the math simply gets too complex to be solvable from first principles and you have to fall back to empirical relationships.

I would guess that the OP is in university.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. —Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[Signious]

Helpful textbooks on this topic:

'Fundamentals of Fluid Mechanics' by Mynson, Young & Okiishi
-This will answer the last two of your questions

'Design of Fluid Thermal Systems' by Janna
-This will go through detailed examples of various heat exchanger designs, using different design methodologies