Experimental and numerical investigations of turbulent flow in a staggered tube bundle

Experimental and numerical investigations were carried out on turbulent flow in a staggered tube bundle. In the experiment, a hot-wire anemometer was employed to investigate the developments of the flow at the Reynolds number of 9160. In microscopic numerical study, the standard k-∈ model was used with a boundary fitted coordinate system to calculate velocity, pressure drop and kinetic energy of turbulence. The new macroscopic turbulence model with volume averaging and additional source terms was proposed for turbulent flows in tube bundles or packed beds. The turbulence constants were determined by the microscopic numerical experiments. The microscopic and macroscopic numerical results were in good agreement with the experimental results, or the empirical equation in the axial velocity and kinetic energy of turbulence.