Convection in the Cavity Formed Between Two Cylindrical Rollers

This paper describes the flow and temperature distribution in the hourglass-shaped cavity formed between two rollers and two parallel runner surfaces. The cavity fluid is heated uniformly over the roller surfaces, and cooled along the two runners, which are modeled as isothermal. The focus is on the characteristics of the flow (the Reynolds number effect) and the temperature distribution in the fluid, especially at the roller surface. These features are determined numerically. The results document the extent to which the Reynolds number, Prandtl number, geometric aspect ratio, and viscous dissipation number influence the steady-state temperature of the roller surface. It is shown that at Reynolds numbers greater than 100, the cooling effect that the cavity fluid provides to the roller approaches the behavior anticipated based on laminar forced-convection boundary layer theory.