Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid

Mechanics

ISSN: 1994-2060 (Print) 1997-003X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tcfm20

Characteristics of Secondary Flow Induced by 90-

Degree Elbow in Turbulent Pipe Flow

Jongtae Kim, Mohan Yadav & Seungjin Kim

To cite this article: Jongtae Kim, Mohan Yadav & Seungjin Kim (2014) Characteristics of
Secondary Flow Induced by 90-Degree Elbow in Turbulent Pipe Flow, Engineering Applications of
Computational Fluid Mechanics, 8:2, 229-239, DOI: 10.1080/19942060.2014.11015509

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19942060.2014.11015509

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Published online: 19 Nov 2014.

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 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 229239 (2014)

CHARACTERISTICS OF SECONDARY FLOW INDUCED BY 90-

DEGREE ELBOW IN TURBULENT PIPE FLOW

Jongtae Kim^*, Mohan Yadav#, and Seungjin Kim#

^Severe Accident and PHWR Safety Research Division, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute,
Republic of Korea
# Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering Department, The Pennsylvania State University, USA
*E-Mail: ex-kjt@kaeri.re.kr (Corresponding Author)

ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study is to characterize the swirling secondary flow in the downstream of a
pipe bend using a numerical simulation of the flow. The CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) software
OpenFOAM is used to simulate the turbulent flow in pipes with elbow. Various turbulence models are benchmarked
with the existing experimental data and a comparative study is performed to select an appropriate turbulence model
for the analysis. Predictions made by the selected turbulence model are compared with the LDA (Laser Doppler
anemometer) measurements from the experiments currently conducted to find the dependency of the flows on the
Reynolds number. It is found that the swirl intensity of the secondary flow is a strong function of the radius of
curvature of the bend and a weak function of the Reynolds number. Additionally, it is found that the dissipation of
the swirl intensity is exponential in nature.

Keywords: secondary flow, 90-degree bent elbow, swirl intensity, CFD

1. INTRODUCTION cooling systems of nuclear power plants, where

A 90-degree-bent elbow is commonly used in
many piping systems to connect different
components. It is well known that during the flow
of fluid in a pipe with elbow, a secondary motion
of the flow is developed and it is superimposed on
its primary streamwise flow. The secondary flow
is generated due to an imbalance between
centrifugal force and pressure gradient near the
bent-pipe wall in the radial direction of the bend
curvature. In general, the structure of the
secondary flow is dependent on the radius of the
bend curvature (Rc) and Reynolds number (Re)
based on the pipe diameter (D) and bulk velocity
(Ub).
When the non-dimensional radius of curvature of
the bend is greater than 1.5 (i.e. Rc/D > 1.5), the
secondary flow consisting of a pair of counter-
rotating vortices are generated. At the same time,
the velocity profile of the primary streamwise
flow is distorted and shifted away from the center
of the curvature of the elbow. If Rc/D is smaller
than 1.5, the flow becomes unsteady because of a
flow separation occurring immediately
downstream of the bend (Weske, 1948; Hellstrom
et al., 2011).
The flow in the downstream region of a 90-degree
bend is important for the primary and secondary
many bends are used to interconnect the
components. The distortion in the streamwise
velocity profile of the coolant by an elbow can
affect the distribution of heat transfer rates. In the
case of a bubbly two-phase flow which may occur
during an accident in a nuclear power plant, the
distribution of the bubbles in the pipe with an
elbow is very different compared to that in a pipe
without an elbow. Due to the inherent difference
in density of the two phases, the gas bubbles are
driven toward the centers of the two counter-
rotating swirls generated by the elbow (Yadav,
2013). This accumulation of bubbles can increase
the possibility of a bubble collision and
subsequently alter the interfacial heat and mass
transfers. Furthermore, when the curvature radius
of an elbow is small enough to create a
fluctuating flow after the elbow, the downstream
pipe can undergo oscillating mechanical stress,
which can lead to structural fatigue in the piping
system (Yamano et al., 2009).
In the past, several researchers have investigated
turbulent flows in pipes with elbows by means of
theoretical, experimental, and numerical methods.
Weske (1948) experimentally investigated the
velocity distribution at the outlet of elbows with
various shapes of cross-sections including round,
elliptical, square, and rectangular cross sections at

Received: 22 Jul. 2013; Revised: 12 Oct. 2013; Accepted: 9 Dec. 2013

229
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 8, No. 2 (2014)
Reynolds numbers ranging from 0.2 to 0.6 106
for the design of an aircraft duct.
Sudo et al. (1998) performed the experiments for
turbulent flow in a 90-degree-bent pipe with Rc/D
= 2. The study used a hot-wire anemometer to
measure streamwise velocity (Us) and
circumferential velocity (Uc) for a turbulent flow
with Reynolds number of 60,000. Al-Rafai et al.
(1990) performed an experimental and numerical
study of a turbulent air flow in circular pipe bends
to investigate the influence of Rc/D on the flow.
During the experiments, two bends with Rc/D =
3.49 and Rc/D = 6.975 were used, and the flow
had the Reynolds number of 34,132. Homicz
(2004) performed numerical simulations of the
flow through a 90-degree elbow with a Rc/D =1.4
at a Reynolds number of 5.4105 to validate the
Flow-Accelerated Corrosion (FAC) test
conducted by Korea Atomic Energy Research
Institute (KAERI). These simulations and FAC
tests are used to better characterize the flow-
accelerated corrosion/erosion in the pipe elbows.
More recently, Tanaka et al. (2009) applied a
large eddy simulation (LES) approach using a
standard Smagorinsky model with a wall function
law for flows in elbows with various Rc/D at
several Reynolds number conditions.
Most of the above-mentioned studies focused
only on the flow structure in the immediate
vicinity of the elbow and only a limited number
of studies investigated the flow in the downstream
region of the elbows (Sudo et al., 1998; Al-Rafai
et Al., 1990). The knowledge of the flow structure
in the downstream region of the elbow is of
significant importance to understand the
dissipation characteristics of the secondary flow
and to accurately assess the development of the
flow structure. Additionally, an understanding of
the dissipation characteristics is important in
evaluating the length required for the elbow
effects to be dissipated and in modeling the
effects associated with flow restrictions.
In view of the above, the objectives of the current
study are to perform experimental and numerical
studies on turbulent pipe flows after 90-degree
elbows and to characterize the secondary flows
induced by the 90-degree elbows including the
dissipation characteristics. In order for that, it is
necessary to choose an appropriate turbulence
model specifically for the turbulent flow in a pipe
with an elbow. Unexpectedly, there are few
papers which are devoted to a numerical study of
the turbulent pipe flow through an elbow. In this
study, a quantitative assessment method based on
hit rate using the experimental data of Sudo et al.
(1998) is applied to choose an appropriate
230
turbulence model among the available turbulence
models in OpenFOAM CFD code.
2. EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY AND
MEASUREMENT
As mentioned above, the flow structure after an
elbow depends on the Reynolds number and bend
curvature. An experiment is conducted to evaluate
its dependency on the Reynolds number.
Fig. 1 Experimental facility and locations of LDA
measurement.
A schematic diagram of the experimental setup,
as well as the co-ordinate system used for the
current study, is shown in Fig. 1. The detailed
description of the test facility is presented in
previous studies (Yadav, 2013) and only
characteristic features of the test facility are
presented here. The experimental facility consists
of both upstream and downstream sections
constructed from 50.8mm inner diameter (D)
acrylic pipes and interconnected by a 90 glass
elbow. The elbow has a radius of curvature of
152.4mm (3D), and the lengths of the upstream
and downstream sections are 3.35m (L/D = 66)
and 9.1m (L/D = 180), respectively. A laser
leveling system and a digital level are employed
to ensure the alignment of both the upstream and
downstream sections within 0.1. The flow rate
for the experiments is measured by an
electromagnetic flow meter, with an accuracy of
0.5% of the full-scale reading.
Table 1 Specifications of LDA employed for
experiments.
Measurement Length 300 mm
Beam width 2.0 mm
Measurement Volume 0.1 (mm)0.1 (mm)1.0 (mm)
Maximum Velocity 27 m/s
Measurable Velocity Fluctuation From 0.7 m/s to 4.6 mm/s.
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 8, No. 2 (2014)
An integrated Laser Doppler anemometer (LDA),
which is capable of one-dimensional velocity
measurements, is used to measure the axial water
velocity. The light beam in the LDA is generated
by 35 mW laser with a wavelength of 600 nm.
The principal characteristics of the LDA are listed
in Table 1. It should be noted that due to the
difference in the refractive index of air, acrylic,
and water, the LDA measurement volume inside
the pipe is shifted by a finite amount. This shift is
accounted for by employing Snells law. The
tracking/seeding particles consist of Polyamide
particles with a size distribution of around 20m
and specific gravity of 1.04. To ensure the
statistical reliability of the measurements, a
minimum of 5000 samples are measured at each
local point and the validation of the burst signals
was above 98%.
As indicated in Fig. 1, the measurements are
performed at 13D upstream of the elbow (53D
from inlet) to figure out a fully-developed
velocity profile and 3.5D, 10D, and 50D
downstream of the elbow in the downstream
section. The LDA is mounted on a two-
dimensional traversing system, which has a
resolution of 1m in both traversing directions.
This traversing system is further attached to a
plate, which is designed with mounting holes at
every 22.5 in the azimuthal direction. As such,
the LDA along with the traversing system can be
attached to the mounting plate to measure the
velocity across entire pipe cross-section. Along
each azimuthal direction, the LDA is traversed to
obtain measurements at 23 radial positions. These
radial positions are selected such that a finer
measurement mesh is obtained in the near wall
region, where a higher velocity gradient is
expected.
Table 2 List of flow conditions investigated in current
study.
Test No. Ub [m/s] Re
Run1 1.00 50800
Run2 2.00 101600
Run3 4.00 203200
A total of three flow conditions, as shown in Table
2, are investigated in the current study. These
flow conditions are selected to study the effect of
increasing Reynolds number on the velocity
profiles. It is expected that the swirl intensity and
its decay characteristic in a pipe with a 90-degree
bend are dependent on Reynolds number of flow
231
and curvature radius of the bend. To evaluate the
dependencies, the experiment of Sudo et al.
(1998) was referenced. In their experiment, a
bend with a curvature radius of 2D was used, and
the flow velocity was measured at a Reynolds
number of 60000 based on the pipe diameter and
bulk velocity. The experimental facility used in
this study is equipped with an elbow of 3D
curvature radius. The test condition of Run1 is
chosen with a bulk velocity of 1 m/s to obtain a
similar Reynolds number. The experiment of
Sudo et al. (1998) and Run1 in the present
experiments were conducted at a similar Reynolds
number with different curvature radii of 2D and
3D, respectively. The conditions of other tests,
Run 2 and Run 3, are chosen by doubling the bulk
velocity to scrutinize the effect of the Reynolds
number.
3. NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF
TURBULENT FLOWS IN 90-DEGREE-
BENT PIPE
The turbulent flow in a 90-degree-bent pipe is
complicated by the secondary flow, which is
generated by an imbalance of the centrifugal force
and pressure gradient in the radial direction of the
bend curvature. Additionally, the streamwise flow
is distorted by the existence of adverse pressure
gradient along the convex wall of the pipe bend.
These make an accurate numerical simulation of
the flow difficult, especially for turbulent flows
with high Reynolds number. To select an
appropriate turbulence model for the numerical
simulation of a turbulent flow in a pipe with an
elbow, validation of the numerical results from
turbulence models is very important. In the
current study, the experiments conducted by Sudo
et al. (1998) on the turbulent flows in a bent pipe
are used to validate the turbulence models. In
addition, the selection criteria which involve a
quantitative assessment are used to perform a
comparative study among the tested turbulence
models. The selected turbulence model is then
used for evaluation of swirl characteristics in the
downstream of an elbow.
3.1 Numerical simulation of Sudo et al.s
experiment
3.1.1 Test conditions and numerical simulation
Sudo et al. (1998) performed experiments for
turbulent flow in a 90-degree-bent pipe with Rc/D
= 2. A straight pipe-section with 100D of
development length was installed in the upstream
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 8, No. 2 (2014)
of the bend to provide a fully developed turbulent
flow to the bend. The experiments were
performed with air as the working fluid and flow
Reynolds number Re = 60000. The study used a
hot-wire anemometer to measure the streamwise
velocity (US) and circumferential velocity (UC) at
several locations along the pipe.
The open source CFD code OpenFOAM
(OpenCFD, 2012) is used to simulate Sudo et al.s
experiments. OpenFOAM solves the
incompressible Navier-Stokes equations
discretized in the context of the cell-centered
finite volume method (FVM). Numerical
solutions are iteratively sought by pressure
correction method named SIMPLE algorithm.
The standard k- turbulence model is applied to
choose a suitable convective scheme and under-
relaxation parameters of the discretized equations.
The computational domain is composed of an
upstream pipe with 20D length and a downstream
pipe with 50D length connected to an elbow as
shown in Fig. 2. The boundary conditions at pipe
inlet are set as follows: Velocity is fixed with a
fully developed power-law profile which is from
the experimental data of Zagarola and Smits
(1999) for fully developed turbulence pipe flow.
The values of the turbulent kinetic energy and its
dissipation rate are calculated from the inlet
turbulence intensity (5% of inlet bulk velocity in
this study) and pipe diameter.
Fig. 2 Computational geometry for simulation of 90o-
bent pipe flow.
Fig. 3 Computational mesh near pipe exit.
The mesh for the bent pipe is generated by
stacking a two-dimensional unstructured mesh of
pipe cross-section along the streamwise direction
to minimize the non-orthogonality of the mesh.
The two-dimensional unstructured mesh of the
232
pipe cross-section is constructed with
quadrilateral cells. The constructed mesh of the
bent pipe is shown in Fig. 3 where the surface
mesh near the pipe exit is magnified to visualize
the orthogonality of the mesh. The value of the
non-dimensional distance from the pipe wall
based on the friction velocity , Y+, for a near-wall
cell is strictly controlled to be in the range of 20 ~
50, when a wall-function is used. However, the
Y+ value for a near-wall cell is set below 1 in the
case without a wall-function. The distribution of
mesh cells along the streamwise direction is
selected based on iterative grid-dependency tests.
So, the mesh size used in this study is depending
on the use of a wall function. The mesh used for a
high-Re turbulence model is composed of
152,150 hexahedral cells. But for a low-Re
turbulence model, the number of cells is 562,080.
Fig. 4 shows the numerical results of the Sudo et
al.s experiment by using the standard k-
turbulence model. Fig. 4a is streamwise velocity
profiles on cut-planes near the elbow, and Fig. 4b
is streamlines to show the swirling flow. From the
figures, it can be expected that the primary
streamwise flow and secondary swirling flow are
correlated in the elbow pipe flow.
(a) (b)
Fig. 4 Numerical results for experiment of Sudo et al.
(1998): (a) streamwise velocity profiles, (b)
streamlines.
Fig. 5 Comparisons of streamwise velocity
components along symmetric lines at x/D=0,
x/D=0.5, x/D=1, x/D=2, and x/D=5. Solid
line: standard k- turbulence model, +:
Experimental data of Sudo et al. (1998).
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 8, No. 2 (2014)
A comparison between the calculated and
measured streamwise velocity profiles along the
symmetric lines (i.e. =90) in the downstream
region of the elbow are shown in Fig. 5. In the
figure, the positive and negative r/D indicates the
outer and inner part from the center of the circular
pipe section, respectively. It should be noted that
the horizontal length of the legend + used for
the measured data in Fig. 5 indicates a 10% error
range normalized by the bulk velocity. It is found
that the streamwise velocity components from the
standard k- turbulence model agree very well
with the measured data in the outer region with
positive radii. On the contrary, some
discrepancies between the numerical and
measured data in the inner region with negative
radii are observed. These discrepancies may arise
due to the adverse pressure gradient near the inner
wall of the pipe bend.
Fig. 6 Comparisons of streamwise velocity
components along cross lines at x/D=1, x/D=3,
x/D=5, x/D=7, and x/D=10. Solid line: standard
k- turbulence model, +: Experimental data of
Sudo et al. (1998).
Fig. 7 Comparisons of circumferential velocity
components along cross lines at x/D=0,
x/D=0.5, x/D=1, x/D=2, and x/D=5. Solid line:
standard k- turbulence model, +: Experimental
data of Sudo et al. (1998).
233
Figs. 6 and 7 show the streamwise and
circumferential velocity components, respectively,
along the cross lines (i.e. =0) in the downstream
region of the bend pipe. The circumferential
velocity component means secondary or swirling
velocity component. The velocity profiles along
the cross lines are predicted well at different
locations in the downstream region of the elbow.
3.1.2 Assessment of turbulence models
The main objective of the present study is to
characterize the secondary flow in the
downstream of the elbow through numerical
simulations. As such, after selection of mesh size,
suitable convective scheme and under-relaxation
parameters, it is of great importance to select
appropriate turbulence model that can simulate
the flow across the elbow accurately.
In view of this, OpenFOAM contains various
turbulence models, which include one-equation
and two-equation models based on Boussinesq
assumption, Reynolds stress transport model
(RSTM), and large eddy simulation (LES). It is
still challenging to apply LES for a high Reynolds
number turbulent flow in a very long pipe. In this
study, the RSTM turbulence models are excluded
from the assessment because of numerical and
turbulence model problems in obtaining an
acceptable solution, and remain as future work.
For the assessment, only the linear and non-linear
eddy-viscosity turbulence models are considered.
In Table 3, the turbulence models to be used for
the assessment are listed.
Table 3 Turbulence models used for simulation of
Sudo et al.s experiment.
No Abbr. Turbulence model
1 SKE Standard k- with wall function
2 EKE Extended k- with wall function (Chen and
Kim, 1987)
3 RNGKE RNG k- with wall function (Yakhot and
Orszag, 1986)
4 RKE Realizable k- with wall function (Shih et al.,
1995)
5 KMSST k- SST with wall function (Menter, 1994))
6 SNKE Shihs nonlinear k- with wall function (Shih
and Zhu, 1993)
7 LCKE Lien cubic k- with wall function (Lien et al.,
1996)
8 LSLOW Launder-sharma low-Re k- (Launder and
Sharma, 1974)
9 LBLOW Lam-Bremhorst low-Re k- (Lam and
Bremhorst, 1981)
10 LCLOW Lien cubic low-Re k- (Lien et al., 1996)
11 LLLOW Lien-Leschziner low-Re k- (Lien and
Leschziner, 1993)
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 8, No. 2 (2014)
Turbulence models can be grouped based on
modeling of near wall flow and turbulent eddy
viscosity. In Table 3, turbulence models
numbered 1 through 7 utilize a wall-function to
model the near wall region and the remaining
models simulate the near-wall region without a
wall-function. Shihs model (No. 6 in Table 3)
(Shih et al., 1993) and Leins models (Nos. 7 &
10 in Table 3) (Lien et al., 1996; Lien and
Leschziner, 1993) are the non-linear models,
where eddy viscosity is related by more than
second moment of velocity gradient.
Fig. 8 Comparison of streamwise velocity profiles
from different turbulence models along
symmetric line at x/D = 0.
Fig. 9 Hit rates of turbulence models for streamwise
velocity components on symmetric lines of
Sudo et al.s bent pipe, - - -: average hit rate
(74.3%).
Fig. 8 shows the numerical results from different
turbulence models for streamwise velocity
profiles along the symmetric line at x/D = 0. The
numerical results from some of the turbulence
models listed in Table 3 provide reasonable
agreement compared with Sudo et al.s
experimental data and Tanaka et al.s LES results.
However, it is difficult to choose an appropriate
turbulence model from the qualitative comparison.
As such, a quantitative assessment method is
applied to select an appropriate turbulence model.
Each turbulence model is implemented to
simulate Sudo et al.s experiments and a
234
comparative study is performed between
numerical simulations and experimental
measurements. The number of points within the
error bounds of the experimental data is counted.
A comparison is called a hit if the numerical
result lies within 10% of the bulk velocity from
the measured value, otherwise it is called a
miss.
Fig. 10 Hit rates of turbulence models for streamwise
velocity components on cross lines of Sudo et
al.s bent pipe, - - -: average hit rate (92%).
Fig. 11 Hit rates of turbulence models for
circumferential velocity components on cross
lines of Sudo et al.s bent pipe, - - -: average
hit rate (92.5%).
The probing locations and measured data used for
the quantitative assessment of the turbulence
models are plotted in Figs. 5, 6, and 7 which
denote the three assessment objects, i.e.,
streamwise velocity component on the symmetric
lines and streamwise and circumferential velocity
components on the cross lines. The number of
points used in each assessment is 135. Figs. 9, 10,
and 11 show the hit rates for each turbulence
model, where the turbulence models are sorted by
the number of hits. In the assessment of
streamwise velocity along the symmetric lines,
SNKE has the highest number of hits followed by
LCKE and RKE. It is found that along the cross
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 8, No. 2 (2014)

without wall functions, such as LSLOW, LLLOW,

LBLOW, and LCLOW, have a higher than average
number of hits. However, in the assessment of
circumferential velocity along the cross lines, the
low-Re number turbulence models perform poorly
and KMSST & RNGKE record the highest number
of hits.
The above assessment shows that some of the
turbulence models consistently perform below the
average. These turbulence models are eliminated
from the future assessments. Additionally, it is
not likely to find a single turbulence model with
maximum number of hits for all three assessments.
Fig. 12 Comparisons of streamwise velocity As such, two additional criteria are applied for the
components for Run1 case (Ub=1m/s) along selection of an appropriate turbulence model. The
symmetric (=90) lines at x/D=3.5, 10, and
first step utilizes the average number of hits for
50.
each assessment and the second criterion
considers the deviation from the maximum hit
rate. The deviation of each assessment, k , from
the maximum hit rate is given by:
N

x xi
2
max
k = i=1
(1)
N
where xi, xmax, and N represent the hit rate for the
ith turbulence model, maximum hit rate and the
number of turbulence models used in the
assessment, respectively
It is found that RNGKE has consistently greater
than average hit rates for the assessment of all the
Fig. 13 Comparisons of streamwise velocity three velocity profiles. Although SNKE has
components for Run1 case (Ub=1m/s) along highest number of hits for the streamwise velocity
cross (=0) lines at x/D=3.5, 10, and 50. along the symmetric lines, it does not predict
other velocity profiles satisfactorily. Therefore,
SNKE is not considered for the final calculations.
Four turbulence models namely, EKE, RNGKE,
RKE, and KMSST satisfy the criterion based on
the deviation from the maximum hit rate. In order
to select a single turbulence model out of these
four, the selection criterion is changed to reduce
the range of deviation by 2/3 of . Based on this
quantitative assessment RNGKE turbulence
model is selected for investigating the flow in the
elbow. This is consistent with the previous study
(Homicz, 2004), which has shown that RNGKE
turbulence model performs better than SKE for
Fig. 14 Dependency of streamwise velocity flow in bends. Also in the simulation of
components on Reynolds number along cross Rahimzadeh et al. (2012) of a turbulent flow over
lines (=0) at x/D=3.5, 10, and 50, : Exp. circular spillways, it is seen that RNGKE
Run1 (Ub=1m/s, Re=50,800), : Exp. Run 2
turbulence model gives very similar results to
(Ub=2m/s, Re=101,600), +: Exp. Run 3
(Ub=4m/s, Re=203,200). experiment and RSTM model.

lines, the streamwise velocity is predicted well by 3.2 Analysis of current experiment
most of the turbulence models except SNKE and The experiment on a turbulent flow in a pipe with
LCKE. The low-Re number turbulence models a 90-degree-bent elbow conducted in this study is

235
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 8, No. 2 (2014)

numerically simulated with the RNGKE

turbulence model, which was chosen through a
quantitative evaluation of the simulation results of
Sudo et al.s bend pipe. Numerical and
experimental results are shown in Figs. 12 and 13
for the case of Run1 where the bulk velocity is 1
m/s and its Reynolds number is 50,800.
Streamwise velocity distributions along vertical
symmetric lines at 3.5D, 10D, and 50D in the
horizontal pipe after the elbow are plotted in Fig.
12. It is seen in the figure that the streamwise
velocity is shifted upward just after the elbow,
and is redistributed downstream. Fig. 13 shows Fig. 15 Dependency of streamwise velocity
the streamwise velocity distributions along the components on Reynolds number along cross
horizontal cross lines at the same locations as in lines (=0) at x/D=3.5, 10, and 50, :
Fig. 12. The symmetry of the flow is easily Calc. Run1 (Ub=1m/s, Re=50,800), : Calc.
Run 2 (Ub=2m/s, Re=101,600), -: Calc.
observed from the figure. The streamwise
Run 3 (Ub=4m/s, Re=203,200).
velocity near the pipe wall is a little augmented
because of its reduction in the central region of
the pipe section by swirls at 3.5D. However, the
peaks near the pipe wall are diffused by turbulent
dissipation at 10D. It looks like the calculated
results by the currently used numerical schemes
and turbulence model match well with the
measured data. From a comparison of the velocity Fig. 16 2-D planar meshes inserted in 3-D mesh
profiles, it can be thought that the turbulence domain to get area-averaged swirl intensities
model used in this study gives mostly acceptable along pipe after elbow.
results for the flow in a bend pipe.
To evaluate the dependency of a flow after the
elbow on the Reynolds number, the streamwise
velocities normalized by the bulk velocity of each
test are compared in Fig. 14. It is shown that the
velocity profiles from the three tests are
coincident with each other, which means that
there exists a similarity in the structure of flows
after a bend with the same curvature radius if the
Reynolds number is in the range of 50000 and
200000. Furthermore, it is found that the
normalized velocity at the center of the pipe at
Fig. 17 Decay of swirl intensity along straight pipe
50D downstream of the elbow decreases with after elbow with Rc = 2D.
increasing Reynolds number. This happens
because in a fully developed turbulent pipe flow
the flattening of the velocity profile increases
with Re. This observation is also consistent with
the recent experiments in super-pipe flow facility
(Zagarola and Smits, 1997).
The streamwise velocities from a numerical
simulation of the three test cases Run1, Run2, and
Run3 are compared in Fig. 15. The velocity
profiles along the cross lines at three different
locations downstream of the elbow coincide well
with each other, as do the measured data. It is also
shown in the figure that the velocity near the
center of the pipe at 50D downstream is flattened Fig. 18 Decay of normalized swirl intensity along
more as the Reynolds number increases. pipe after elbow with Rc = 3D.

236
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 8, No. 2 (2014)
4. CHARACTERIZATION OF SECONDARY
FLOW INDUCED BY 90-DEGREE BEND
In this section, the dissipation characteristics of
secondary flow in the downstream region of the
90-degree elbow are discussed.
The secondary flow generated during the flow
across the elbows consists of two counter-rotating
vortices or swirls. In general, the strength of a
swirl on a cut plane normal to the axial flow
direction is represented by the swirl number
(Chigier and Beer, 1964). The swirl number is the
area-averaged flux of angular momentum and it is
used to quantify the strength of a swirl around the
axis of the main flow. However, a direct
application of the swirl number to counter-
rotating vortices such as those created by the
secondary flow in an elbow is not appropriate.
To define the intensity of counter-rotating swirls,
Sudo et al. (1998) used the magnitude of velocity
tangential to a pipe section area. Eq. (2) shows the
definition of the swirl intensity used for the elbow
flows in this study.
U (U n)n) dA
2
Is = (2)
U dA
2
b
where I s is the swirl intensity, U is the vector of
the flow velocity and n is a unit vector normal to
the pipe section area.
To obtain the area-averaged swirl intensity at each
pipe section along the downstream pipe after the
elbow, the flow solution is mapped to a two-
dimensional mesh with the same area as the pipe
section because of the use of unstructured meshes
in this study, and the tangential velocities from
the mapped solution are integrated on the 2-D
mesh. Fig. 16 shows planar 2-D meshes inserted
in the computational domain for a pipe flow. In
the figure, the dark-colored areas mean the 2-D
meshes used for area-averaged swirl intensities.
The intensity of secondary flow calculated from
Eq. (2) at different axial locations downstream of
the elbow is normalized by the value of intensity
at the exit of the elbow. The normalized swirl
intensity for elbow with Rc/D = 2 along the
downstream pipe after the elbow is depicted in
Fig. 17. It can be seen that the swirl intensity
generated by the elbow is exponentially
diminished along the downstream pipe. The
numerical result by the RNG k- turbulence
model reproduces well the decay characteristic of
the swirl obtained by Sudo et al.s experiment.
In the same way, the decay characteristic of the
secondary flow downstream of the elbow with
curvature radius of 3D, which represents the
237
experimental facility used in this study, is
evaluated only based on the numerical solutions
because the swirl components of the flow
velocities are not measured in the experiment.
The swirl intensities for the three test conditions
(Run1, Run2, and Run3) were calculated along
the downstream horizontal pipe. Transitions of
the swirl intensities along the pipe for the three
cases (50800 Re 203200) are shown in Fig. 18.
In the comparison of the swirl intensities among
the cases, as shown in the figure, they show
similar trends of swirl intensity decay to the case
of 2D curvature radius of elbow with a minor
dependency on the Reynolds numbers of the
flows. It is found that the dissipation of Is for all
flow conditions can be expressed as an
exponentially decreasing function as
Is L
exp( s ) (3)
I s0 D
where the coefficient s represents the rate at
which the secondary flow intensity decreases
downstream of the elbow. The numerical value
of s is found to be 0.21 to obtain a best fit
between the data and correlation presented in Eq.
(3). Based on Eq. (3), I s dissipates to 10% of its
initial value at approximately 11D downstream of
the elbow.
To investigate the effect of other geometric
parameters, such as the radius of curvature, the
results are compared with the previous velocity
measurement of Al-Rafai et al. (1990) with LDA
in bent pipe flow with two different radii of
curvature, RC/D = 3.49 and 6.98, at Re = 34132.
Additionally, numerical simulations of the flow
were performed by using the commercial CFD
code Phoenics. Turbulent flows in the 90-degree
bent pipes with the same geometric and physical
conditions as in Al-Rafai et al.s experiment are
simulated using the RNG k- turbulence model
and it is found that the current numerical method
and the turbulence model give very acceptable
results. Here, only the swirl intensities from the
computed results are introduced and compared
with other results. Table 4 shows the list of
experiments used to characterize the swirl
intensity of secondary flow. In the list, the radius
of the elbow curvature is in the range of 2D to 7D,
and the Reynolds number is from 30000 to
200000.
In Fig. 19, the swirl intensities along the
downstream pipes of the elbows are shown for the
cases listed in Table 4. In the cases of curvature
radii lower than or equal to Al-Rafai et al.s
smaller bend (3.49D), the swirl intensities show a
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 8, No. 2 (2014)
very similar trend of decay even with different
Reynolds numbers. However, in the case of Al-
Rafai et al.s larger bend (6.975D), it decays very
quickly compared to the other cases.
Fig. 19 Dependency of decay of normalized swirl
intensity along pipe on radius of elbow
curvature.
Fig. 20 Reynolds number dependency
intensity at exit of elbow.
Fig. 21 Dependency of swirl intensity at exit of elbow
on radius of elbow curvature.
Table 4 Tests and their conditions used for study of
swirl characterization.
Test Radius of elbow curvature (Rc) Reynolds number (Re)
Current 3D 50000 200000
Sudo et al. 2D
Al-Rafai et al. 3.49D, 6.975D
The swirl intensities at the exit of the elbows for
the five cases (one for Sudo et al.s study, three
for the current experiments, and two for Al-Rafai
et al.s study) are compared in Figs. 20 and 21. It
is observed that the swirl intensity at the exit of
the elbows has a weak dependence on the flow
Reynolds number and a higher dependence on the
radius of curvature of the bend. However,
additional studies are necessary to provide a
correlation between swirl intensity and the elbow
radius of curvature.
5. CONCLUSIONS
In this study, experimental and numerical work on
a turbulent flow in a pipe with a 90-degree elbow
was performed. In order to select an appropriate
turbulence model for the turbulent flow in the
bent pipe, a quantitative assessment method based
on hit rate was applied by using Sudo et al.s
experimental data. The assessment showed that
the RNG k- turbulence model gives good results
for primary streamwise velocity and secondary
swirling velocity profiles compared to other
turbulence models. The non-linear turbulence
models showed a good predictability for the
streamwise velocity components but they gave
poor results in secondary swirling velocity
components. As a future work, it is required to
of swirl study the applicability of the non-linear
turbulence models for complicated swirling flows.
The experiments on turbulent flows in the pipe
with an elbow with a curvature radius of 3D were
conducted by varying the Reynolds number, and
numerically simulated using the RNG k-
turbulence model to evaluate the dependency of a
flow after the elbow on the Reynolds number. It
was found from the experimental and numerical
study that there is a strong similarity in
streamwise velocity profiles in the range of
Reynolds number from 50,000 to 200,000.
Using the numerical method and turbulence
model selected from this study, the characteristics
of swirl intensity after an elbow were examined.
It was found that the swirl intensity defined in
terms of area averaged tangential velocity
decreases exponentially along the flow after the
elbow, dissipating quicker as the radius of the
elbow curvature is larger. It was also found that
this dissipation characteristic depends weakly on
the Reynolds number in the range of Reynolds
numbers investigated in this study and strongly on
60000 the bend curvature. The swirl intensities at the
34132
exit of the elbows also display similar
characteristics.
238
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 8, No. 2 (2014)
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