International Journal of Fluid Mechanics Research 51(1):53–70 (2024)

THERMAL-FLUID-STRUCTURE INTERACTION OF
TURBULENT FLOW IN A CIRCULAR PIPING SYSTEM
WITH U-BEND
Nawaf H. Saeid
Mechanical Engineering Programme, Universiti Teknologi Brunei, Brunei Darussalam,
Tel.: +673-2461020; Fax: +673-2461035, E-mail: nawaf.saeid@utb.edu.bn
Original Manuscript Submitted: 5/8/2023; Final Draft Received: 12/5/2023

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effects of the governing parameters on the thermal stresses and
deformations in the U-bend piping system. The mathematical models are solved numerically for the turbulent water
flow through both copper and aluminum pipes with a wide range of Reynolds number, outlet gauge pressure, and
temperature. The maximum value of the Nusselt number is calculated at the outer surface and after the exit from the
U-bend. The maximum deformation is found at the outer surface in the middle of the U-bend due to the combined
thermal and pressure loads. The results are presented for the deformations and the equivalent stresses under various
operation conditions. It is found that the maximum equivalent stresses are generated on the inner side of the U-bend
with higher values in the cases of the flow with maximum values of Reynolds number, outlet pressure, and temperature
difference.

KEY WORDS: forced convection, turbulent flow, structural analysis, thermal stress, U-bend piping,
heat and fluid flow

1. INTRODUCTION
The U-bend pipes are frequently used in many systems, such as boilers, feedwater heaters, condensers, evaporator
pipes, and in general, heat exchangers in the chemical and petrochemical industry, heating ventilation and air-condi-
tioning, plumbing and food/beverages processing, cooling of turbine blades, and others. When the fluid flowing in a
straight pipe is forced to bend, centrifugal forces will be generated and push the fluid toward the outer surface of the
bend. The fluid on the outer surface will face a positive pressure gradient and, on the inner surface, a negative pressure
gradient. Therefore, the fluid on the outer surface is decelerated and at the same time accelerated on the inner surface.
Then, secondary flow circulations (or vortices) are expected to appear in the bend, which is called Dean vorticity.
To account for inertia and centrifugal and viscous forces, the Dean number (De) is usually used to characterize
flow in curved pipes. It is defined as De = Re (D/2R)1/2, where Re is the Reynolds number, D is the pipe diameter, and
R is the radius of the curvature of the pipe bend (Fairbank and So, 1987). The literature review shows that the fluid
dynamics and heat transfer in the piping systems with U-bend have been considered by many researchers. Baughn et
al. (1987) conducted experimental investigations on the turbulent flow in a 76 mm diameter piping system with a U-
bend of curvature radius R = 3.375D and Reynolds number range from 2 × 104 to 1.1 × 105. Their results show that the
maximum Nusselt number (Nu) was found at the middle of the bend on the outer surface of the bend, which is about
three times higher than that on the inner surface. They reported also that the Nusselt number on the inner and outer
surfaces was nonuniform after six diameters downstream in the outlet pipe due to the effect of the centrifugal forces
generated in the U-bend.
To investigate the effects of the upstream and downstream pipe lengths of the U-bend, Fairbank and So (1987)
conducted an experimental study for airflow in a circular piping system. They considered the laminar flow of air with
a Reynolds number of 400 and Dean numbers of 110 and 220 with piping systems with a radius of curvature R = 25D

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and R = 1.667D, respectively. The experimental measurements indicate that the upstream pipe flow is influenced by
a distance of one diameter for De = 220 and not influenced by the U-bend for De = 110. While the flow downstream
took a long distance to recover, it was 14 and 11 diameters for De = 220 and 110, respectively. The details of the Dean
vortices in the transient flow with buoyancy effects were studied by Skillen et al. (2020) in a transient conjugate heat
and water flow in a U-bend piping system with Re = 104 and Richardson (Ri) number = 2.23.
Cvetkovski et al. (2015) conducted a parametric study for the turbulent heat and fluid flow in isothermal U-bend
pipes used in the water heat pumps. The pipe diameter was fixed as 25.4 mm, and the radius of curvature of the U-
bend was varied to get various values of the Dean number. Their results indicated that the Dean number has an im-
portant effect on the heat transfer in the U-bend region of flow with Re = 5000 and a temperature difference of 25°C.
In utilizing geothermal energy, Li et al. (2019) conducted experimental and numerical investigations on heat transfer
in a vertical deep-buried U-bend pipe. The purpose of their study was to investigate the effectiveness of water heat-
ing with continuous and intermittent heating modes in residential buildings and commercial or office buildings. They
found that the same amount of heat transfer could be achieved, however, the continuous mode was better than the
intermittent mode. The utilization of the U-bend heat exchanger and its performance in food processing was analyzed
by Corcoles et al. (2020) under constant heat flux heating for both laminar and turbulent flow conditions of fruit juice
and water. Their results show that the temperature difference in the outlet and inlet of the heat exchanger was higher
under laminar flow conditions. The maximum viscosity of the fruit juice was found at the centerline of the pipe, and
the lowest value was near the pipe walls.
The thermal fluid–structure interaction in piping systems has been considered by many researchers to investigate
the effects of various parameters on the thermal stresses and deformations in the piping systems. Ferras et al. (2018)
presented a review of the fluid-structure interaction in pipes carrying pressurized fluid. Guo et al. (2019) conducted a
preliminary analysis of the design concept of a coated dual-pipe system under steady-state operation to evaluate the
thermal stresses generated. The key factors have been identified, such as the coating thickness, and the thermal proper-
ties of cooling steam, temperature, and pressure, which were affecting the static stress distributions in the dual pipe.
The gas with solid particles flow in a piping system with a 90 deg elbow was considered by Zhu et al. (2014) to predict
the erosion rate, stresses, and deformations in the system. Their numerical results show that increasing the inlet rate
with a smaller curvature radius ratio or smaller pipe diameter leads to larger deformation in the elbow.
Xu et al. (2019) selected a ‘‘L”-type pipeline system buried in the soil to investigate the heat and fluid flow and the
deformation of the pipeline under various pressure and thermal loads. Their results indicate that the largest deforma-
tion is located at the corner of the 90 deg elbow under coupled loads or temperature and pressure loads alone. Dinh
et al. (2019) investigated the thermal stresses in a straight pipe part of the de-superheating region (which is near the
exit) of the U-bend part in a feedwater heater. Their results show that the hoop stress was more than the radial stress
in all cases. Andrade et al. (2022) considered the coupling of the fluid–structure interaction with the pipe axial move-
ment and friction. Their approach allowed the friction coupling mechanism and uneven shear stress distribution in the
unsteady flow.
From the abovementioned literature review, it is noted that the heat transfer and thermal stresses in the U-bend
piping system needs more consideration and analysis. Further numerical simulations of the fluid–solid interaction
have since been developed. The advantages of these simulations are savings in time and cost in the design stage.
Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the governing parameters and to investigate the effects of these pa-
rameters on the thermal stresses and deformations in the system.
Figure 1 shows the system, where the pipe inner and outer diameters are corresponding to the copper tube type
K with a nominal size of 1 in. in which, Di = 0.995 in. and Do = 1.125 (CDA, 2013). The radius of curvature of the
U-bend has an important effect on the flow structure and heat transfer in the piping systems. It is observed that vari-
ous values were considered in the literature. Fairbank and So (1987) considered U-bends with R = 1.667Di in their
experimental and numerical investigations, respectively. However, most of the suppliers of the pipes provide elbows
and U-bends with a minimum radius of the bend of R = 1.5Do. Therefore, in the present study, the radius of curvature
of the U-bend is considered as R = 1.5Do as shown in Fig. 1.
The upstream and downstream pipe lengths and the corresponding boundary conditions have important effects
on the accuracy of the results. You et al. (2013) used the downstream distance as 15 Di in the DNS study of heated
vertical airflows in fully developed turbulent mixed convection. Wang et al. (2021) used the computational fluid dy-

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Thermal-Fluid-Structure Interaction of Turbulent Flow 55

FIG. 1: Schematic diagram and coordinate system (not to scale)

namics (CFD) method to model the erosion process in a piping system with one elbow and elbows in series. A fully
developed flow is considered with an upstream pipe length of 5 Di and a downstream pipe of 10 Di from the elbow.
To ensure the fully developed fluid flow near the U-bend, the length of the upstream pipe is extended by Lext = 20Di
as shown in Fig. 1. The length of the downstream pipe is L = 10Di, which is similar to the model used by Skillen et
al. (2020) and Wang et al. (2021). The region of interest in the present study is the U-bend and the equal lengths of
inlet and outlet pipes.

2. MATHEMATICAL MODEL
The mathematical model for the present heat and fluid dynamics process can be derived from the conservation laws of
mass, momentum, and energy. The heat and fluid flow are assumed to be steady; the working fluid is incompressible
with constant properties and the effect of the buoyancy on the fluid flow is neglected. For turbulent flow, the mass
conservation (continuity) and the Reynolds-averaged (momentum conservation) Navier–Stokes equations can be writ-
ten as follows (ANSYS, 2013):


(ui )  0 (1)
xi

 p    ui u j 2ij ul   

(uiu j )        uiu j (2)
xi xi xi   x j xi 3 xl   x j

where ui and ui′ are the average and fluctuating components of the velocity vector (i = 1, 2, 3) and the overbar repre-
sents the average value of the fluid velocity. The delta δij = 1 if i = j and otherwise it is zero.
The Reynolds-averaged method requires that the Reynolds stresses [the last term in Eq. (2)] be modeled. The
Reynolds stresses can be modeled using the eddy-viscosity concept and average velocity gradients in analogy to the
laminar flow. Therefore, the eddy-viscosity should be modeled in order to solve the governing equations. For simplic-
ity, the present study considers the popular Boussinesq approximation to relate the Reynolds stresses to the average
velocity gradients and eddy-viscosity as follows (ANSYS, 2013):

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 u u  2 uk 
uiuj   t  i  j   3  k   t x  ij (3)
 x j xi   k 

where the calculation of the eddy viscosity (µt) depends on the turbulence model and k is the turbulent kinetic energy
of the flow. For more accurate simulations, nonlinear models should be used, such as the Reynolds Stress Model
(ANSYS, 2013).
Two different turbulence models are tested in the present investigations, namely, the realizable k-ε with enhanced
wall treatment functions and the shear stress transport (SST) k-ω model with low-Re correction functions. The govern-
ing equations for the turbulence models can be found in Fluent documentation (ANSYS, 2013). The results generated
using these two turbulence models are presented in Section 2.2. Neglecting the viscous heating, the energy equation
for turbulent flow can be written as follows:

   cp t  T 
{u j (E  p)}      (4)
xi xi  Prt  x j 

where E is the total energy of the fluid (E = cpT – p/ρ +V 2/2), λ is the thermal conductivity, cp is the specific heat at
constant pressure, and Prt = 0.85 is the turbulent Prandtl number. In the solid, the heat conduction equation for steady
state is

  Ts 
s 0 (5)
xi  x j 

where s refers to solid material. At the inlet, the mass flow rate is defined as the inlet boundary condition and at the
outlet face, constant pressure is imposed. The no-slip boundary condition is imposed at the pipe walls, where the
velocity components are zero. For, the turbulence equations, the turbulent intensity is 5% and the turbulent viscosity
ratio is 10, and both are imposed at the inlet (ANSYS, 2013). The turbulent Prandtl number Prt = 0.85 is used in the
present study (ANSYS, 2013). The outer surface is subjected to a constant temperature Tout and the fluid inlet tem-
perature is Tin, as shown in Fig. 1. The interface between the fluid and pipe material is set as coupled, in which both
the temperature and the normal heat flux to the interface should be equal to each other in the fluid and solid domains,
as follows (Saeid, 2023):

 T   T 
Tsw  Tw and   s  s      (6)
 n  w  n  w

where n is normal to the wall interface direction and w refers to the interface wall. Due to the symmetry across the
y-axis (normal to the page direction), only half of the domain is considered for numerical simulations, as shown in
Fig. 1. The surface generated from the symmetry plane is set as a symmetry plane, where the derivatives of all the
dependent variables normal to the symmetry plane are zeros.
The piping material is assumed to be homogeneous and linear isotropic elastic material. Therefore, the math-
ematical model for thermal stress and deformation can be written as follows (Hetnarski and Eslami, 2009):

 x  yx  zx
  0 (7)
x y z

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Thermal-Fluid-Structure Interaction of Turbulent Flow 57

 xy  y  zy
  0 (8)
x y z

 xz  yz  z
  0 (9)
x y z

where σ is the normal stress and τ is the shear stress in the solid material. The relationships between the stresses and
strains are usually written in the following form (Rorup et al., 2017):

1
x  [ x  ( y   z )]  (Ts  T0 ) (10)
E

1
y  [ y  ( x   z )]  (Ts  T0 ) (11)
E

1
z  [ z  ( x   y )]  (Ts  T0 ) (12)
E

2 xy (1  ) 2 (1  ) 2 (1  )
 xy  ,  yz  yz ,  zx  zx (13)
E E E

where α is the thermal expansion coefficient and T0 is the reference temperature for zero stress. In the present study,
T0 is considered as the minimum temperature in the model, which is 274 K. ε is the normal strain, γ is the shear strain,
E is Young’s modulus, and ν is the Poisson’s ratio. The strain components are defined in terms of the displacement
components, as follows:

sx s s
x  ,  y  y , z  z (14a)
x x x

sx s y s s s s
 xy   ,  yz  y  z ,  zx  z  x (14b)
y x z y x z

where sx, sy, and sz are the displacement in the x, y, and z directions, respectively. The equivalent (von Mises) stress is
usually used to determine the probability of the yield of the material when exposed to loading. The equivalent stress
is defined as follows:

VM  2x  2y  2z  ( x y   y  z   x z ) (15)

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If the pipe material is unconstrained, it will be deformed freely and therefore there will be no stresses occurring
or generated. To solve the static structural model [Eqs. (7)–(15)], the geometry should have constrained in the three
directions, which are the boundary conditions.
In the present study, the boundary conditions are defined by displacement constraints in the three directions. Nor-
mal to the symmetry plane (y direction) is constrained by fixing it in the y direction. The main inlet pipe and outlet pipe
faces are usually fixed with the body of a heat exchanger, and therefore it is assumed to be fixed in the z direction. To
investigate the stress and deformation distribution in the U-bend, the displacement of the inner point of the main inlet
pipe is assumed to be fixed in the x direction, as shown in Fig. 1. This technique is discussed in detail by Rorup et al.
(2017) for finite element analysis of a ship structure. The materials of the piping system are selected to be copper alloy
and aluminum alloy, as these materials are commonly used in heat exchangers and other applications. The properties
of the materials used in the present investigations are adopted from the material library data in ANSYS software as
listed in Table 1.

2.1 Numerical Simulation Method

The mathematical models for heat and fluid flow and the static structure mechanics are solved using numerical tech-
niques built in Ansys 2021 R2 software (ANSYS, 2013). The one-way coupling method is used in the present study
(ANSYS, 2013). The pressure and thermal fields generated from the CFD solver were imposed on the static structure
solver as external loads, while the effect of the deformation on the CFD was neglected. The effect of the deformation
of a metal pipe on the internal flow conditions is usually very small and can be neglected. It is called the one-way
coupling, which is used in the present study. On the other hand, in other cases such as flow induced vibration or flow
over (or in) easily deformable materials, the effect of the deformation cannot be neglected and the two-way coupling
should to be used for more accurate simulations. The details of the one- and two-way coupling can be found in ANSYS
(2013) and Bera et al. (2011).
The numerical solution method is based on the integration of the governing equations over the control volumes in
the computational mesh. The computational mesh is generated using Ansys meshing software (ANSYS, 2013). Figure
2 shows part of the mesh geometry of the moderated size mesh (278700 elements). Figure 2(a) shows part of the inlet
pipe and half of the U-bend. The inlet pipe is split into two parts, the extension (20Di from the inlet) and the main inlet
pipe, which is a mirror reflection of the outer pipe (10Di). The inlet pipe extension length and the length of both the
main inlet and the outlet pipes have meshed with nonuniform spacing. The elements sizes near the bend are smaller
and approximately the same as the element size in the U-bend. This is important to avoid sudden changes in the mesh
elements in the pipes and the U-bend as shown in Fig. 2(a).
Similarly, the mesh size in the inlet extension and main inlet parts have meshed without a sudden change in the
cell sizes. The upper half is meshed using the same method, and it is a mirror reflection of the mesh shown in Fig.
2(a). Figure 2(b) shows the side view of the mesh, which is the same for both inlet and outlet cross sections. The fine
mesh and coarse mesh were generated using the same method with smaller and larger element sizes, respectively. The
details of the meshes used in the present study are shown in Table 2.

TABLE 1: Mechanical and thermal properties of the pipe materials (based on the results of ANSYS, 2013)
Property Copper alloy Aluminum alloy T6
Density ρ, kg/m 3
83 × 102
2713
Specific heat cp, J/kgK 385 915.7
Thermal conductivity λs, W/mK 401 155.3
Young’s modulus, E, GPa 110 69.04
Poisson’s ratio, ν 0.34 0.33
Thermal expansion coefficient, α, 1/K 1.8 × 10–5 2.278 × 10–5
Ultimate tensile strength, MPa 430 313.1

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Thermal-Fluid-Structure Interaction of Turbulent Flow 59

FIG. 2: Mesh geometry details of moderated size mesh

TABLE 2: Details of the numerical mesh size

Coarse mesh Moderated size Fine mesh
Circumference divisions 40 50 60
Number of inflation layers 3 5 9
Outlet pipe length divisions 60 70 80
Inlet pipe extension divisions 90 100 110
U-bend divisions 40 60 80
Total number of cells 134,500 278,700 505,050

In the static structural mechanical analysis, both the water and inlet extension domains are suppressed and the
pipe material is considered the solution domain. For accurate mapping of the pressure and thermal loading, the same
moderated size mesh is used for both CFD and mechanical structural mechanical. In the moderated size mesh, the total
number of cells in both fluid and solid is 278700 elements; the solid domain has meshed with five cells in the pipe
thickness, which gives 48000 elements. The numerical solution of the governing equations is based on the coupled
algorithm for the pressure-velocity coupling and second-order upwind scheme for all dependent variables. The maxi-
mum residuals allowed in the continuity, momentum, and turbulence model equations are set to 10–5, and in the energy
equation, it is set to 10–9 in the converged solutions. The overall mass and energy balance are monitored in all simula-
tion cases, and it is found to be < 0.001% in the converged solutions of all the studied cases.

2.2 Validation and Grid-Independent Study

Most of the benchmarked results for turbulent flow in pipes are available for air with a constant Prandtl number of Pr
= 0.71 (Rorup et al., 2017; Keshmiri et al., 2008, 2012). For validation purposes only, the working fluid is considered
as air with the inner pipe surface temperature fixed at Tout = 423 K and the inlet air temperature is Tin = 323 K. The air
properties at the average temperature of 373 K can be found (Polyakov and Shindin, 1988) as density = 0.9458 kg/m3,
specific heat at constant pressure is 1,009 J/kgK, thermal conductivity is 0.03095 W/mK, dynamic viscosity is 2.181
× 10–3 kg/ms, and Pr = 0.7111. Following the flow condition of Keshmiri et al. (2008, 2012), the Reynolds number is
fixed at Re = 5300.
In the present model, the mass flow rate at the inlet can be calculated from the value of the Reynolds number and
imposed at the inlet boundary with fixed inlet and outer surface temperatures. The velocity and temperature profiles
at a distance of 20Di from the inlet are presented in Fig. 3 for the validation case with Re = 5300, Pr = 0.71, Tout =
423K, and Tin = 323 K. In Fig. 3, the velocity magnitude and temperature are denoted by u and T, respectively; uo

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FIG. 3: Comparison of the velocity and temperature profiles at 20Di from the inlet with Re = 5300 in a copper pipe

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Thermal-Fluid-Structure Interaction of Turbulent Flow 61

and To are the respective centerline values; r is the radial distance from the centreline; and Rp is the pipe radius. The
present results for dimensionless velocity and temperature profiles are compared to the numerical results of Keshmiri
et al. (2012) using the LES model and the experimental results of Polyakov and Shindin (1988) for a straight pipe,
as shown in Fig. 3. The results depicted in Fig. 3 show that the velocity and temperature profiles generated using the
realizable k-ε with enhanced wall treatment functions are in good agreement with the reference values. However, the
results obtained using SST k-ω model with low-Re correction functions underpredicted the temperature profiles as
shown in Fig. 3.
The objective of this study is to investigate the thermal fluid-structural interaction in the U-bend using water as
the working fluid. The physical properties of the water are defined by polynomials’ curve fitting derived from the
tabulated values listed in the standard heat transfer books (Cengel and Ghajar, 2020). The temperature range used in
the present analysis is (274 ≤ T ≤ 423 K), and the polynomial equations for the water properties are as follows:

  750.98  1.8998T  0.0036T 2 (16a)

cp  5388.2  7.5853T  0.0119T 2 (16b)

k  0.60202  6.5105  103T  8.2332  106 T 2 (16c)

  0.063226  4.9984  104 T  1.326  106 T 2  1.1748  109 T 3 (16d)

The temperature-dependent polynomial Eqs. (16a)–(16d) are used for more accurate calculations of the water
properties than the constant water properties at an average temperature. Therefore, the Reynolds number of the
flow is calculated using the water properties at the average temperature of the outer pipe surface and the inlet
water temperatures. The results of the water flow in a copper alloy pipe with Re = 5300, Tout = 373 K, and Tin =
274 K are also presented in Fig. 3 for comparison. For a flow with the same Reynolds number value, the bulk
velocity for the air is higher than that of the water and the velocity of the air is higher than that of the water at a
specified location, as shown in Fig. 3(a). However, the temperature profile for the same Reynolds number value
of the water flow is higher than that of the airflow, as shown in Fig. 3(b), due to the higher Prandtl number of the
water compared to the air. The grid-independent study is carried out for water flow using the realizable k-ε with
enhanced wall treatment functions with various mesh sizes to compute the velocity and temperature profiles in the
U-bend model. The results presented in Fig. 3 at 20Di from the inlet section reveal that the results of the realizable
k-ε with enhanced wall treatment functions are gird-independent results. Moreover, for the same flow conditions
with Re = 5300, outer surface temperature Tout = 373 K, and inlet water temperature Tin = 274 K, the velocity and
temperature profiles in the U-bend at φ = 0, φ = 90, and φ = 180 deg at the symmetry plane of a copper pipe are
presented in Fig. 4.
Again, the present simulation method using the moderated size and fine mesh sizes generates results for both
velocity and temperature fields with negligible differences, as shown in Fig. 4. Therefore, the moderated size mesh
and the realizable k-ε with enhanced wall treatment functions are used to generate the results in this study. The results
presented in Fig. 4 show that the water slightly accelerated at the inner surface at the entrance of the bend due to the
initial negative pressure gradient in the longitudinal direction. On the outer surface, the water is decelerated due to the
initial positive pressure gradient. Therefore, the velocity near the inner surface (r/Rp = –1 or θ = 0 deg) is higher than
the velocity near the outer surface (r/Rp = 1 or θ = 180 deg) as shown in Fig. 4(a) at φ = 0 deg. This leads to forming

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FIG. 4: Velocity and temperature profiles at the symmetry plane of a copper pipe with Re = 5300 and Tout = 373 K.

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Thermal-Fluid-Structure Interaction of Turbulent Flow 63

of a secondary flow from the outer surface to the inner surface, which causes fluid circulation called Dean vorticity as
discussed by Sudo et al. (2000).
The effects of the Dean vorticities are clear in the velocity profile at φ = 90 deg, as shown in Fig. 4(a). The velocity
profiles presented in Fig. 4(a) at φ = 90 deg are similar in shape to those reported by Cvetkovski et al. (2015) and
Corcoles et al. (2020) for different Reynolds numbers and dimensions of the U-bend. At φ = 180 deg, the flow near the
outer surface is still accelerating even after the exit from the bend due to the interaction of the inertia and centrifugal
forces. Figure 4(a) shows that the maximum velocity in the U-bend occurs near the outer surface at φ = 180 deg. The
temperature profile at φ = 0 deg is almost similar to the usual thermal boundary layer flow in pipes, as shown in Fig.
4(b). At φ = 90 deg, the wall near the outer surface (θ = 180 deg) is cooled more than the inner surface (θ = 0 deg)
due to the effect of the water acceleration on the outer surface, as shown in Fig. 4(b). At φ = 180 deg, the wall near
the outer surface (θ = 180 deg) is still cooler than the inner surface (θ = 0 deg) due to stronger convection flow near
the outer surface as shown in Fig. 4.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The heat is transferred first by conduction mode from the outer surface of the pipe (in case of heating the water) across
its thickness and then by convection from the inner surface of the pipe to the water. For the cases of cooling the water,
the direction of the heat transfer is the opposite. In the case of heating the water, the inlet temperature was fixed at Tin
= 274 K. Therefore, the water was preheated in the extension inlet pipe before reaching the region of interest, as shown
in Fig. 1. The Nusselt number was calculated based on the inner diameter of the pipe as, as follows:

(T /n) w Di
Nu  (17)
(Tw  Tb )

where n is normal to the wall direction, w indicates wall surface, and b is for bulk fluid. The variation of the Nus-
selt number against the dimensionless axial distance along the centerline (ξ/D), is shown in Fig. 5. In the inlet

FIG. 5: Variation of Nusselt number along the axial distance of a copper pipe with Tout = 373 K

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pipe, ξ is defined as ξ = (L – z), in the U-bend along the centerline it is ξ = (L + πRφ/180), and in the outlet pipe it
is ξ = (L + πR + z). The same flow conditions of the outer wall temperature of Tout = 373 K are implemented with
various values of Reynolds numbers. The values of Nu are calculated on both the inner side (θ = 0 deg) and outer
side (θ = 180 deg) of the inlet pipe, U-bend, and outlet pipe. The values of the Nusselt number in the inlet pipe are
comparable to the empirical correlations in the theory of the fully developed turbulent flow in isothermal pipes, as
follows (Cengel and Ghajar, 2020):

Nu = 0.023Re0.8Pr 0.4 (18)

The maximum difference between the present results of the inlet pipe (ξ/Di ≤ 8) and the above empirical equation
is < 5%. This is mainly due to the inner surface of the pipe in the present study being nearly isothermal but not exactly
isothermal. The results presented in Fig. 5 show that, when the fluid approaches the U-bend, the Nu values start to
increase on the inner side (θ = 0 deg) and decrease on the outer side (θ = 180 deg) at the end of the inlet pipe in the
region 9 < ξ/Di ≤ 10. This is due to the difference in the pressure gradient on the inner and outer surfaces of the pipe,
which leads to the acceleration of the fluid near the inner surface and deceleration of it near the outer surface as shown
in the velocity vectors plot presented in Fig. 4. In the U-bend region, 10 ≤ ξ/Di ≤ 15.3, which corresponds to 0 ≤ φ ≤
180 deg, the values of Nusselt number at the inner face θ = 0 deg are decreased to reach a minimum value at ~ φ = 40
deg for all values of Re, as shown in Fig. 5.
The minimum value of the Nu is decreased by 65 and 51% from the respective values of the straight pipe at Re
= 5300 and 2 × 104, respectively. In the same region, the Nusselt number values at the outer side (θ = 180 deg) are in-
creasing as the fluid progresses along the U-bend. The maximum value of the Nusselt number is calculated at the outer
side (θ = 180 deg) after the exit from the U-bend at ξ/Di = 15.427, as shown in Fig. 5. For all flow cases with various
Reynolds numbers, the Nusselt number on the outer side is higher than that at the inner side due to the cooling of the
outer surface being more than the inner surface, as shown in Fig. 4. The maximum value of Nu is increased by 200
and 120% from the respective values of the straight pipe at Re = 5300 and 2 × 104, respectively. The variation of the
Nusselt number along the line with θ = 90 deg normal to the symmetry plane is shown also in Fig. 5 for comparison.
The values of Nu along the line with θ = 90 deg are increasing in the U-bend, reaching the highest value at the
exit from the U-bend and then decreasing. The values along the line with θ = 90 deg are in-between the inner and
outer side values, as shown in Fig. 5. At the outlet pipe section, the values of Nu at various lines are approaching each
other as the fluid flow is trying to form a fully developed flow similar to the flow in the inlet pipe. Similar variations
of the local Nusselt number were reported by Corcoles et al. (2020) for different Reynolds numbers at various plane
locations for both water and fruit juice flow.
The thermal and pressure loads are shown in Fig. 6 for the same case of the water flow with Re = 5300, Pout = 1
MPa, and Tout = 373 K. The isotherms presented in Fig. 6(a) show the temperature contours of the pipe material only,
which is cooled from the inside by the water while the outer surface is maintained at 373 K. The outer side of the U-
bend is cooled more than the inner side as shown in the isotherms across the pipe thickness in Fig. 6(a). The pressure
acting as a compression load on the pipe surface in the U-bend is shown in Fig. 6(b) as the surrounding pressure out-
side the pipe is assumed to be atmospheric pressure. The high pressure at the external surface compared to the internal
surface of the U-bend and the thermal expansion of the pipe leads to total deformations in the U-bend.
Figure 6(c) shows the exaggerated total deformation in the U-bend together with the undeformed position for
comparison. The pipe material is deformed mainly in the negative and positive x and z directions and positive y direc-
tion, because the y-direction displacement in the negative direction is restricted due to the symmetry. The maximum
deformation occurs at the outer surface at plane x = 0, which is in the middle of the U-bend due to the combined ther-
mal and pressure loads. The difference in the deformation from the inner and outer surfaces leads to the generation of
stresses on the inner surface and the outer surface of the pipe, as shown in Fig. 6(d). The maximum equivalent stress
[defined in Eq. (18)] is located at the inner side surface of the pipe (θ = 0 deg) as shown in Fig. 6(d). Similar results
were reported by Guo et al. (2019) for the analysis of a dual pipe system in an advanced ultra-supercritical power
plant using analytical and numerical solutions and Dinh et al. (2019) for a two-dimensional model of feedwater pipe.

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Thermal-Fluid-Structure Interaction of Turbulent Flow 65

FIG. 6: Thermal and pressure loads, deformations, and stresses in a copper pipe (Re = 5300, Pout = 1 MPa, and Tout = 373 K)

To investigate the contributions of the pressure and thermal loads on the results, the variations of the equivalent
stresses and total deformation in the radial direction across the thickness at (x = y = 0) are shown in Fig. 7 for the same
case with Re = 5300, Pout = 1 MPa, and Tout = 373 K. In the case of pressure load alone, the equivalent stress value on
the line (x = y = 0) is maximum on the inner surface (r = Rp) of the inner side of the U-bend and it is decreasing along
the thickness, as shown in Fig. 7(a). This is due to the deformations on the inner surface of the inner side of the U-bend
being lower than that on the outer surface of the inner side. Similarly, the stresses are generated, with lower values, on
the outer side of the U-bend due to the deformations on the outer surface being higher than that on the inner surface.
In the case of thermal load alone, Fig. 7(a) shows that the equivalent stress values are decreasing along the thick-
ness on the line (x = y = 0) reaching a minimum at around the middle of the thickness and then increasing toward
the other side of pipe thickness. This is due to the thermal expansion on the outer surface (maintained at 373 K) and
contraction on the inner surface (cooled by water) of the pipe material. Therefore, there is a layer in-between where
minimum equivalent thermal stresses are generated. In Fig. 7(a), the equivalent stresses generated from the pressure
loads only are forming the same curve for both copper and aluminum pipes on inner and outer surfaces. The results
presented in Fig. 7 show that the majority of the equivalent stresses are generated due to the pressure load, which
are compressive stresses; whereas, the majority of the total deformations are generated due to the thermal expansion,
which is outward in the radial direction.

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66 Saeid

FIG. 7: Variation of equivalent stresses and deformations across the pipe thickness (Re = 5300, Pout = 1 MPa, and Tout = 373 K)

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Thermal-Fluid-Structure Interaction of Turbulent Flow 67

Figure 7(b) shows that the total deformation is almost constant across the pipe thickness in the case of combined
loads or individual loads. The total deformation values from the pressure load are in micrometers for both copper and
aluminum, which are negligible compared to the total deformation generated due to the thermal expansion. Figure 7(b)
shows that the total deformation in aluminum is more significant than in copper. An explanation for this behavior is
the higher magnitude of the thermal expansion coefficient in aluminum. Therefore, the equivalent stresses generated
in the aluminum pipe are higher than those in the copper pipe, as shown in Fig. 7(a).
The effect of the Reynolds number on the variation of the equivalent stresses in the radial direction across
the pipe thickness at (x = y = 0) is shown in Fig. 8 with fixed values of Pout = 1 MPa and Tout = 373 K. The in-
crease of Reynolds number leads to the increase of the equivalent stresses in the radial direction across the pipe
thickness from the inner surface until half of the pipe thickness. From the middle of the pipe thickness to the
outer surface, the equivalent stresses are decreased in the radial direction across the pipe thickness, as shown
in Fig. 8. This is due to the outer surface being maintained isothermally while the inner surface is cooled more
effectively by water flow with a higher Reynolds number. The results presented in Fig. 8 show for a fixed value
of Reynolds number, the equivalent stresses generated in the aluminum pipe are higher than those in the copper
pipe. Doubling Re from 1 × 104 to 2 × 104 leads to the increase of the maximum equivalent stresses by 10% in
the aluminum pipe. The variation of the equivalent stresses on the outer side of the aluminum pipe at Re = 5300
is almost the same as that on the outer side of the copper pipe at Re = 15000, and the difference is not obvious
in Fig. 8.
The flow with various Reynolds numbers does not have an important effect on the deformation of the pipe, and
the variation of the deformation in the radial direction across the pipe thickness is almost the same as those presented
in Fig. 7(b) for various values of Reynolds numbers. The effect of water pressure at the outlet section is investigated,
and the results of the simulation cases with various outlet pressure are presented in Fig. 9 with fixed values of Re =
5300 and Tout = 373 K. The increase in the outlet pressure of the water leads to the increase of the equivalent stresses
in the radial direction across the inner side of the pipe thickness at (x = y = 0), as shown in Fig. 9. The differences in
the equivalent stresses are negligible between the copper and aluminum pipes for the case of fixed with values of Re =
5300 and Tout = 373 K. These results are obvious, as increasing the outlet pressure means increasing the compression

FIG. 8: Effect of Reynolds number on the variation of the stresses across the pipe thickness (Pout = 1 MPa and Tout = 373 K)

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68 Saeid

FIG. 9: Effect of pressure on the variation of the stresses across the pipe thickness (Re = 5300 and Tout = 373 K)

load on the pipe material in the whole system. Doubling the outlet pressure of the water from 2 to 4 MPa leads to the
increase of the maximum equivalent stresses by 97% in the aluminum pipe.
To study the effect of temperature difference, both heating and cooling of the water in the system were consid-
ered with a constant outlet gauge pressure of 1 MPa and Re = 5300. The boundary conditions were modified and
defined as a constant temperature at the outer surface of the pipe (for cooling the water, 274 K) and a constant inlet
temperature at the inlet (for heating the water, 274 K). The results are presented in Fig. 10 for the variation of the

FIG. 10: Effect of temperature on the variation of the stresses across the pipe thickness (Pout = 1 MPa and Re = 5300)

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Thermal-Fluid-Structure Interaction of Turbulent Flow 69

equivalent stresses in the radial direction across the pipe thickness at (x = y = 0) on the inner side. On the outer side
of the U-bend, the variations of equivalent stresses across the pipe thickness were lower than the inner side for all the
simulation cases similar to those presented in Fig. 8. The simulations result for both heating and cooling the water
show that the maximum equivalent stresses occur almost in the same location on the inner side of the U-bend and
the stresses generated in the aluminum pipe are higher than those in the copper pipe. Higher temperatures across the
pipes generate higher deformation and stresses due to the thermal expansion of the pipe material. The effect of the
temperature difference on the stress generation is similar to that of the Reynolds number, which was discussed earlier
and presented in Fig. 8.
The maximum equivalent stresses across the pipe thickness at (x = y = 0) in the heating the water cases were
higher than those in the cooling the water case with the same temperature differences and pipe material as shown in
Fig. 9. This is because in the cooling the water cases, the pipe material temperatures were close to 274 K, which was
the reference temperature used in the static structural model [Eqs. (9)–(11)]. The temperature difference across the
pipe thickness was very small for both materials because both copper and aluminum are highly conductive materi-
als. Increasing the outer surface temperature of the aluminum pipe from 373 to 423 K in heating the water led to the
increase of the maximum equivalent stresses by 31%.
In the cases of cooling the water, the pipe’s outer surface temperature was maintained at 274 K and the water
entered at a higher temperature. On the outer side of the U-bend, the pipe was heated by the water more than the inner
side as the Nusselt number was higher on the outer side, as presented in Fig. 5 for heating the water case. This led to
the deformation of the outer side more than the inner side and generatee thermal stresses as shown in Fig. 9.

4. CONCLUSIONS
Numerical simulations have been carried out to investigate the turbulent flow and heat transfer in a U-bend piping
system and the generated deformation and stresses in the copper and aluminum pipes. The key parameters were identi-
fied, which were affecting the heat and fluid flow and the associated deformations and stresses. These parameters are
Reynolds number, pressure at the outlet, and temperatures at the inlet and outer surface for both heating and cooling
the water and material of the pipe. The findings of the present study can be summarized as follows:
i. In the U-bend, the values of the Nusselt number at the inner face were decreased to reach a minimum value
at around the turning angle of 40 deg for all values of Reynolds number. The minimum value of the Nusselt
number was decreased by 65 and 51% from the respective values of the straight pipe at Re = 5300 and 2 ×
104, respectively. The Nusselt number values at the outer side were increasing as the fluid progressed along
the U-bend. The maximum value of the Nusselt number was calculated at the outer side and after the exit
from the U-bend. The maximum value of the Nusselt number was increased by 200 and 120% from the re-
spective values of the straight pipe at Re = 5300 and 2 × 104, respectively.
ii. The maximum deformation was found at the outer surface in the middle of the U-bend due to the combined
thermal and pressure loads. The total deformation values from the pressure load were negligible compared to
the total deformation generated due to the thermal expansion.
iii. The maximum equivalent stress was found on the inner side of the U-bend with higher values in the alumi-
num pipes compared to the copper pipes.
iv. The results showed that doubling the Reynolds number value from 1 × 104 to 2 × 104 led to the increase of the
maximum equivalent stresses by 10% in the aluminum pipe. Doubling the outlet pressure of the water from
2 to 4 MPa led to the increase of the maximum equivalent stresses by 97% in the aluminum pipe. Increasing
the outer surface temperature of the aluminum pipe from 373 to 423 K in heating the water led to the increase
of the maximum equivalent stresses by 31%.

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