A numerical investigation of incompressible viscous flow in a helical square annulus

In this article incompressible viscous flow in a helical square annulus is investigated numerically. The governing equations including the continuity and Navier–Stokes equations are written in an orthogonal helical coordinate system. This provides a uniform computational domain with a capability of using an exact second order finite difference method based on the projection algorithm to discretize the governing equations. The numerical results obtained study the effects of different non-dimensional parameters such as torsion, curvature, Reynolds number and aspect ratio on the secondary flow, axial velocity and friction factor in detail.