Direct numerical simulation of MHD heat transfer in high Reynolds number turbulent channel flows for Prandtl number of 25

•For the first time, the MHD heat transfer DNS database corresponding to the typical nondimensional parameters of the fusion blanket design using molten salt, were established.•MHD heat transfer correlation was proposed and about 20% of the heat transfer degradation was evaluated under the design conditions.•The contribution of the turbulent diffusion to heat transfer is increased drastically with increasing Hartmann number.

The high-Prandtl number passive scalar transport of the turbulent channel flow imposed a wall-normal magnetic field is investigated through the large-scale direct numerical simulation (DNS). All essential turbulence scales of velocities and temperature are resolved by using 2048 × 870 × 1024 computational grid points in stream, vertical, and spanwise directions. The heat transfer phenomena for a Prandtl number of 25 were observed under the following flow conditions: the bulk Reynolds number of 14,000 and Hartman number of up to 28. These values were equivalent to the typical nondimensional parameters of the fusion blanket design proposed by Wong et al.As a result, a high-accuracy DNS database for the verification of magnetohydrodynamic turbulent heat transfer models was established for the first time, and it was confirmed that the heat transfer correlation for a Prandtl number of 5.25 proposed by Yamamoto and Kunugi was applicable to the Prandtl number of 25 used in this study.

Graphical abstractFigure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide