Torsion and curvature effects on fluid flow in a helical annulus

In this article incompressible viscous flow in a helical annulus is studied numerically. A second order finite difference method based on the projection algorithm is used to solve the governing equations written in the helical coordinate system. Considering the hydrodynamically fully developed flow, the effects of different physical parameters such as aspect ratio, torsion, curvature and Reynolds number on the flow field are investigated in detail. The numerical results obtained indicate that a decrease in the aspect ratio and torsion number leads to the increase of the friction factor at a given Dean number.