variavel0=<b>Albino José Kalab Leiroz</b> - leiroz@ime.eb.br Instituto Militar de Engenharia
<b>Aldélio Bueno Caldeira</b> - aldelio@lmt.coppe.ufrj.br Instituto Militar de Engenharia
<b>Helcio Rangel Barreto Orlande</b> - helcio@serv.ufrj.br COPPE/UFRJ
<b>Abstract.</b> Conjugate thermal effects of rectangular obstructions on entrance regions of parallel plate channels are numerically investigated in the present work. The incompressible laminar flow governing equations, written in vorticity-stream function formulation, as well as the energy conservation equation are discretized with a hybrid finite difference scheme. The domain is subdivided into zones and a regular mesh is used within the obtained subdomains. Constant temperature and constant heat flux boundary conditions are considered in the present study for the channel walls. Results are obtained for fully developed and uniform inlet velocity profiles. The effects of the obstruction thickness, height, and thermal diffusivity on the temperature field and Nusselt number are analyzed. The numerical results obtained here are validated with limiting analytical solutions available in the literature.
<b>Keywords.</b> Conjugate heat transfer, Rectangular obstruction, Entrance region, Parallel flat plate.