Heat Transfer - Massflow in a pipe vs pipe at constant T

[KevinMilo]

Hi there,

Had a physics project in university that looked at the heat transfer of a pipe in a cement block for snow melting. When I modeled it using computational fluid dynamics, I just did a 2D model and simplified it by saying that the fluid would be moving fast enough through the pipe that the temperature change of the fluid in the circuit would be very small.

One of the physics teachers disagreed. He said that with faster mass flow rates that I'd get more heat transfer. Can you not make the assumption that if its moving fast enough to keep the temperature of the pipe constant, than faster flow rates won't increase the heat flux from the pipe to the concrete?

Thanks in advance! I'm sure this is a pretty easy question for most of you

 

[256bits]

Faster flow would mean the temperature change of the fluid would be less.

But, as your teacher stated, heat transfer which depends on temperature differences would be higher.