Quote:
Originally posted by bigben2k
The spiral design is interesting because it is essentially a fin, but where flow restriction has been taken into account.
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On a macro-scale, this is where it's at. Ya gotta optimize the use of the metal for conduction's sake while maximizing the surface area for convection's sake while minimizing the metal and surface area for flow's sake. Yeah.
On the micro-scale, you get into the stuff mentioned by many others here before. Namely surface treatments to minimize boundary layer thickness. IIRC, one of the big airplane manufacturers has been experimenting with tiny chevrons protruding from the airskin surface. They have been working to optimize chevron height, width, angle, and array layout to minimize skin drag. We're talking stuff that sticks up a mere few thousandths of an inch. Same sorta idea applies to our WB passages. Modeling something like this is outa my current league as my software resources aren't what they used to be.
