A brief review study of flow phenomena over a backward-facing step and its optimization

Abstract The flows of fluid via sudden expansions are among the basic topics within the discipline of fluid mechanics. The comprehension of these types of flows has attracted a great volume of research, attributable to their wide usage in numerous fluid applications such as heat exchangers, dump combustors, nuclear reactors and diffusers; as well as pipe-flow systems within the chemical and petroleum industries, pharmaceutical, medical science, air-conditioning ducts, and fluidic devices. Many researchers have conducted a great deal of empirical and numerical studies in this discipline. Survey works existing in this discipline are lacking. A bibliographical survey of the flow via sudden expansion is presented in this work along with the critical analysis of the published empirical and numerical research in the specified field. In this review, flow specifications for several kinds of fluids, conditions of flow, conduit geometrical parameters, plain and modified abrupt enlargement configurations, as well as further related factors are discussed. The primary purpose here is to provide a summary of the recent research progress on the flow specifications of fluid flowing via abrupt enlargement configurations in order to suggest several potential explanations about implementation of these configurations in industrial applications.