Convective heat transfer from two rotating circular cylinders in tandem arrangement by using lattice Boltzmann method

Abstract

The numerical investigation of the two-dimensional laminar flow past two rotating circular cylinders in the tandem arrangement is conducted by the lattice Boltzmann method. The numerical strategy is used for dealing with curved and moving boundaries of the second-order accuracy for velocity and temperature fields. The effects of various rotational speed ratios and gap spacing are studied with the Reynolds number of 100 and the Prandtl number of 0.71. A varied range of rotational speed ratios are investigated for four different gap spacing, i.e., 3.0, 1.5, 0.7, and 0.2. The results show that, for the first cylinder, the lift and drag coefficients for large gap spacing are similar to those for a single cylinder; for the second cylinder, the lift coefficient descends with the increase in the angular velocity for all gap spacing, while the drag coefficient ascends except for the gap spacing of 3.0. The results of the averaged periodic Nusselt number on the surface of the cylinders show that, for small distances between the cylinders and low angular velocities, conduction is a dominant mechanism of heat transfer, but for large distances and high angular velocities, convection is the main mechanism of heat transfer.