Flow and surface heat transfer analysis of a square cylinder in turbulent cross-flow

Abstract

Flow passing a heated square cylinder is investigated using a hybrid LES-RANS approach on unstructured grids at a moderate Reynolds number of 22, 050. The effects of inflow turbulence on the flow field as well as surface convective heat transfer are studied by adopting a grid-based random-number method (GRM). Validation of the GRM method is carried out by generating and simulating a decaying homogeneous isotropic turbulent flow. Analysis of the turbulent quantities and comparisons with the Synthetic Coherent Eddy Method (SCEM) suggest that the cheaper GRM is able to generate good quality inflow turbulence, despite a longer transition region is required. Studies of the heated square cylinder in crossflow show that the inflow turbulence results in an early breakup of the shear layer, which leads to further effects on the vortex shedding and surface heat transfer. The surface convective heat transfer is increased with inflow turbulence, especially on the front, top and bottom surfaces, while limited influence is found on the rear surface. It is shown by the spectra that the effects of the inflow turbulence mainly focus on the turbulent shear layers, as well as heat transfer of the corresponding surfaces.