Forced Convection Heat Transfer in Power Law Liquids from a Pair of Cylinders in Tandem Arrangement

Abstract

Forced convection heat transfer characteristics for the flow of incompressible power law fluids over a pair of cylinders (of equal diameters) in tandem arrangement has been studied in the two-dimensional, steady cross-flow regime. The field equations have been solved using a finite volume method based solver (FLUENT 6.2) over the ranges of conditions as follows: power law index (0.2 ≤ n ≤ 1.8), Reynolds number (1 ≤ Re ≤ 40), Prandtl number (1 ≤ Pr ≤ 100), and the gap ratio between the two cylinders (2 ≤ G ≤ 10). Extensive results on the isotherm patterns, centerline temperature profiles, and local and average Nusselt numbers have been presented in detail, for the two commonly used thermal boundary conditions, namely, constant temperature or constant heat flux prescribed on the surface of the two cylinders. While the upstream cylinder shows characteristics similar to an isolated cylinder, the downstream cylinder displays a complex dependence on the relevant dimensionless parameters. As expected, at large v...