Simulation for flow across heated square cylinders

Abstract

AbstractThe thermal lattice Boltzmann method is used to examine forced convection heat transfer from six inline heated square cylinders for Re = 100 at 0.5 ≤ s/d ≤ 4.0, where s is the distance between the surfaces of two cylinders and d is the cylinder size. Such a heat transfer is transient in nature for which the present work reports heat transfer regimes such as synchronous, quasiperiodic and chaotic. For 0.5 ≤ s/d ≤ 1.5 the heat transfer is synchronous, for 1.5 ≤ s/d ≤ 3.0 it is quasiperiodic and for 3.0 ≤ s/d ≤ 4.0 it is chaotic in nature at Re = 100. These regimes are confirmed through cylinder Nusselt number signals, its power spectra, and heat wake interference. The appearance of heat transfer regimes for inline heated cylinders is similar to the appearance of flow regimes for inline unheated cylinders except for the fact that transition from synchronous to quasiperiodic regime occurs at s/d = 1.5 for heat transfer and at s/d = 1.1 for flow. The synchronous heat transfer regime is characterized by a single heat wake that envelopes all cylinders while quasiperiodic heat transfer regime is characterized by the formation of thermal blobs in the gap between cylinders. A chaotic heat transfer regime is characterized by the shedding of thermal blobs and interference of thermal blobs by downstream cylinders. Regardless of spacing, the average Nusselt number encountered by cylinders is smaller than that for the isolated cylinder. The novelty of the work is that transitions occurring in the flow of heat are considered for an understanding of heat flow from bluff bodies.