Aiding buoyancy mixed convection flow and thermal features across a periodic array of heated cylinders

Abstract

Aiding buoyancy mixed convection features of Newtonian fluids across a periodic array of heated cylinders have been studied numerically using a commercial CFD solver ANSYS FLUENT. The governing equations have been solved for the following ranges of physical parameters: Reynolds (1 ? Re ? 40), Prandtl (0.70 ? Pr ? 50) and Richardson (0 ? Ri ? 2) numbers and fluid volume fractions of 0.70–0.99. Qualitatively, the dense and curved streamlines and isotherms were seen with the increasing inertial (Re), viscous diffusion (Pr) and buoyancy parameter (Ri) across all the fluid volume fractions. The drag coefficients were observed to be diminished with an upturn in Re and fluid volume fractions, whereas an opposite behavior was noticed with rising in Pr and buoyancy parameter. The Nusselt numbers were found to be enhanced with Re and Pr numbers and moreover with fluid volume fractions also as in contrast to forced convection (Ri = 0) cases. Aiding buoyancy enhances flow as well as heat transfer features and yields unsteady behavior also at the higher fluid volume fractions and Re for all the values of Pr and Ri numbers. Moreover, statistical correlations have been developed for the total drag coefficient and average Nusselt number to gain the more physical insight of the results. Lastly, the findings have been compared with the literature which displayed the good agreement within the ranges of parameters studied herein. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd