Numerical Study of Heat Transfer in a Row of Cylinders by 2D Large Eddy Simulation

Complex flow structures arise as fluids are forced to flow across cylinder rows at moderate Reynolds numbers. In this study a numerical heat transfer analysis of 12 cylinders in an inline configuration is performed using Large Eddy Simulation (LES). The LES is conducted to get a better understanding of changes in the time averaged Nusselt number, 〈Nu〉, and local time averaged Nusselt number, 〈Nuθ〉, for each cylinder in the cylinder row. The simulations are performed at Re = UD/v = 10,000 and Pr = 0.71 with isothermal cylinders and a constant and uniform inflow temperature. The results show that the time averaged Nusselt number increases slightly between the first and second cylinder due to increased turbulent velocity fluctuations. Beyond the second cylinder, the time averaged Nusselt number decreases until it reaches a near constant value after the fifth cylinder. For all 12 cylinders the local time averaged Nusselt number around the surface is highest at the stagnation point. The first cylinder in the row has the same distribution as the reference simulation conducted for a single cylinder. From the second cylinder and onwards a larger part of the overall heat transfer is in the spanwise direction compared to the first- and reference cylinder.