Numerical study of forced convection heat transfer across a cylinder with various cross sections

The thermal performance of an isothermal horizontal cylinder with different selected cross sections in cross-flow was investigated numerically. These cross sections include circular, elliptical, square, rectangular, hexagonal and triangular cross sections. The governing partial differential equations including continuity, momentum and energy equations are solved using the software Fluent™ (Version 18.2). The angle of attack is considered to vary from 0° to 90° for elliptic, square, triangular and hexagonal cross sections for the isothermal thermal boundary conditions. The selected geometries were imported from the software Creo™ Parametric 4.0, and the flow was analyzed using pressure-based solver. The pressure–velocity coupling was solved using SIMPLE scheme. For turbulence model, Reynolds Stress Method-Baseline (RSM-BSL) is used to analyze the flow. It was demonstrated that the average Nusselt number depends on the Reynolds number as well as the orientation of the cylinder. The numerical results thus obtained do agree with those of earlier published experimental results.