Transient cooling of two circular cylinders arranged in Tandem and bounded by an adiabatic wall

Abstract

Parametric study is carried out on the transient cooling process of two circular cylinders in tandem arrangement for a specified period of time. Transient analysis of conjugate (conduction and convection) heat dissipation from two identicalcylinders is considered with various parameters. The two cylinders of same size and properties are bounded by an adiabatic flat wall from below and the cooling air is flowing normal to their axis (cross flow). The following parameters are investigated in the present study: Reynolds number, cylinders thermal properties, separation distance between the two cylindersand the cooling time. The laminar flow is considered with Reynolds number values from 50 to 500. The simulations are carried out for cooling thetwo cylinders made of carbon steels, plastics plexiglass and plywood. The local and average Nusselt number for both steady and transient cooling of the two cylinders are presented. The effects of the parameters are investigated and the results are presented to understand the process. It is found that increasing either the separation distance and/or the Reynolds number will increase the heat dissipation and reduce the cooling time. The results show that carbon steels cylinders need longer time of cooling compare with the plywood cylinders due to the difference in their thermal inertia.

Keywords

• conjugate heat transfer
• transient analysis
• circular cylinders
• tandem arrangement
• thermal inertia
• cfd simulations