Effect of wall proximity of two staggered triangular cylinders on the transport process in a channel

Abstract

A numerical investigation has been carried out to analyze the heat transfer and the flow field around two isothermal triangular cylinders of equal size placed staggered in a horizontal plane channel with adiabatic walls. Computations have been carried out for Reynolds numbers (based on triangle width) 100, 250, and 350, lateral gap ratios (d/B) 0, 0.5, and 1, and longitudinal gap ratios (S/B) 1, 2, 3 and 4. The effect of longitudinal and lateral gap between obstacles and proximity of channel walls is investigated. Results show that when obstacles are placed in close vicinity of the channel's wall (d/B = 1), vortex shedding disappears at the downstream of triangles at Re = 100 and 250 at all S/B, but for Re = 350 creating and disappearing of the vortex shedding depend on the longitudinal gap ratio (S/B). Proximity of obstacles has more effect on the second triangle than the first triangle especially from longitudinal gap ratio equals 2, so that with approaching the channel wall, the Nusselt number for the first triangle decreases, while for the second triangle a different behavior is seen. Staggered arrangement causes the Nusselt number of the second triangle to become greater than the first triangle.

Keywords

• Unsteady laminar flow
• Force convective heat transfer
• Staggered triangular cylinders
• Wall proximity