Influence of Changing Location of the Equilateral Triangle Cylinder on Characteristics of Fluid Flow and Forced Convection Heat Transfer: A Numerical Study

Abstract

A numerical investigation has been conducted on heat transport in a domain when an equilateral triangular cylinder of (15 mm) is present. A flow analysis is conducted using a Reynolds number (Re) ranging from 100 to 500 on a cylinder encircling a laminar regime. The flowing medium, air, is thought to have a constant Prandtl number. A two-dimensional method is used to simplify the problem. The governing equations are solved using momentum, energy, and continuity equations. Studying the effect of changing the position of the cylinder within the computational domain on several parameters such as temperature distribution, pressure, velocity, streamline, surface temperatures, Nusselt number (Nu), friction factor, and the drag and lift coefficient (CD and CL). The results of the current study showed that the location of the cylinder affects the characteristics of airflow, where the first location gave the best improvement of heat transfer compared to other locations; also, the surface temperature gradually decreases by increasing the Reynolds number and increases by changing the location towards the axis of fluid flow and the friction factor decreased significantly by increasing the air velocity around the cylinder. The percentage difference of the temperature distribution rate of the surface for a computational domain of the cylinder locations (2, 3 and 4) compared to the first location (48.00, 49.00, and 46.00 %), respectively.

Keywords

• Equilateral Triangle Cylinder, Friction Factor, Laminar Flow, Heat Transfer, Location