Natural convection heat transfer and fluid flow in a thermal chimney with multiple horizontally-aligned cylinders

To address the scarcity of natural convection research for the tube array with three or more columns of horizontallyaligned cylinders, this paper conducts RANS/URANS simulations for multiple cylinder columns in one or two rows, validated by particle-image velocimetry and heat transfer measurements....

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ma, H, He, LI, Yu, G, Yu, Z
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2021
_version_ 1797085715742326784
author Ma, H
He, LI
Yu, G
Yu, Z
author_facet Ma, H
He, LI
Yu, G
Yu, Z
author_sort Ma, H
collection OXFORD
description To address the scarcity of natural convection research for the tube array with three or more columns of horizontallyaligned cylinders, this paper conducts RANS/URANS simulations for multiple cylinder columns in one or two rows, validated by particle-image velocimetry and heat transfer measurements. Parametric study with varying horizontal and vertical pitches is implemented by RANS with transition SST model. Key findings are then substantiated and examined by URANS. It is found that the horizontal pitch influences the balance between the chimney effect and the blockage effect, thus has an optimum with respect to the natural draft velocity. For all the vertical distances computed in the two-row thermal chimney model, the flow pattern stays in a plume-dominant mode at the large horizontal pitch and a chimney-dominant mode at the small horizontal pitch. Interestingly, at the intermediate horizontal pitch (pitch/diameter2.5), the flow pattern switches from plume-dominant to chimney-dominant over a minor increase of the vertical pitch (from 4.5 to 6 diameters), leading to significant augmentation in natural draft velocity and heat transfer on cylinder surfaces. This distinct thermo-flow behavior, identified for the first time to the authors’ knowledge, may be harnessed to improve the performance of passive heat exchangers.
first_indexed 2024-03-07T02:11:52Z
format Journal article
id oxford-uuid:a0eff30c-96f8-4df2-bc4c-d5c6fb751730
institution University of Oxford
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-07T02:11:52Z
publishDate 2021
publisher Elsevier
record_format dspace
spelling oxford-uuid:a0eff30c-96f8-4df2-bc4c-d5c6fb7517302022-03-27T02:09:17ZNatural convection heat transfer and fluid flow in a thermal chimney with multiple horizontally-aligned cylindersJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:a0eff30c-96f8-4df2-bc4c-d5c6fb751730EnglishSymplectic ElementsElsevier2021Ma, HHe, LIYu, GYu, ZTo address the scarcity of natural convection research for the tube array with three or more columns of horizontallyaligned cylinders, this paper conducts RANS/URANS simulations for multiple cylinder columns in one or two rows, validated by particle-image velocimetry and heat transfer measurements. Parametric study with varying horizontal and vertical pitches is implemented by RANS with transition SST model. Key findings are then substantiated and examined by URANS. It is found that the horizontal pitch influences the balance between the chimney effect and the blockage effect, thus has an optimum with respect to the natural draft velocity. For all the vertical distances computed in the two-row thermal chimney model, the flow pattern stays in a plume-dominant mode at the large horizontal pitch and a chimney-dominant mode at the small horizontal pitch. Interestingly, at the intermediate horizontal pitch (pitch/diameter2.5), the flow pattern switches from plume-dominant to chimney-dominant over a minor increase of the vertical pitch (from 4.5 to 6 diameters), leading to significant augmentation in natural draft velocity and heat transfer on cylinder surfaces. This distinct thermo-flow behavior, identified for the first time to the authors’ knowledge, may be harnessed to improve the performance of passive heat exchangers.
spellingShingle Ma, H
He, LI
Yu, G
Yu, Z
Natural convection heat transfer and fluid flow in a thermal chimney with multiple horizontally-aligned cylinders
title Natural convection heat transfer and fluid flow in a thermal chimney with multiple horizontally-aligned cylinders
title_full Natural convection heat transfer and fluid flow in a thermal chimney with multiple horizontally-aligned cylinders
title_fullStr Natural convection heat transfer and fluid flow in a thermal chimney with multiple horizontally-aligned cylinders
title_full_unstemmed Natural convection heat transfer and fluid flow in a thermal chimney with multiple horizontally-aligned cylinders
title_short Natural convection heat transfer and fluid flow in a thermal chimney with multiple horizontally-aligned cylinders
title_sort natural convection heat transfer and fluid flow in a thermal chimney with multiple horizontally aligned cylinders
work_keys_str_mv AT mah naturalconvectionheattransferandfluidflowinathermalchimneywithmultiplehorizontallyalignedcylinders
AT heli naturalconvectionheattransferandfluidflowinathermalchimneywithmultiplehorizontallyalignedcylinders
AT yug naturalconvectionheattransferandfluidflowinathermalchimneywithmultiplehorizontallyalignedcylinders
AT yuz naturalconvectionheattransferandfluidflowinathermalchimneywithmultiplehorizontallyalignedcylinders