NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF FORCED CONVECTION HEAT TRANSFER ON INLINE CYLINDERS IMMERSED IN A POROUS MEDIA

Abstract

In the present study, forced convection heat transfer on eight inline cylinders immersed in a 10 × 10 × 30 cm packed bed of porous medium is numerically explored with a range of Reynolds numbers from 1100 to 2250. The airflow passes through eight cylinders with an inline arrangement, each having a diameter of 15 mm and a length of 10 cm, immersed in a horizontal porous channel at a constant heat flux of 2000W/m2. The commercial program ANSYS Fluent R.19 simulates the changes in pressure drop and temperature distribution by changing the Reynolds number and porosity. The dimensions of each porous pack are 10x10 cm in cross-section, 5 cm in length, and 5 cm in spacing from the next porous pack. The porosity values are (0.4001, 0.39112, and 0.3822). The general shape of all temperature contours shows that the high porosity near the cylinder wall enhances heat transfer from the heated cylinder surface. After that, the air temperature gradually decreases when going away from the cylinder surface. It can also be seen that the pressure drop decreases as particle diameter increases.