A Comparison Between the Local Free Convection Heat Transfer Coefficients of Horizontal Cylinders in Vertical and Inclined Arrays

Laminar free convection heat transfer from vertical and inclined arrays of horizontal isothermal cylinders in air was investigated experimentally and numerically. Experiments were carried out using Mach-Zehnder interferometer and the FLUENT code was used for numerical study. Investigation was performed for vertical and horizontal cylinder spacing from 2 to 5 and to 2 cylinder diameter respectively. The Rayleigh number based on the cylinder diameter varied between 10³ and 3×10³. The effect of vertical and horizontal cylinder spacing and Rayleigh number on the local heat transfer from each individual cylinder was investigated. It was seen that the local heat transfer coefficient of each cylinder strongly depends on its position relative to the others. This variation of the local heat transfer coefficient was explained by the interaction of plume’s temperature and velocity profiles.