G. Stanescu et al., THE OPTIMAL SPACING OF CYLINDERS IN FREE-STREAM CROSS-FLOW FORCED-CONVECTION, International journal of heat and mass transfer, 39(2), 1996, pp. 311-317
This is an experimental, numerical and analytical study of the optimal
spacing between cylinders in cross-flow forced convection. The cylind
er array occupies a fixed volume and is exposed to a free stream of gi
ven velocity and temperature. The optimal cylinder-to-cylinder spacing
is determined by maximizing the overall thermal conductance between a
ll the cylinders and the free stream. In the first part, the optimal s
pacing and corresponding maximum thermal conductance are determined ba
sed on experiments with forced air for H/D = 6.2 and in the Re-D range
50-4000, where Re-D is based on the free-stream approach velocity and
cylinder diameter D, and H is the array length in the flow direction.
In the second part, similar results are developed based on numerical
simulations for Pr = 0.72, 10 less than or equal to H/D less than or e
qual to 20 and 40 less than or equal to Re-D less than or equal to 200
. In the concluding section, the experimental and numerical results fo
r optimal spacing and maximum thermal conductance are explained and co
rrelated analytically by intersecting the small-spacing and large-spac
ing asymptotes of the thermal conductance function.