Analysis of laminar forced convection of air for crossflow in banks of staggered tubes

Numerical analysis is made of forced-convection heat transfer in laminar, t wo-dimensional, steady crossflow in banks of plain tubes in staggered arran gements. A finite-volume method with a nonorthogonal, boundary-fitted grid and co-located variable storage is used to solve the Navier-Stokes equation s and energy conservation equation for a tube bundle with 10 longitudinal r ows, including inlet and outlet sections. Local and overall heat transfer a nd fluid flow results are presented at nominal pitch-to-diameter ratios of 1.25, 1.5, and 2.0 for equilateral triangle and rotated square tube arrange ments with Reynolds numbers of 100 and 300 and a Prandtl number of 0.71. Se nsitivity of the local Nusselt number and friction coefficient distribution s to the computational grid distribution is noted, A comparison of the pres ent study results with well-established experiments and empirical correlati ons showed good overall agreement.