NATURAL CONVECTION AROUND A HORIZONTAL CIRCULAR CYLINDER IN INFINITE SPACE AND WITHIN CONFINING PLATES: A FINITE ELEMENT SOLUTION

Abstract

Laminar natural convection (10⁻¹ ≤ RA ≤ 10⁷)around a horizontal isothermal circular cylinder is investigated numerically using the standard Galerkin finite element method. Two cases are distinguished: the cylinder in infinite space and within confining plates. Attention is paid to the latter, and a systematic study of boundary conditions is performed to see how heat transfer and temperature distribution are affected by the plate geometry. It is found that Nu increases as the outlet length becomes larger or as the distance becomes smaller, while it first increases then decreases as the inlet length becomes larger. Experiments are done to verify these simulations.