Power-law fluids flow and heat transfer over two tandem square cylinders: effects of Reynolds number and power-law index

The low-Reynolds numbers free-stream flow of power-law fluids and forced convection heat transfer around a square cylinder and two square cylinders in a tandem arrangement are numerically investigated. In the single cylinder case, the power-law index and Reynolds numbers range from n = 0.7 - 1.4 and Re = 60 - 160 at Pr = 0.7. In the tandem case, the spacing between the cylinders is four widths of each cylinder side and the power-law index ranges from 0.7 to 1.6 at Re = 40, 100, 160 and Pr = 0.7. All simulations are performed with a finite volume code based on the SIMPLEC algorithm and a non-staggered grid. The effect of spatial resolution on the results is also studied for a single cylinder and tandem cylinders. The mean and instantaneous streamlines, vorticity and temperature contours, the global quantities such as pressure and friction coefficients, the rms lift and drag coefficients, Strouhal and Nusselt numbers are determined and discussed for various power-law indexes at different Reynolds numbers. A comparison between the results of the single cylinder case and the two cylinders in tandem arrangement shows that there are relatively similar results for the single cylinder and the upstream cylinder of the tandem case.