Effect of power-law fluid behavior on momentum and heat transfer characteristics of an inclined square cylinder in steady flow regime

The governing equations describing the momentum and heat transfer phenomena of power-law non-Newtonian fluids over a heated square cylinder at 45 degrees of incidence in the two-dimensional (2-D) steady flow regime are solved numerically. Extensive results on the detailed structure of the flow and temperature fields as well as on the gross engineering parameters are presented over the following ranges of conditions: 0.2 <= n <= 1; 0.1 <= Re <= 40 and 0.7 <= Pr <= 100. At low Reynolds numbers, the flow remains attached to the surface of the cylinder. This seems to occur for all values of power-law index, at least up to about Re = 1. On the other hand, twin standing vortices were seen to form at Re = 10 for all values of power-law index considered herein. The influence of the Reynolds number and power-law index is delineated on the detailed structure of the flow field (streamlines), wake characteristics and surface pressure distribution as well as on the value of drag coefficients. Similarly, the effect of Prandtl number is studied on forced convective heat transfer for the two commonly encountered boundary conditions, namely, constant temperature or constant heat flux prescribed on the surface of the cylinder. Using the computed numerical results, simple heat transfer correlations are obtained in terms of the Nusselt number as a function of the pertinent governing parameters thereby enabling the prediction of the rate of heat transfer between the fluid and the immersed cylinder. In addition, variation of the local Nusselt number on the surface of the inclined of square cylinder and representative isotherm plots are also presented to elucidate the effect of Reynolds number, Prandtl number and power-law index on the heat transfer phenomenon. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.