CFD analysis of power-law fluid flow and heat transfer around a confined semi-circular cylinder

A numerical analysis using Ansys Fluent was carried out to investigate the forced convection of power-law fluids (power-law index varying from 0.2 to 1.8) around a heated semi-circular cylinder with wall confinement (or blockage ratio) of 25%, Prandtl number of 50, and Reynolds numbers 1-40. Flow and thermal fields were found to be steady for Re up to 40. The shear-thickening behavior was found to have a higher value of drag coefficient, whereas the shear-thinning behavior had a smaller value of drag coefficient when compared with Newtonian fluids in the steady regime. The wake size was found shorter in shear-thickening fluids than Newtonian and shear-thinning fluids. An overall heat transfer rate was calculated and found to increase with the rise in Reynolds number. The average Nusselt numbers were observed higher for shear-thinning fluids than Newtonian and shear-thickening fluids; and the maximum enhancement in the heat transfer was achieved approximately 47% as compared to Newtonian fluids. The present results have also been correlated in terms of wake length, drag coefficient and average Nusselt number expressions for various Reynolds numbers and power-law indices studied. In addition, the effects of blockage ratios ranging from 16.67% to 50% on the engineering output parameters with varying power-law index at Re = 40 were reported. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.