Flow and Heat Transfer Characteristics of Staggered Cylinders

Determining how the flow structure affects the heat transfer of a staggered cylindrical array was one of the objectives of this numerical study. The major flow patterns and the corresponding characteristics of heat transfer were investigated, including Shear Layer Reattachment (SLR), Induced Separation (IS), Vortex Pairing and Enveloping (VPE), Vortex Impingement (VI), and Synchronized Vortex Shedding (SVS). As the stagger angle is larger than 35°, the mean Nusselt numbers of array systems are larger than that of a single cylinder. The magnitude of Nu/Cd is suggested as a parameter to measure the efficiency of the heat transfer for an array system.