Thermal Analysis of a Heated Cylinder at Cross Flow using the CFD Package ICEPAK3

摘要

A classic fluid flow and heat transfer problem was studied with the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) approach. The cooling of an internally heated cylinder of finite length by an air stream flowing at right angles to it was investigated with the commercial CFD code for electronic systems thermal analysis, ICEPAK3. Although the geometrical configuration and flow structure are quite simple, this case still poses a challenge to numerical analysis and is used consistently as a benchmark case for code and turbulence model validation. Simulations were performed for three Reynolds (Re) numbers, for all three available turbulence models incorporated in ICEPAK3. Namely, the simple and fully-empirical zero equation model (mixing length), the semi-empirical standard two-equation k-ε model and finally the sophisticated RNG k-ε model of turbulence, derived from the ReNormalization Group theory that employs no empirical assumptions. Comparison with standard empirical relations for heat transfer coefficient revealed that the code is capable of predicting the overall and local flow and thermal fields for the range of Re number examined. RNG overall model performance is proved superior, while the coarse and computationally cheaper zero-equation model is satisfactory for high-Re number flows.