Summary of forced-convection fluid flow and heat transfer for square cylinders of different aspect ratios ranging from the cube to a two-dimensional cylinder

Abstract The canonical problem of flow over a square cylinder has been studied extensively in the scientific literature. Nevertheless, there are some critical issues which are not fully understood. Here, an extensive review of the literature is presented and brought together in a single repository. Next, remaining questions are identified such as: Which CFD models are most able to calculate fluid drag and heat transfer between the fluid and the cylinder? What are the mesh requirements for hydrodynamic and thermal analysis? How important is the blockage effect for cylinders that are placed in confined spaces (such as wind tunnels)? Do upstream effects significantly alter the results (such as upstream flow development, velocity profile, and turbulence intensity)? What aspect ratio is sufficient for a three-dimensional prism to approximate a two-dimensional square cylinder? Finally, how do three-dimensional flow patterns differ from those in two-dimensions? This manuscript attempts to answer these questions and provide practical recommendations to academic and industrial scientists. One key result from this work is the development of new correlating equations for both the drag coefficient and the Nusselt number for a wide range of Reynolds numbers and thermal conditions. The results presented here agree very well with accepted correlations from the literature, however these new correlations cover a much wider range of Reynolds numbers than previously published correlating equations.