Numerical simulation of transient forced convection in a square enclosure containing two heated circular cylinders

Purpose – Unsteady simulation of forced convection of two heated horizontal cylinders confined in a 2D squared enclosure. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach – The finite-volume method is used to solve the transient heat transfer problem by employing quadrilateral mesh type. To solve the governing equations (conservations of mass, momentum and energy) on unstructured control volumes, a second-order quadratic upwind interpolation of convective kinematics scheme for the convection terms and the semi-implicit method for pressure-linked equations pressure correction algorithm were used. Findings – The results indicate that the variation of the area-averaged Nusselt number strongly depends on the Reynolds number. On the contrary, the effect of cylinders’ space on heat transfer was found to be nearly negligible for Re < 460. It is also observed that steady state flow and heat transfer shift to periodical oscillation, and ultimately chaotic oscillation in non-dimensional cylinders d...