Hydrodynamic and thermal characteristics of a freely-vibrating circular cylinder in mixed convection flow

TL;DR

This study numerically investigates the hydrodynamic and thermal behavior of a freely-vibrating circular cylinder in mixed convection flow at low Reynolds numbers, revealing new insights into vortex-induced vibrations and heat transfer mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed numerical analysis of vortex-induced vibrations and heat transfer for a vibrating cylinder in mixed convection, including the effects of Prandtl and Richardson numbers.

Findings

A secondary VIV lock-in region occurs at high Ri=2.0 with high reduced velocity.

High Prandtl number leads to concentrated temperature contours and increased heat transfer.

Energy transfer between fluid and structure is quantified and linked to phase angle differences.

Abstract

The hydrodynamic and thermal characteristics of a freely-vibrating circular cylinder in mixed convection flow are numerically investigated at low Reynolds numbers. The numerical investigations are conducted for a range of parameters, Ur = [2.0, 10], Pr = [0.7, 10] and Ri = [0.5, 2.0]. Whereas the Reynolds number, the mass ratio and the damping ratio are fixed. A secondary VIV lock-in region is found in the cases of high Richardson number Ri=2.0 for high reduced velocity values, in which the buoyancy-driven flow is non-trivial. A wide VIV lock-in region is formed with tremendous energy transfer between fluid and structure, which is extremely meaningful for hydropower harvesting. The influences of Prandtl and Richardson numbers on the hydrodynamics, structural dynamics and heat transfer are discussed in detail. The temperature contours are concentrated around cylinder for the cases of high Prandtl number, which are associated with high mean Nusselt values. The influence on heat transfer efficiency over the cylinder's surface is quantified via the calculation of mean Nusselt number and its fluctuation for different circumstances. The energy transfer coefficient is employed to quantify the energy transfer between fluid and structure in mixed convection flow. The phase angle difference between the transverse displacement of cylinder and the lift force is used to support the discussions of energy transfer. A stabilized finite element formulation in Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian description is derived. The structural dynamics and vortex-induced vibration are documented for various environments, e.g., different reduced velocity, Prandtl numbers and Richardson numbers. The influence of structural dynamics on the heat transfer efficiency over a heated cylinder is recorded and discussed as well. The obtained numerical results match well with literature and the established empirical formula.