Laminar mixed convection in two-dimensional far wakes above heated/cooled bodies: Model and experiments (Q2743746)

The author develops an asymptotic model of mixed convection flow in boundary-layer approximation, and uses a far-wake expansion for weak buoyant forces. For a plane cylindrical or spherical geometry, the model is validated against both experiments in water and numerical simulations. Based on boundary-layer approximation, two-parameter expansion is constructed. The small parameters are: an inverse power of downstream coordinate, and the ratio of buoyancy to inertia forces. Thus, the model holds far downstream for weakly buoyant conditions. Under the Boussinesq approximation, the governing equations are coupled continuity, Navier-Stokes and energy equations with the corresponding boundary conditions. These equations and boundary conditions are written in non-dimensional form using dominant quantities for the forced flow around the body (cylinder).NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEIt is shown that this mixed convection problem is characterized by three dimensionless parameters: Reynolds number, Grashof number and Prandtl number. The author uses three principal means of investigation. (a) An asymptotic model is developed, which, based on boundary-layer theory, is valid for large Reynolds numbers. The model provides analytical expressions in self-similar form for flow and temperature fields, containing explicit parameter dependence, in conjunction with a system of ordinary differential equations for shape functions. To validate this asymptotic model, experiments and numerical simulations are made. (b) The experiments are performed in a vertical water channel at Prandtl number about 6. (c) The finite element code FIDAP 7.6 is used to compute flow and temperature fields on a mesh of about 25 000 nodes.NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEThere are many important results reported in this paper, but we mention only the following two: (i) for a heated wake buoyancy forces accelerate the fluid in the thermal wake, such that the vertical velocity deficit in the kinematic wake is reduced. For strong heating this may lead to vertical velocities larger than the forced flow amplitude; (ii) the Prandtl number controls the width of thermal wake and, thus, the portion of kinematic wake affected by buoyant forces. Large Prandtl numbers superimpose a narrow buoyant plume, and small Prandtl numbers a wide buoyant plume onto the kinematic wake.