Steady incompressible fluid flow over a bundle of cylinders at moderate Reynolds numbers

Abstract

The complete Navier-Stokes equations describing the steady flow of incompressible Newtonian fluids normal to an array of long cylinders have been solved numerically using the finite difference method in terms of the stream function and vorticity variables. The inter-cylinder interactions have been mimicked using the well known free surface cell model. Extensive information on the detailed structure of the flow field in terms of the surface vorticity distribution, stagnation pressure, stream line and iso-vorticity line plots, as well as on the values of the integral quantities, such as pressure, friction and total drag coefficients, have been obtained under wide ranges of conditions as follows: 0.3 ≤ Є 0.99 and 0.01 ≤ Re ≤ 100. The numerical results presented herein have been validated using the appropriate theoretical and experimental results available in the literature; the match between the present predictions and the scant experimental results is good.