Analytical study of heat transfer from circular cylinder in liquid metals

In this study the influence of a thin hydrodynamic boundary layer on the heat transfer from a single circular cylinder in liquid metals having low Prandtl number (0.004–0.03) is investigated under isothermal and isoflux boundary conditions. Two separate analytical heat transfer models, viscous and inviscid, are developed to clarify the discrepancy between previous results. For both models, integral approach of the boundary layer analysis is employed to derive closed form expressions for the calculation of the average heat transfer coefficients. For an inviscid model, the energy equation is solved using potential flow velocity only whereas for a viscous model, a fourth-order velocity profile is used in the hydrodynamic boundary layer and potential flow velocity is used outside the boundary layer. The third-order temperature profile is used inside the thermal boundary layer for both models. It is shown that the inviscid model gives higher heat transfer coefficients whereas viscous flow model gives heat transfer results in a fairly good agreement with the previous experimental/numerical results.