Numerical study of convective heat transfer and fluid flow around two side by side square cylinders using k - \omega - \overline{{\upsilon^{2} }} - f turbulence model

The effect of spacing between two identical square cylinders placed side by side on the fluid flow and heat transfer is numerically investigated using $ k - \omega - \overline{{\upsilon^{2} }} - f $ turbulence model. The present study is performed at Pr = 0.7 and Re = 10,000, 21,000 for different scaled gap spacing between cylinders in the range of Gl = 0.5–6. It should be noted all geometrical lengths such as Gl are scaled with cylinders side. In order to show the accuracy of $ k - \omega - \overline{{\upsilon^{2} }} - f $ model, part of the results such as various flow patterns (flip-flop, in-phase and anti-phase) and global quantities are compared with the available numerical and experimental results and also a Large Eddy Simulation study of the present work. Based on this comparison, a close agreement is observed. The local and averaged flow and thermal quantities are also compared for two side by side square and circular cylinders and some significant similarities and differences are presented. Progressive increasing and decreasing of the distance between cylinders indicates that the hysteresis phenomenon appears for the gap spacing in the range of Gl = 1–2.5. In the hysteresis range, two different patterns are observed for each distance in the aforementioned range. Also in this range, two different values are found for different quantities such as lift and drag coefficients, Strouhal number and Nusselt number.