Natural Convection from a Horizontal Cylinder—Laminar Regime

A finite-difference numerical method has been adopted to generate flow patterns and heat transfer characteristics for laminar, steady-state, two-dimensional natural convection around a circular cylinder submerged in an unbounded Boussinesq fluid. The approach allows the use of nonuniform as well as uniform specified temperature and heat flux distributions over the cylindrical surface. Part of the results are generated for reverse convective flows with recirculation zones which occur when part of the cylinder is below the ambient temperature while the remaining part is above. The results for uniform temperature boundary condition are in good agreement with the experimental data and other solutions available in literature.