Transient numerical simulation of buoyancy driven flow adjacent to an elliptic tube

In this paper the problem of laminar, transient, two-dimensional free convective heat transfer from the surface of a horizontal elliptic tube is considered. The tube, whose surface is suddenly subjected to uniform heat flux, is placed in a quiescent Boussinesq Newtonian fluid with its major axis horizontal. The details of both flow and thermal fields are obtained by solving the full governing Navier–Stokes and energy equations. These equations, expressed in terms of stream function, vorticity and temperature, are numerically solved using an implicit spectral finite difference procedure. The parameters involved are the modified Rayleigh number, Prandtl number and axis-ratio. The investigation covers a Rayleigh number range up to 107. The minor–major axis ratio of elliptic cylinder ranges between 0.05 and 0.998 and Prandtl number ranges between 0.1 and 10. The effects of these parameters on the surface temperature distribution and heat transfer coefficients are determined and the different aspects of the results are discussed for some selected cases.