Vortex shedding and heat transfer from a heated circular cylinder in Bingham plastic fluids

Abstract: The present study numerically investigates the vortex shedding and heat transfer characteristics of a heated circular cylinder immersed in Bingham plastic fluids.The effects of three parameters, i.e., (i) plastic Reynolds number ($10 \leq Re \leq 180$), (ii) Prandtl number ($1\leq Pr \leq 100$), and (iii) the Bingham number ($0 \leq Bn \leq 10,000$), are evaluated. The Navier-Stokes and energy equations for flow and heat transfer are adopted, along with the incorporation of the Papanastasiou regularization to address the discontinuous-viscosity characteristics of Bingham plastic fluids. To illustrate the impact of fluid yield stress on the flow structure, the study provides comprehensive insights into flow transition, streamlines, shear rate and velocity distributions, the morphology of yielded/unyielded regions, and the drag coefficient ($C_d$). Additionally, the temperature distribution, the local Nusselt number ($\overline{Nu_{local}}$) along the cylinder, and the average Nusselt number on the cylinder ($\overline{Nu}$) are analyzed. The results indicate that the flow transition of Bingham fluids over a circular cylinder is dependent on external disturbances, exhibiting subcritical bifurcation behavior. This leads to abrupt jumps in the $\overline{Cd}$ - $Bn$ curve and the $\overline{Nu}$ - $Bn$ curve near the critical Bingham number $Bn_c$. Furthermore, the heat transfer performance is contingent upon the different distribution of shear strain rate in the boundary layer across various $Bn$ ranges. It is observed that $\overline{Nu}$ and $Bn$ fits well with the Carreau-Yasuda-like non-Newtonian viscosity model. This investigation enhances the understanding of the vortex shedding and heat transfer behaviors in Bingham plastic fluids.