Forced convective flow and heat transfer past a blunt headed cylinder with corner modification

A numerical analysis is performed to elucidate the forced convective fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics past a blunt-headed cylinder. Simulations are carried out employing air (Pr = 0.71) as an operating fluid in a Reynolds numbers range 40 ≤ R e ≤ 200. The curvature ratio is varied from 0 to 0.5. The flow and heat transport features are elucidated in detail for different curvature ratios. Important flow parameters such as boundary layer thickness, vortex strength, wake width, drag, lift, skin friction coefficient, pressure coefficient, Strouhal number, and recirculation length are computed. Also, a primary stability analysis has been carried out using the Landau equation, whereas secondary stability analysis has been done implementing dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) to compute the critical Reynolds number at each curvature ratio. Calculating local and time-averaged values of Nusselt numbers, heat transfer characteristics are studied. An entropy generation analysis is done to investigate the effects of corner modification on the efficacy of thermofluid transport characteristics.