Thermal behavior of a hot flat plate passing between two counter-rotating cylinders

This study investigates the thermal behavior of a hot flat plate passing between two counter-rotating cylinders numerically by means of the finite volume approach. Several effective parameters such as the non-dimensional vertical gap space between cylinders and hot plate (G/D) ranging from 0.3 to 2.0, non-dimensional horizontal location of the cylinders with respect to the hot plate (S/L) ranging from -0.3 to 0.3, and non-dimensional rotating speed (RS) ranging from 0 to 3, were studied in detail. Computations were carried out at a fixed Reynolds number of 300 based on the cylinders diameter and free-stream velocity for a fluid with Pr = 0.71. Various quantitative and qualitative results were demonstrated in this study to show the physics of flow and mean data. It was found that, in general, the existence of two counter-rotating side-by-side cylinders develops an unsteady flow around the hot plate and in this situation, flow mixing at the near wall region upgrades. On the other hand, it is concluded that the effects of RS are considerable in small and moderate G/D values. Finally, it is shown that the maximum heat transfer enhancement of the hot plate occurs as 77.05% in the case with G/D = 0.5, S/L = - 0.1, and RS = 3.