Laminar natural convection heat transfer from a horizontal circular cylinder to liquid metals

The objective of the present study is to clarify the heat transfer characteristic of natural convection around a horizontal circular cylinder immersed in liquid metals. Experimental work concerning liquid metals sometimes involves such a degree of error that is impossible to understand the observed characteristics in measurement. Numerical analysis is a powerful means to overcome this experimental disadvantage. In the present paper the authors first show that the Boussinesq approximation is more applicable heat transfer rates, even for a cylinder with a relatively large temperature difference (>100K) between the heat transfer surface and fluid. It is found from a comparison of the present results with previous work that the correlation equations that have already been proposed predict values lower than the present ones