NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF THE TRANSIENT FLOW BEHAVIOUR IN TUBE BUNDLES USING A VOLUME PENALISATION METHOD

We present high resolution numerical simulations of incompressible two-dimensional flows in tube bundles, staggered or inline, as encountered in heat exchangers or chemical reactors. We study the time evolution of several flows in arrays of cylinders or squares, at Reynolds number 200. The numerical scheme is either based on adaptive wavelet or Fourier pseudo-spectral space discretization with adaptive time stepping. A volume penalisation method is used to impose no-slip boundary conditions on the tubes. Lift and drag coefficients for the different geometries of tube bundles are compared and perspectives for fluid–structure interaction are given.