Numerical study of forced convective heat transfer around airships

Forced convective heat transfer is an important factor that affects the thermal characteristics of airships. In this paper, the steady state forced convective heat transfer around an ellipsoid is numerically investigated. The numerical simulation is carried out by commercial computational fluid dynamic (CFD) software over the extended Re range from 20 to 108 and the aspect ratio from 2 to 4. Based on the regression and optimization with software, a new piecewise correlation of the Nusselt number at constant wall temperature for ellipsoid is proposed, which is suitable for applications to airships and other ellipse shaped bodies such as elliptical balloons. The thermal characteristics of a stratospheric airship in midsummer located in the north hemisphere are numerical studied. The helium temperature predicated using the new correlation is compared to those predicted by correlations applicable for spheres and flat plates. The results show that the helium temperature obtained using the new correlation at noon is about 5.4 K lower than that using the correlation of spheres and about 2.1 K higher than that of flat plates.