Effect of wall proximity on forced convection in a plane channel with a built-in triangular cylinder

A numerical investigation has been carried out to analyze the effect of wall proximity of a triangular cylinder on the heat transfer and flow field in a horizontal channel. Computations have been carried out for Reynolds numbers (based on triangle width) range of 100–450 and gap widths (a/h) 0.5, 0.75 and 1. Results are presented in the form of instantaneous contours of temperature, vorticity, with some characteristics of fluid flow and heat transfer; such as time-averaged and instantaneous local Nusselt number, skin friction coefficient along bottom channel's wall, and drag coefficient. Results show that approaching triangular cylinder in the wall, removes vortex shedding and subsequently the heat transfer rate decreases at low Reynolds number. By decreasing the vortex shedding, drag coefficient decrease as triangular cylinder approaches the wall of the channel. The variation of vortex formation has a more significant suppression effect on the skin friction coefficient than the Nusselt number.