Abstract
The momentum and heat transfer phenomena of spheroid particles in an unbounded Newtonian fluid have been numerically investigated by solving governing conservation equations of the mass, the momentum and the energy. The numerical solution methodology has been benchmarked by performing comparisons between present results with those reported in the literature. Further, extensive new results have been obtained to elucidate effects of pertinent dimensionless parameters such as the Reynolds number (Re), the Prandtl number (Pr) and the aspect ratio (e) on the flow and heat transfer behaviour of spheroid particles in the range of parameters: 1 ⩽ Re ⩽ 200; 1 ⩽ Pr ⩽ 1000 and 0.25 ⩽ e ⩽ 2.5. Regardless of the value of the Reynolds number, the total and individual drag coefficients of oblate spheroids (e < 1) are smaller than those of spheres (e = 1) and opposite trend has been observed for prolate spheroids (e > 1). Irrespective of values of Reynolds and Peclet numbers, the average Nusselt number is large for prolate particles as compared to spheres and opposite trend has been observed for the case of oblate particles. Major contribution of this work is the development of simple correlations for the total drag coefficient and the average Nusselt number of unconfined isolated spheroid particles based on present numerical results which can be used in new applications.