An OpenFOAM Solver for Forced Convection Heat Transfer Adopting Diagonally Implicit Runge–Kutta Schemes

Nowadays open-source CFD codes provide suitable environments for the implementation and testing low-dissipative algorithms typically used for turbulence simulation. Therefore in this research work, we have developed a CFD solver for incompressible fluid flow and forced convection heat transfer based on high-order diagonally implicit Runge–Kutta (RK) schemes for time integration. In particular, an iterated PISO-like procedure based on Rhie–Chow correction was used for handling pressure–velocity coupling within each RK stage. It is worth emphasizing that for space discretization, the numerical technology available within the well-known OpenFOAM library was used. The first aim of this work was to explore the reliability and effectiveness of OpenFOAM library for convective heat transfer problems using high-fidelity numerics. This is a point of interest since we cannot find similar papers in the available literature. The accuracy of the considered algorithm was evaluated studying several flow benchmarks. Hence, we also provide a further contribution to the literature involving forced convection heat transfer around bluff bodies at low Reynolds numbers. Lastly, this paper is only a first step toward turbulent heat transfer simulation in complex configurations by means of DNS/LES techniques.