European Congress on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences and Engineering (ECCOMAS 2012) J. Eberhardsteiner et.al. (eds.) Vienna, Austria, September 10-14, 2012 STEADY VISCOUS FLOW PAST AN ARRAY OF ISOTHERMAL WIRES: EFFECT OF THE BLOCKAGE RATIO ON THE FLOW AND HEAT TRANSFER CHARACTERISTICS J. Lizardi 1 and L. Mart´ ınez-Su´ astegui 2 1 Universidad Aut´ onoma de la Ciudad de M´ exico Colegio de Ciencia y Tecnolog´ ıa, M´ exico, D.F., 09940, Mexico e-mail: jlizardi@gmail.com 2 Instituto Polit´ ecnico Nacional ESIME Azcapotzalco, Avenida de las Granjas No. 682, Colonia Santa Catarina, Delegaci´ on Azcapotzalco, M´ exico, D.F., 02250, Mexico e-mail: martinezlorenzo@gmail.com Keywords: flow structure, convective heat transfer, wall effects Abstract. Two-dimensional steady state computations were carried out for laminar air flow past an infinite side-by-side array of isothermal wires in cross-flow. Using the vorticity-stream function formulation of the Navier-Stokes equations, the governing equations are solved using an appropriate boundary-fitted coordinate system using finite differences. The parameters in- volved are the non-dimensional blockage ratio defined as the ratio between the wire radius to the wire spacing, ε=a/l, and the Peclet number. This investigation covers a range of Peclet numbers between 0.072 to 28.8 for blockage ratios of 0.01 ≤ ε ≤ 0.35. Results are particularly presented to illustrate the influence of these parameters on the overall flow structure and the non-dimensional heat flux (Nusselt number) from the wire surface. Various comparisons are made with previous theoretical and experimental results to validate the solution methodology, and a new correlation for determining the average Nusselt number as a function of the Peclet number and the blockage ratio that is valid even for very small values of the Peclet number compared to unity has been proposed.