Heat convection from the uniformly heated walls of a straight channel in presence of a rotationally oscillating cylinder (ROC) is simulated at Re = 100. Heat transfer enhancement due to vortex shedding from the ROC is investigated. Systematic studies are performed to explore the rotation angle and frequency influences on heat transfer by varying the latter in range of the lock-in regime and the former from 0 to 2π/3. All simulation results are based on the numerical solutions of two-dimensional, unsteady, incompressible Navier–Stokes and energy equations using an h/p type finite element algorithm. Considering time periodicity of the resulting flow and temperature fields, time averaged wall Nusselt number is reported to quantify the heat transfer enhancement for Pr = 0.1, 1.0, 5.0 and 10.0 fluids. Performance analyses of the ROC device based on its total power consumption and heat transfer enhancement are also presented.