Convection in a rotating medium above a thermally inhomogeneous horizontal surface

The linear stationary problem of convection in a medium rotating about a vertical axis above a thermally inhomogeneous horizontal surface is theoretically investigated. Attention is mainly focused on the case of a homogeneous medium, but certain stratification effects and especially the convection characteristics in binary mixtures (for example, in saline sea water) are also considered. When the rotation is rapid (large Taylor numbers) the convective cells are strongly elongated in the vertical direction, though they also contain a thin Ekman boundary layer. The importance of the boundary conditions on the horizontal surface (in parallel with the no-slip conditions, more general conditions that may follow from the quadratic turbulent friction model are considered) is shown. In the case of binary mixtures, the differential diffusion and rotation effects may together result in the appearance of “induced salt fingers”, the deep penetration of convection into an arbitrarily stably stratified medium. The convective motions may then have a considerable effect on the background vertical temperature and admixture distributions. Attention is drawn to an original manifestation of the analogy between the rotation and stratification effects: in a non-rotating, stably stratified medium, near a thermally inhomogeneous vertical surface, the convection also penetrates deep into the medium, but in the horizontal direction, so that, when the coordinate system is rotated through 90°, the solution coincides with the case of a rotating non-stratified fluid considered here.     

Shear flow disturbances due to interaction with convective rolls

The two-dimensional stationary problem of convection in a two-component stratified medium (for example, humid air) over a nonuniformly heated horizontal surface is solved in the linear approximation. In the case in which the surface temperature is harmonically dependent on the horizontal coordinate, convective rolls are formed above the surface. Depending on the background temperature stratification, situations characterized by temperature response sign reversal can occur (for example, a decrease in the temperature of the medium as a response to heating from beneath, or “negative” heat capacity of the medium). The disturbances arising in the background horizontal flow with vertical shear directed along the convective rolls are also calculated.     

Unsteady Convection in a Binary Mixture in the Neighborhood of a Plane Vertical Surface

The problem of the development of convection in a binary mixture in the neighborhood of an infinite vertical plate, on which a constant (after initial switch-on) heat flux and zero admixture flow are given, is solved. In particular, the cases of neutral and stable density stratification of the medium are considered. It is found that heat transfer to the medium can lead not to an increase but to a decrease in its temperature. This can be interpreted as the effective negative heat capacity of the stratified binary mixture.     

Characteristics of thermocapillary convection in two-component fluids

The linear problem of convective instability near the surface of a stratified two-component liquid medium (for example, saline sea water) is considered. The specificity of the problem consists in need to take into account both background stratifications and a difference in the transfer coefficients and boundary conditions for two substances (heat and admixture concentration), as well as the thermocapillary effect. It is shown that there is a vast region of monotonic instability in the medium stable in accordance with all criteria previously known. The two-component nature of the medium makes the development of anomalously intense perturbations deeply penetrating into the hydrostatically stable medium possible. A dimensionless instability criterion is formulated and neutral curves are calculated.     

Natural convection flow from a continuously moving vertical surface immersed in a thermally stratified medium

 Natural convection boundary layer flow over a continuously moving isothermal vertical surface immersed in a thermally stratified medium has been investigated here. The non-linear coupled partial differential equations governing the non-similar flow have been solved numerically using an implicit finite difference scheme. For small values of the streamwise distance the partial differential equations are solved by using a perturbation expansion procedure and also using the Shanks transformation. The results indicate that the thermal stratification significantly affects both the surface shear stress and the surface heat transfer. The buoyancy parameter and the Prandtl number increase significantly, both the surface shear stress and heat transfer. Also the buoyancy force gives rise to an overshoot in the velocity profile. Received on 1 February 2000     

Natural convection from a vertical cylinder in a thermally stratified porous medium

The problem of non-Darcy natural convection adjacent to a vertical cylinder embedded in a thermally stratified porous medium has been analyzed. Nonsimilarity solutions are obtained for the case that the ambient temperature increases linearly with height of the cylinder. A generalized flow model was used in the present study to include the effects of the macroscopic viscous term and the microscopic inertial force. Also, the thermal dispersion effect is considered in the energy equation. Thus, the main aim of this work is to examine the effects of thermal stratification and non-Darcy flow phenomena on the free convection flow and heat transfer characteristics. It was found that the present problem depends on six parameters, namely, the local thermal stratification parameter ξ, the boundary effect parameter Bp, the modified Grashof number Gr^*, wall temperature exponent m, the curvature parameter ω, and the modified Rayleigh number based on pore diameter Ra _d . The impacts of these governing parameters on the local heat transfer parameter are discussed in great detail. Also, representative velocity and temperature profiles are presented at selected values of the thermal stratification parameter. In general, the local heat transfer parameter is increased with increasing the values of m, ω, and Ra _d ; while it is decreased with increasing the values of ξ, Bp, and Gr^*. Received on 19 May 1998     

Parametric Excitation of a Secondary Flow in a Vertical Layer of a Fluid in the Presence of Small Solid Particles

Thermal convection is studied in an inhomogeneous medium consisting of a fluid and a solid admixture under conditions of finite–frequency vibrations. Convection equations are derived within the framework of the generalized Boussinesq approximation, and the problem of flow stability in a vertical layer of a viscous fluid with horizontal oscillations along the layer to infinitely small perturbations is considered. A comparison with experimental data is made.     

Thermophoresis particle deposition effects in a free convective doubly stratified medium over a vertical plate

An analysis is performed to study the thermophoresis effects in a transient free convective flow of a viscous, incompressible fluid past an isothermal vertical plate in a doubly stratified medium. The governing boundary layer equations are solved numerically using an implicit finite difference scheme of Crank-Nicolson type. The influence of thermophoresis on particle deposition velocity and particle concentration in a doubly stratified medium are analyzed and illustrated graphically. As well the influence of thermal and mass stratification on velocity, temperature and concentration are also investigated and presented. The influence of the parameters on local as well as average skin-friction, the rate of heat and mass transfer are presented graphically and discussed. The results are compared with particular solutions available in the literature and are found to be in good agreement.     

Nonsimilar Boundary Layer Analysis of Free Convection Heat Transfer Over a Vertical Cylinder in Bidisperse Porous Media

This work presents a boundary layer analysis for the free convection heat transfer from a vertical cylinder in bidisperse porous media with constant wall temperature. A boundary layer analysis and the two-velocity two-temperature formulation are used to derive the nonsimilar governing equations. The transformed governing equations are solved by the cubic spline collocation method to yield computationally efficient numerical solutions. The effects of inter-phase heat transfer parameter, modified thermal conductivity ratio, and permeability ratio on the heat transfer and flow characteristics are studied. Results show that an increase in the modified thermal conductivity ratio and the permeability ratio can effectively enhance the free convection heat transfer of the vertical cylinder in a bidisperse porous medium. Moreover, the thermal nonequilibrium effects are strong for low values of the inter-phase heat transfer parameter.     

Thermal stratification studies in a side heated water pool for advanced heavy water reactor applications

Strong heat source at the isolation condenser wall of an Advanced Heavy Water Reactor, results in natural convection in gravity driven water pool, which leads to a thermally stratified pool. Governing equations simulating fluid flow and heat distribution are solved numerically by a general purpose Computational Fluid Dynamics solver developed at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. Incompressible finite volume method with non-staggered grid arrangement is used in this exercise. This algorithm is fully implicit and semi-coupled. Turbulent natural convection in a boundary layer for high Rayleigh numbers is analyzed by the Lam–Bremhorst k − ε turbulence model. Analysis of unsteady laminar natural convection in a side-heated water cavity is also done for different values of Rayleigh number. Results show a warm fluid layer floating on the top of gradually colder layer (along the vertical direction) that indicates the presence of thermal stratification phenomenon. This fact necessitates additional safety features in such a system so that the detrimental effect such as stratification is minimized.     

Unsteady Free Convection along an Infinite Vertical Flat Plate Embedded in a Stably Stratified Fluid-Saturated Porous Medium

The problem of unsteady free convection heat transfer from a one-dimensional (parallel) flow along an infinite vertical flat plate embedded in a thermally stratified fluid-saturated porous medium is considered. Flows are induced by a sudden change in the arbitrary temporal plate temperature. By a formal reduction of the corresponding boundary value problems to well-known Fourier heat conduction problems, analytical solutions of the Darcy and energy equations are obtained. Several special cases are discussed in detail.     

Non-Darcy free convection in a thermally stratified porous medium along a vertical plate with variable heat flux

Free convection along an impermeable vertical plate embedded in a thermally stratified, fluid-saturated porous medium is analyzed. The wall heat flux is varied in a power-law form. The non-Darcian effects, such as solid-boundary viscous resistances, high-flow-rate inertia forces, near wall nonuniform porosity distribution and thermal dispersion, have been considered in the present study. Due to the variation of porosity in the near wall region, the stagnant thermal conductivity also varies accordingly. The nonsimilar system of transformed equations is solved with Keller's Box method. It is shown that the thermal stratification effect and the higher value of the exponent m can increase the local Nusselt number. Also the non-Darcian and thermal dispersion effects significantly influence the velocity and temperature profiles and local Nusselt number.     

Free convection on a vertical plate with uniform and constant heat flux in a thermally stratified micropolar fluid

This paper analyzes flow and heat transfer characteristics of the free convection on a vertical plate with uniform and constant heat flux in a thermally stratified micropolar fluid. The dimensionless forms of boundary layer equations and their associated boundary conditions have been derived and the numerical results have been obtained using the method of cubic spline collocation with a finite difference scheme. The effects of the micropolar and stratification parameters on the dimensionless wall temperature, skin friction parameter and wall couple stress are discussed.     

Buoyant plume above a line source of heat in an anisotropic porous medium

Buoyancy-induced convection arising from a horizontal line heat source embedded in an anisotropic porous medium is investigated analytically. The porous medium is anisotropic is permeability with its principal axes oriented in a direction that is oblique to the gravity vector. Assuming the boundary layer approximation, closed-form exact similarity solutions for both flow and temperature fields are presented and compared with those of isotropic case. Scale analysis is applied to predict the order of magnitudes involved in the boundary layer regime for which the conditions of validity are obtained. Effects of both anisotropic parameters (K* and %) and Rayleigh number Ra_L are observed to be strongly significant. It is demonstrated that a minimum (maximum) intensity of the thermal convective plume above the line source of heat can be obtained if the porous matrix is oriented with its principal axis with higher permeability parallel (perpendicular) to the vertical direction.     

Effects of a barrier on temperature structure and mixing in thermally stratified water cooled from above

A Mach-Zehnder interferometer was used to study the unsteady temperature structure in radiation stratified water cooled from above. Temperature distribution measurements in a test cell filled with distilled water provide conclusive evidence that the thermal structure between the air-water interface and the stable region is controlled by buoyancy induced natural convection. The cooling from above produces a complex vertical temperature profile which can be divided into several distinct regimes. Introduction of a thin, rigid transparent (glass) plate into the water before thermal stratification by radiation and cooling confines the natural convection driven flow and reduces the intensity of mixing. As a result, the energy transport from the interior of the water layer to the interface is decreased. However, under the experimental conditions tested use of rigid, horizontal plates introduced in the fluid were not very effective in reducing the transport of heat from the warm interior to the cooler interface.     

Effects of thermal dispersion and stratification on combined convection on a vertical surface embedded in a porous medium

The effects of thermal dispersion and thermal stratification on mixed convection about a vertical surface in a porous medium are studied. The conservation equations that govern the problem are reduced to a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations. The resulting equations are solved on the basis of the local similarity approximation. The results indicate that both dispersion and stratification effects have considerable influence on the heat transfer rate.     

Similarity solutions for buoyancy-induced flows over a non-isothermal curved surface in a thermally stratified porous medium

A generalized similarity transformation procedure was proposed for the analysis of buoyancy-induced flows over a curved heated surface embedded in a thermally stratified porous medium. The analysis considers two-dimensional and axisymmetric non-isothermal smooth bodies of arbitrary geometrical configuration. A generalized similarity variable which adjusts its vertical scaling according to the geometry as well as the surface temperature variation was introduced to show that, for any two-dimensional or axisymmetric smooth body shape, there exists a certain class of the surface and ambient temperature distributions which admit similarity solutions. Subsequently, the set of the governing partial differential equations were transformed into a single ordinary differential equation, which was, then, solved by a standard shooting procedure based on the Runge-Kutta method, for numerous sets of parameters. The results presented here may readily be translated for the problem of free convection over any particular two-dimensional or axisymmetric smooth body within a porous medium. The effects of the surface temperature and thermal stratification on the temperature profile and isotherms were also discussed in connection with the local surface heat flux.     

A numerical study of heat island flows: Stationary solutions

We present two‐dimensional numerical simulations of a natural convection problem in an unbounded domain. The flow circulation is induced by a heat island located on the ground and thermal stratification is applied in the vertical direction. The main effect of this stably stratified environment is to induce the propagation of thermal perturbations in the horizontal direction far from the local thermal source. Numerical stationary solutions at Ra?10⁵ are computed in large elongated computational domains: convergence with respect to the domain sizes is investigated at different resolutions. On fine grids, with mesh size , a thermal sponge layer is added at the vertical boundaries: this local damping technique improves the convergence with respect to the domain length. Boussinesq equations are discretized with a second‐order finite volume scheme on a staggered grid combined with a second‐order projection method for the time integration. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Unsteady natural convection in a liquid-saturated porous enclosure with local thermal non-equilibrium effect

Stability analysis of free convection in a liquid-saturated sparsely-packed porous medium with local-thermal-non-equilibrium (LTNE) effect is presented. For the vertical boundaries free–free, adiabatic and rigid–rigid, adiabatic are considered while for horizontal boundaries it is the stress-free, isothermal and rigid–rigid, isothermal boundary combinations we consider. From the linear theory, it is apparent that there is advanced onset of convection in a shallow enclosure followed by that in square and tall enclosures. Asymptotic analysis of the thermal Rayleigh number for small and large values of the inter-phase heat transfer coefficient is reported. Results of Darcy–Bénard convection (DBC) and Rayleigh–Bénard convection can be obtained as limiting cases of the study. LTNE effect is prominent in the case of Brinkman–Bénard convection compared to that in DBC. Using a multi-scale method and by performing a non-linear stability analysis the Ginzburg–Landau equation is derived from the five-mode Lorenz modal. Heat transport is estimated at the lower plate of the channel. The effect of the Brinkman number, the porous parameter and the inter-phase heat transfer coefficient is to favour delayed onset of convection and thereby enhanced heat transport while the porosity-modified ratio of thermal conductivities shows the opposite effect.