Natural convection in a square cavity: A comparison exercise

A number of contributed solutions to the problem of laminar natural convection in a square cavity have been compared with what is regarded as a solution of high accuracy. The purposes of this exercise have been to confirm the accuracy of the bench mark solution and to provide a basis for the assessment of the various methods and computer codes used to obtain the contributed solutions.     

Numerical simulation of MHD natural convection flow in a wavy cavity filled by a hybrid Cu-Al_2O_3-water nanofluid with discrete heating

We consider the combined effect of the magnetic field and heat transfer inside a square cavity containing a hybrid nanofluid(Cu-Al_2O_3-water). The upper and bottom walls of the cavity have a wavy shape. The temperature of the vertical walls is lower,the third part in the middle of the bottom wall is kept at a constant higher temperature,and the remaining parts of the bottom wall and the upper wall are thermally insulated.The magnetic field is applied under the angle γ, an opposite clockwise direction. For the numerical simulation, the finite element technique is employed. The ranges of the characteristics are as follows: the Rayleigh number(10~3≤Ra≤10~5), the Hartmann number(0≤Ha≤100), the nanoparticle hybrid concentration(?_(Al_2O_3),?_(Cu) = 0, 0.025, 0.05),the magnetic field orientation(0≤γ≤2π), and the Prandtl number P_r, the amplitude of wavy cavity A, and the number of waviness n are fixed at P_r = 7, A = 0.1, and n = 3, respectively. The comparison with a reported finding in the open literature is done,and the data are observed to be in very good agreement. The effects of the governing parameters on the energy transport and fluid flow parameters are studied. The results prove that the increment of the magnetic influence determines the decrease of the energy transference because the conduction motion dominates the fluid movement. When the Rayleigh number is raised, the Nusselt number is increased, too. For moderate Rayleigh numbers, the maximum ratio of the heat transfer takes place for the hybrid nanofluid and then the Cu-nanofluid, followed by the Al_2O_3-nanofluid. The nature of motion and energy transport parameters has been scrutinized.     

Natural convection in a square cavity with a heat generating body: Entropy consideration

Conjugate heat transfer in a cavity is an important consideration with regard to cooling of micro-electronic equipment. In the present study, a heat transfer analysis of conditions taking place in a square cavity with a heat source, located in it, is carried out. The natural convection accompanying conduction heat transfer in the heat generating solid body is examined. Air or water are considered as the fluid in the cavity while steel substrate is considered as the heat generating solid body. The location of the solid is changed in the cavity to examine the cooling conditions. The entropy analysis of the system is carried out to determine the irreversibility ratio for each location of the solid body in the cavity. It is found that the heat transfer from the solid body surfaces increases where the surfaces facing the inlet and the exit of the cavity. The entropy generated attains the maximum value for air when the solid body is located at the center of the cavity; in which case, the irreversibility ratio reduces to a minimum value. Received on 26 May 1999     

Natural convection of air in a square cavity: A bench mark numerical solution

Details are given of the computational method used to obtain an accurate solution of the equations describing two-dimensional natural convection in a square cavity with differentially heated side walls. Second-order, central difference approximations were used. Mesh refnement and extrapolation led to solutions for 10³?Ra?10 ⁶ which are believed to be accurate to better than 1 per cent at the highest Rayleigh number and down to one-tenth of that at the lowest value.     

Natural convection flow in a square cavity revisited: Laminar and turbulent models with wall functions

Numerical simulations have been undertaken for the benchmark problem of natural convection flow in a square cavity. The control volume method is used to solve the conservation equations for laminar and turbulent flows for a series of Rayleigh numbers (Ra) reaching values up to 10¹⁰. The k-? model has been used for turbulence modelling with and without logarithmic wall functions. Uniform and non-uniform (stretched) grids have been employed with increasing density to guarantee accurate solutions, especially near the walls for high Ra-values. ADI and SIP solvers are implemented to accelerate convergence. Excellent agreement is obtained with previous numerical solutions, while some discrepancies with others for high Ra-values may be due to a possibly different implementation of the wall functions. Comparisons with experimental data for heat transfer (Nusselt number) clearly demonstrates the limitations of the standard k-? model with logarithmic wall functions, which gives significant overpredictions.     

Buoyant Marangoni convection of nanofluids in square cavity

The buoyant Marangoni convection heat transfer in a differentially heated cavity is numerically studied. The cavity is filled with water-Ag, water-Cu, water-Al₂O₃, and water-TiO₂ nanofluids. The governing equations are based on the equations involving the stream function, vorticity, and temperature. The dimensionless forms of the governing equations are solved by the finite difference (FD) scheme consisting of the alternating direction implicit (ADI) method and the tri-diagonal matrix algorithm (TDMA). It is found that the increase in the nanoparticle concentration leads to the decrease in the flow rates in the secondary cells when the convective thermocapillary and the buoyancy force have similar strength. A critical Marangoni number exists, below which increasing the Marangoni number decreases the average Nusselt number, and above which increasing the Marangoni number increases the average Nusselt number. The nanoparticles play a crucial role in the critical Marangoni number.     

Mixed convection flow in a lid-driven inclined square enclosure filled with a nanofluid

This work is focused on the numerical modeling of steady laminar mixed convection flow in a lid-driven inclined square enclosure filled with water–Al₂O₃ nanofluid. The left and right walls of the enclosure are kept insulated while the bottom and top walls are maintained at constant temperatures with the top surface being the hot wall and moving at a constant speed. The developed equations are given in terms of the stream function–vorticity formulation and are non-dimensionalized and then solved numerically subject to appropriate boundary conditions by a second-order accurate finite-volume method. Comparisons with previously published work are performed and found to be in good agreement. A parametric study is conducted and a set of graphical results is presented and discussed to illustrate the effects of the presence of nanoparticles and enclosure inclination angle on the flow and heat transfer characteristics. It is found that significant heat transfer enhancement can be obtained due to the presence of nanoparticles and that this is accentuated by inclination of the enclosure at moderate and large Richardson numbers.     

Conjugate natural convection in a square porous cavity

 Steady-state conjugate natural convection in a square cavity filled with a porous medium is studied numerically in this paper. The enclosure consists of two horizontal conductive walls of finite thickness and two vertical walls at different uniform temperatures. The focus is on the role of solid-fluid conductivity ratio, k, on the flow and heat transfer characteristics and the average Nusselt number, , over the vertical hot and cold walls of the cavity for a limited set of particular parameters. It was shown that the interface temperature, θ_w, along the top of the solid wall decreases with the increase in the wall conductivity k. Also, the values of decreases with the increase of the values of the parameter k. Comparison with known results from the open literature when the wall thickness of the horizontal solid walls is neglected (non-conjugate problem) is excellent. Received on 4 April 2000     

Non-homogeneous model for a side heated square cavity filled with a nanofluid

A side heated two dimensional square cavity filled with a nanofluid is here studied. The side heating condition is obtained by imposing two different uniform temperatures at the vertical boundary walls. The horizontal walls are assumed to be adiabatic and all boundaries are assumed to be impermeable to the base fluid and to the nanoparticles. In order to study the behavior of the nanofluid, a non-homogeneous model is taken into account. The thermophysical properties of the nanofluid are assumed to be functions of the average volume fraction of nanoparticles dispersed inside the cavity. The definitions of the nondimensional governing parameters (Rayleigh number, Prandtl number and Lewis number) are exactly the same as for the clear fluids. The distribution of the nanoparticles shows a particular sensitivity to the low Rayleigh numbers. The average Nusselt number at the vertical walls is sensitive to the average volume fraction of the nanoparticles dispersed inside the cavity and it is also sensitive to the definition of the thermophysical properties of the nanofluid. Highly viscous base fluids lead to a critical behavior of the model when the simulation is performed in pure conduction regime. The solution of the problem is obtained numerically by means of a Galerkin finite element method.     

Natural convection in a cavity with time-dependent flux boundary

Numerical simulations have been carried out to investigate the unsteady natural convection flow in a cavity subjected to a sidewall heat flux varying sinusoidally with time. With all walls non-slip and the upper and lower boundaries and the other sidewall adiabatic, the heating and cooling produces an alternating direction natural convection boundary layer that discharges hot fluid to the top and cold fluid to the bottom of the cavity, generating a time-varying thermal stratification in the cavity interior. Scaling analysis has been conducted for different flow regimes based on the forcing frequency, with the characteristic time scales being the forcing period and the boundary layer development time. The scaling relations are then verified using the simulations, with the results showing overall good agreement with the derived scaling relations.     

侧加热腔内的自然对流

开展侧加热腔内自然对流的研究具有重大的环境及工业应用背景. 总结侧加热腔内水平温差驱动的自然对流的最新研究进展, 并概述相应的流动性质、动力机制和传热特性以及对不同无量纲控制参数的依赖也有重要的科学价值. 已取得的研究结果显示突然侧加热的腔内自然对流的发展可包括初始阶段、过渡阶段和定常或准定常阶段. 不同发展阶段的流动依赖于瑞利数、普朗特数及腔体的高宽比, 且定常或准定常阶段的流态可以是定常层流流动、非定常周期性流动或者湍流流动. 此外, 回顾了对流流动失稳机制的研究成果以及湍流自然对流方面的新进展. 最后, 展望了侧加热腔内的自然对流研究的前景.      

Vibrational thermal convection in a rectangular cavity

Vibrational thermal convection in a rectangular cavity under conditions of weightlessness is studied. Some equilibrium configurations were obtained in earlier papers of two of the authors [1, 2] and their linear stability investigated. In the present paper, a numerical investigation is made of the developed vibrational convection which arises under conditions when equilibrium is impossible. The structure of the average vibrational-convective flows and the characteristics of the heat transfer are determined. The change of regimes and the connection with the stability problem are discussed.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 4, pp. 94–99, July–August, 1982.     

Nonsteady-state thermal convection in a spherical cavity

Three-dimensional axisymmetrical convection in a spherical cavity is examined. The general heat-transfer condition is stipulated on the boundary of the spherical cavity. A method of finite differences is used for the solution.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 4, pp. 118–124, July–August, 1970.The authors thanks G. Z. Gershuni and E. M. Mukhovitskii for their help in this work.     

Natural convection in an infinite square under low-gravity conditions

In order to study natural convection effects on fluid flows under low-gravity in space, we have expanded variables into a power series of Grashof number by using perturbation theory to reduce the Navier-Stokes equations to the Poisson equation for temperature T and biharmonic equation for stream function φ. Suppose that a square infinite closed cylinder horizontally imposes a specified temperature of linear distribution on the boundaries, we investigate the two dimensional steady flows in detail. The results for stream function φ, velocity u and temperature T are gained. The analysis of the influences of some parameters such as Grashof number G_r and Prandtl number P_r on the fluid motion lead to several interesting conclusions. At last, we make a comparison between two results, one from approximate equations, the other from the original version. It shows that the approximate theory correctly simplifies the physical problem, so that we can expect the theory will be applied to unsteady or three-dimensi     

Heat transfer experiment on natural convection in a square cavity with discrete sources

The present research investigates the effects of the dimensions and the positions of heating sources in the lateral walls of a square cavity. The temperature distributions in the air and the heat transfer coefficients are measured experimentally by holographic interferometry and compared with the numerical results obtained with Fluent 12.1.4. Experimentally and numerically, it is observed how the sizes and the positions of the heat sources influence the velocity field.     

Natural convection in a square enclosure with an internal isolated vertical plate

Numerical computations were performed for the average Nusselt number at an internal vertical plate situated in a square enclosure, with the inner plate and the bounding wall of the enclosure maintained at uniform but different temperatures. Natural convection occurred in the air which occupied the enclosure space. The position of the inner vertical plate within the enclosure was varied parametrically. The plate height-cavity height ratio was 0.513. For narrow distance between the inner plate and the bounding wall the inner plate Nusselt number was enhanced. Aside from this, the plate average Nusselt number was remarkably insensitive to the plate position. The effect of the Rayleigh number on the velocity and temperature fields and local Nusselt numbers are also discussed. The agreement between the predicted flow pattern forRa=1.1×10⁶ and the flow visualization result was reasonably good.

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Natürliche Konvektion in einem quadratischen Horizontalschacht, der eine freistehende, senkrechte Platte enthält

Zusammenfassung Eine numerische Untersuchung liefert mittlere Nußelt-Zahlen an einer, in einem quadratischen Horizontalschacht freistehenden, senkrechten Platte, wobei deren Temperatur und die der umgebenden Wände jeweils konstant gehalten werden. Im Luftraum dazwischen stellte sich freie Konvektion ein. Die Position der Platte war veränderlich, ihre Höhe blieb mit 51.3% der Schachthöhe konstant. Rückte die Platte nahe an eine Schachtwand, so erhöhte sich die Nußelt-Zahl auf der dieser zugewandten Seite, während die Gesamt-Nußelt-Zahl bezüglich der Platte fast konstant bleibt. Es wird auch der Einfluß der Rayleigh-Zahl auf das Geschwindigkeitsund Temperaturfeld diskutiert. BeiRa=1.1·10⁶ stimmten die Ergebnisse aus der Berechnung gut mit den experimentellen Befunden einer Strömungsvisualisation überein.

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Nomenclature a distance between vertical plate and side-wall of enclosure thermal diffusivity (in definition ofu _r) - b distance between vertical plate and bottom of enclosure - g gravitational acceleration - G characteristic flow rate - H height of vertical plate - k thermal conductivity - k _f fluid thermal conductivity - K relative thermal conductivity,k/k _f - L width of square enclosure - M _res mass residual - Nu local Nusselt number - Nu _m average Nusselt number - Nu _L local Nusselt number of left side of vertical plate - Nu _R local Nusselt number of right side of vertical plate - Nu _B local Nusselt number of bottom side of vertical plate - Nu _T local Nusselt number of top side of vertical plate - p effective pressure - P dimensionless pressure,P=p/[(Ra Pr)(a/H)²] - Pr Prandtl number - Ra Rayleigh number,Ra=gTH ³ Pr/ ² - T temperature - T _i temperature of internal plate - T _o temperature of enclosure surface - u, v velocity components inx-, y-direction - U, V dimensionless velocities,U=u/u _r, V=v/u_r - u _r reference velocity,u _r=(Ra Pr)^1/2/(a/H) - X, {iyY} dimensionless coordinates,X=x/H, Y=y/H Greek symbols heat transfer coefficient - volume expansion coefficient - thickness of plate - kinematic viscosity - density - dimensionless temperature, (T _i–T)/(T _i–T_o)