Resolving the stratification discrepancy of turbulent natural convection in differentially heated air-filled cavities. Part III: A full convection–conduction–surface radiation coupling

The present study concerns an air-filled differentially heated cavity of 1 m × 0.32 m × 1 m (width × depth × height) subject to a temperature difference of 15 K and is motivated by the need to understand the persistent discrepancy observed between numerical and experimental results on thermal stratification in the cavity core. An improved experiment with enhanced metrology was set up and experimental data have been obtained along with the characteristics of the surfaces and materials used. Experimental temperature distributions on the passive walls have been introduced in numerical simulations in order to provide a faithful prediction of experimental data. By means of DNS using spectral methods, heat conduction in the insulating material is first coupled with natural convection in the cavity. As heat conduction influences only the temperature distribution on the top and bottom surfaces and in the near wall regions, surface radiation is added to the coupling of natural convection with heat conduction. The temperature distribution in the cavity is strongly affected by the polycarbonate front and rear walls of the cavity, which are almost black surfaces for low temperature radiation, and also other low emissivity walls. The thermal stratification is considerably weakened by surface radiation. Good agreement between numerical simulations and experiments is observed on both time-averaged fields and turbulent statistics. Treating the full conduction–convection–radiation coupling allowed to confirm that experimental wall temperatures resulted from the coupled phenomena and this is another way to predict correctly the experimental results in the cavity.     

Resolving the stratification discrepancy of turbulent natural convection in differentially heated air-filled cavities – Part I: Reference solutions using Chebyshev spectral methods

The problem of the long established thermal stratification discrepancy between numerical and experimental results is investigated in three companion articles. The Part I article establishes reference solutions by means of three-dimensional (3D) spectral direct numerical simulations of a buoyancy-driven flow (Ra_H = 1.5 × 10⁹). Two configurations of differentially heated air-filled cavity are considered: an idealized cavity (perfectly adiabatic cavity, PAC) and an Intermediate Realistic Cavity (IRC) making use of experimentally measured temperature distributions (Salat, 2004) on its top and bottom walls. The IRC flow structure as well as its associated rms fluctuations correspond to the experimentally observed flow dynamics. However both configurations keep resulting in a core thermal stratification value equal to 1.0 whereas experiments lead to a stratification of about 0.5. It is proved that this stratification paradox is neither related to three-dimensional effects nor to the experimental thermal distributions applied on the horizontal walls. Resolving this stratification discrepancy is the subject of the parts II and III articles (Sergent et al., 2013, Xin et al., 2012).     

Effect of variable thermal conductivity models on the combined convection heat transfer in a square enclosure filled with a water–alumina nanofluid

In this numerical study, the effects of variable thermal conductivity models on the combined convection heat transfer in a two-dimensional lid-driven square enclosure are investigated. The fluid in the square enclosure is a water-based nanofluid containing alumina nanoparticles. The top and bottom horizontal walls are insulated, while the vertical walls are kept at different constant temperatures. Five different thermal conductivity models are used to evaluate the effects of various parameters, such as the nanofluid bulk temperature, nanoparticle size, nanoparticle volume fraction, Brownian motion, interfacial layer thickness, etc. The governing stream–vorticity equations are solved by using a second-order central finite difference scheme coupled with the conservation of mass and energy. It is found that higher heat transfer is predicted when the effects of the nanoparticle size and bulk temperature of the nanofluid are taken into account.     

The influence of thermal radiation on hydromagnetic Darcy-Forchheimer mixed convection flow past a stretching sheet embedded in a porous medium

A boundary layer analysis is performed to study the influence of thermal radiation and buoyancy force on two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic flow of an incompressible viscous and electrically conducting fluid over a vertical stretching sheet embedded in a porous medium in the presence of inertia effect. The governing system of partial differential equations is first transformed into system of ordinary differential equations using self-similarity transformation. A special form for magnetic field is chosen to obtain the similarity solution. The transformed boundary layer equations are solved numerically for some important values of the physical parameters. The present results are compared with the previously published papers and the results are found to be in excellent agreement. The important features of the flow, heat and mass transfer characteristics for different values of thermal radiation, porous permeability, magnetic field and buoyancy parameters are analyzed and discussed. The effects of various physical parameters on the skin friction coefficient, local Nusselt number and local Sherwood number are also presented. It is found that increase in the value of thermal radiation parameter R ₁ increases the skin friction coefficient and Sherwood number whereas reverse trend is seen for the local Nusselt number.     

Heat and mass transfer in stagnation-point flow towards a stretching surface in the presence of buoyancy force and thermal radiation

In this paper an analysis has been made to study heat and mass transfer in two-dimensional stagnation-point flow of an incompressible viscous fluid over a stretching vertical sheet in the presence of buoyancy force and thermal radiation. The similarity solution is used to transform the problem under consideration into a boundary value problem of nonlinear coupled ordinary differential equations containing Prandtl number, Schmidt number and Sherwood number which are solved numerically with appropriate boundary conditions for various values of the dimensionless parameters. Comparison of the present numerical results are found to be in excellent with the earlier published results under limiting cases. The effects of various physical parameters on the boundary layer velocity, temperature and concentration profiles are discussed in detail for both the cases of assisting and opposing flows. The computed values of the skin friction coefficient, local Nusselt number and Sherwood number are discussed for various values of physical parameters. The tabulated results show that the effect of radiation is to increase skin friction coefficient, local Nusselt number and Sherwood number.     

MHD mixed convection–radiation interaction along a permeable surface immersed in a porous medium in the presence of Soret and Dufour’s Effects

This work is focused on the numerical modeling of steady, laminar, heat and mass transfer by MHD mixed convection from a semi-infinite, isothermal, vertical and permeable surface immersed in a uniform porous medium in the presence of thermal radiation and Dufour and Soret effects. A mixed convection parameter for the entire range of free-forced-mixed convection is employed and the governing equations are transformed into non-similar equations. These equations are solved numerically by an efficient, implicit, iterative, finite-difference scheme. The obtained results are checked against previously published work on special cases of the problem and are found to be in excellent agreement. A parametric study illustrating the influence of the thermal radiation coefficient, magnetic field, porous medium inertia parameter, concentration to thermal buoyancy ratio, and the Dufour and Soret numbers on the fluid velocity, temperature and concentration as well as the local Nusselt and the Sherwood numbers is conducted. The obtained results are shown graphically and the physical aspects of the problem are discussed.     

Interaction of two-dimensional thermal “plumes” from local sources of energy under conditions of conjugate natural convection in a horizontal cylinder

Conjugate thermogravitational convection in a horizontal cylinder with two sources of energy with a constant temperature under conditions of convective heat exchange with the ambient medium is numerically analyzed. The mathematical model is formulated in the dimensionless variables of the stream function-vorticity vector-temperature. The influence of the governing parameters (Rayleigh and Prandtl numbers, temperature of energy sources, time, and relative thermal conductivity) both on the local thermohydrodynamic characteristics (streamlines and temperature field) and on the integral parameter (mean Nusselt number on the surface of heat sources) is analyzed.     

Effect of thermal radiation on heat transfer in an unsteady copper–water nanofluid flow over an exponentially shrinking porous sheet

The effect of thermal radiation on an unsteady boundary layer flow and heat transfer in a copper–water nanofluid over an exponentially shrinking porous sheet is investigated. With the use of suitable transformations, the governing equations are transformed into ordinary differential equations. Dual non-similarity solutions are obtained for certain values of some parameters. Owing to the presence of thermal radiation, the heat transfer rate is greatly enhanced, and the thermal boundary layer thickness decreases.     

Simulation of conjugate radiation–forced convection heat transfer in a porous medium using the lattice Boltzmann method

In this paper, a lattice Boltzmann method is employed to simulate the conjugate radiation–forced convection heat transfer in a porous medium. The absorbing, emitting, and scattering phenomena are fully included in the model. The effects of different parameters of a silicon carbide porous medium including porosity, pore size, conduction–radiation ratio, extinction coefficient and kinematic viscosity ratio on the temperature and velocity distributions are investigated. The convergence times of modified and regular LBMs for this problem are 15 s and 94 s, respectively, indicating a considerable reduction in the solution time through using the modified LBM. Further, the thermal plume formed behind the porous cylinder elongates as the porosity and pore size increase. This result reveals that the thermal penetration of the porous cylinder increases with increasing the porosity and pore size. Finally, the mean temperature at the channel output increases by about 22% as the extinction coefficient of fluid increases in the range of 0–0.03.

     

Effects of walls temperature variation on double diffusive natural convection of Al2O3–water nanofluid in an enclosure

The effect of wall temperature variations on double diffusive natural convection of Al₂O₃–water nanofluid in a differentially heated square enclosure with constant temperature hot and cold vertical walls is studied numerically. Transport mechanisms of nanoparticles including Brownian diffusion and thermophoresis that cause heterogeneity are considered in non-homogeneous model. The hot and cold wall temperatures are varied, but the temperature difference between them is always maintained 5 °C. The thermophysical properties such as thermal conductivity, viscosity and density and thermophoresis diffusion and Brownian motion coefficients are considered variable with temperature and volume fraction of nanoparticles. The governing equations are discretized using the control volume method. The results show that nanoparticle transport mechanisms affect buoyancy force and cause formation of small vortexes near the top and bottom walls of the cavity and reduce the heat transfer. By increasing the temperature of the walls the effect of transport mechanisms decreases and due to enhanced convection the heat transfer rate increases.     

The effects of variable properties on MHD unsteady natural convection heat and mass transfer over a vertical wavy surface

A mathematical model will be analyzed in order to study the effects of variables viscosity and thermal conductivity on unsteady heat and mass transfer over a vertical wavy surface in the presence of magnetic field numerically by using a simple coordinate transformation to transform the complex wavy surface into a flat plate. The fluid viscosity is assumed to vary as a exponential function of temperature and thermal conductivity is assumed to vary linearly with temperature. An implicit marching Chebyshev collocation scheme is employed for the analysis. Numerical solutions are obtained for different values of variable viscosity, variable thermal conductivity and MHD variation parameter. Numerical results show that, variable viscosity, variable thermal conductivity and MHD variation parameter have significant influences on the velocity, temperature and concentration profiles as well as for the local skin friction, Nusselt number and Sherwood number.     

Influence of thermal radiation and Joule heating in the Eyring–Powell fluid flow with the Soret and Dufour effects

A two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic boundary layer flow of the Eyring–Powell fluid on a stretching surface in the presence of thermal radiation and Joule heating is analyzed. The Soret and Dufour effects are taken into account. Partial differential equations are reduced to a system of ordinary differential equations, and series solutions of the resulting system are derived. Velocity, temperature, and concentration profiles are obtained. The skin friction coefficient and the local Nusselt and Sherwood numbers are computed and analyzed.     

Effect of rotation on plane waves at the free surface of a fibre-reinforced thermoelastic half-space using the finite element method

The propagation of plane waves in fibre-reinforced, rotating thermoelastic half-space proposed by Lord-Shulman is discussed. The problem has been solved numerically using a finite element method. Numerical results for the temperature distribution, the displacement components and the thermal stress are given and illustrated graphically. Comparisons are made with the results predicted by the coupled theory and the theory of generalized thermoelasticity with one relaxation time in the presence and absence of rotation and reinforcement. It is found that the rotation has a significant effect and the reinforcement has great effect on the distribution of field quantities when the rotation is considered.     

Average and extremal properties of heat transfer and shear stress on a wall surface in Rayleigh–Bénard convection

In this study surface-averaged and extremal properties of heat transfer and shear stress on the upper wall surface of Rayleigh–Bénard convection are numerically examined. The Prandtl number was raised up to 10³, and the Rayleigh number was changed between 10⁴ and 10⁷. As a result, average Nusselt number Nu and shear rate τ/Pr depends on Pr, Ra, and the entire numerical results are distributed between two correlation equations corresponding to small and large Pr. The small and large Pr equations are closely related to steady and unsteady flow regimes, respectively. Nevertheless, a single relation τ/Pr ~ Nu ^3.0 exists to explain the entire results. Similarly the change of local maximal properties Nu _max and τ _max/Pr depends on Pr, Ra, and these values are also distributed between two correlation equations corresponding to small and large Pr cases. Despite such complicated dependence we can obtain a correlation equation as a form of τ _max/Pr ~ Nu _max^2.6, which has not been obtained theoretically.     

Effect of flow nonparallelism on instability of the Taylor-Görtler waves in supersonic axisymmetric jets

Within the framework of the linear theory of hydrodynamic stability, the characteristics of the Taylor-Görtler waves are numerically simulated at the initial section of a supersonic axisymmetric jet taking into account the effects of flow nonparallelism and expansion. The special features of the streamwise dynamics of the growth rates of various wave components for turbulent. weakly nonisobaric, and laminar jets are studied. It is shown that the growth rates depend strongly on the quantity on which their determination is based, the position of the point where it is measured, and the flow regime. Some experimental results are discussed, and a method for determining the growth rates is proposed.     

Effect of prestress on the stability of electrode–electrolyte interfaces during charging in lithium batteries

We formulate a model of the growth of electrode–electrolyte interfaces in lithium batteries in the presence of an elastic prestress. The model accounts for the kinetics of Li⁺ transport through a solid electrolyte and, within the interface, for the kinetics of Li⁺ adsorption by the anode, electrostatics, and the elastic field. We specifically account for the effect of the elastic field through an asymptotic analysis of a nearly flat interface between two semi-infinite elastic bodies. We use the model as a basis for assessing the effect of prestress on the stability of planar growth and the potential of prestress as a means of suppressing the formation of deleterious dendrites. We present a linear stability analysis that results in explicit analytical expressions for the dependence of growth rates, and of the critical unstable wavelength for the interfacial roughening, on the state of prestress and on fundamental parameters such as surface diffusivities, surface energy, deposition kinetics, and elastic moduli. Finally, we examine the model in the light of experimental observations concerned with the effect of applied pressure on a lithium/dioxolane-dimethoxy ethane electrolyte systems. With reasonable choices of parameters and some calibration, the model accounts for the observation that a modest applied pressure indeed results in a substantial reduction in the roughening of the lithium surface during cycling.     

Effect of high-frequency stimulation on nerve pulse propagation in the FitzHugh–Nagumo model

We consider the FitzHugh–Nagumo model axon under action of a homogeneous high-frequency stimulation (HFS) current. Using a multiple scale method and a geometrical singular perturbation theory, we derive analytically the main characteristics of the traveling pulse. We show that the effect of HFS on the axon is determined by a parameter proportional to the ratio of the amplitude to the frequency of the stimulation current. When this parameter is increased, the pulse slows down and shrinks. At some threshold value, the pulse stops and its width becomes zero. The HFS prevents the pulse propagation when the parameter exceeds the threshold value. The analytical results are confirmed by numerical experiments performed with the original system of partial differential equations.