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     

Hydromagnetic simultaneous heat and mass transfer by mixed convection from a vertical plate embedded in a stratified porous medium with thermal dispersion effects

The problem of steady, laminar, hydromagnetic simultaneous heat and mass transfer by mixed convection flow over a vertical plate embedded in a uniform porous medium with a stratified free stream and taking into account the presence of thermal dispersion is investigated for the case of power-law variations of both the wall temperature and concentration. Certain transformations are employed to transform the governing differential equations to a local similarity form. The transformed 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 magnetic field, porous medium inertia effects, heat generation or absorption, lateral wall mass flux, concentration to thermal buoyancy ratio, and the Lewis number on the fluid velocity, temperature and concentration as well as the Nusselt and the Sherwood numbers is conducted. The results of this parametric study is shown graphically and the physical aspects of the problem are discussed. Received on 17 November 1998     

Perturbation of semi-Browder linear relations by commuting Riesz operators

This paper is devoted to the investigation of the stability of upper semi-Browder, lower semi-Browder and Browder linear relations which satisfy the stabilization property, under commuting Riesz operator perturbations. As applications, we infer the invariance of the corresponding Browder’s essential approximate point spectrum, Browder’s essential defect spectrum and Browder’s essential spectrum under commuting Riesz operator perturbations.     

Entropy generation and MHD natural convection of a nanofluid in an inclined square porous cavity: Effects of a heat sink and source size and location

The effects of a heat sink and the source size and location on the entropy generation, MHD natural convection flow and heat transfer in an inclined porous enclosure filled with a Cu-water nanofluid are investigated numerically. A uniform heat source is located in a part of the bottom wall, and a part of the upper wall of the enclosure is maintained at a cooled temperature, while the remaining parts of these two walls are thermally insulated. Both the left and right walls of the enclosure are considered to be adiabatic. The thermal conductivity and the dynamic viscosity of the nanofluid are represented by different verified experimental correlations that are suitable for each type of nanoparticle. The finite difference methodology is used to solve the dimensionless partial differential equations governing the problem. A comparison with previously published works is performed, and the results show a very good agreement. The results indicate that the Nusselt number decreases via increasing the nanofluid volume fraction as well as the Hartmann number. The best location and size of the heat sink and the heat source considering the thermal performance criteria and magnetic effects are found to be D?=?0.7 and B?=?0.2. The entropy generation, thermal performance criteria and the natural heat transfer of the nanofluid for different sizes and locations of the heat sink and source and for various volume fractions of nanoparticles are also investigated and discussed.     

Numerical simulation of nanofluids for improved cooling efficiency in a 3D copper microchannel heat sink (MCHS)

In this paper, laminar nanofluid flow in 3D copper microchannel heat sink (MCHS) with rectangular cross section, and a constant heat flux, has been treated numerically using the computational fluid dynamics software (FLUENT). Results for the temperature and velocity distributions in the investigated MCHS are presented. In addition, experimental and numerical values are compared in terms of friction factors, convective heat transfer coefficients, wall temperature and pressure drops, for various particle volume concentrations and Reynolds numbers. The numerical results show that enhancing the heat flux has a very weak effect on the heat transfer coefficient for pure water, but an appreciable effect for the case of a nanofluid. For all considered volume fractions, the sink friction factor decreases by increasing the Reynolds number and slightly increases by increasing the volume fractions, and, with increasing the volume fractions and the Reynolds number, the pressure drop increases.     

Experimental study of an earth-to-air heat exchanger coupled to the solar chimney for heating and cooling applications in arid regions

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - Arid regions around the world are characterized by hard summer and winter seasons, which leads to thermal discomfort. The southwest of Algeria is...     

Steady Natural Convection Flow of a Particulate Suspension Through a Parallel-Plate Channel

A continuum model for two-phase (fluid/particle) flow induced by natural convection is developed and applied to the problem of steady natural convention flow of a particulate suspension through an infinitely long channel. The walls of the channel are maintained at constant but different temperatures. The two-phase model accounts for particle-phase viscous effects. Boundary conditions borrowed from rarefied gas dynamics are employed for the particle-phase wall conditions. Various closed-form solutions for different special cases are obtained. A parametric study of the physical parameters involved in the problem are performed to illustrate the influence of these parameters on the flow and heat transfer aspects of the problem.     

Effects of chemical reaction on mixed convection flow of a polar fluid through a porous medium in the presence of internal heat generation

This paper reports a detailed numerical investigation on mixed convection flow of a polar fluid through a porous medium due to the combined effects of thermal and mass diffusion. The energy equation accounts for heat generation or absorption, while the nth order homogeneous chemical reaction between the fluid and the diffusing species is included in the mass diffusion equation. The governing equations of the linear momentum, angular momentum, energy and concentration are obtained in a non-similar form by introducing a suitable group of transformations. The final set of non-similar coupled non-linear partial differential equations is solved using an implicit finite-difference scheme in combination with quasi-linearization technique. The effects of various parameters on the velocity, angular velocity, temperature and concentration fields are investigated. Numerical results for the skin friction coefficient, wall stress of angular velocity, Nusselt number and Sherwood number are also presented.     

Double-diffusive natural convection in inclined porous cavities with various aspect ratios and temperature-dependent heat source or sink

Laminar double-diffusive natural convective flow of a binary fluid mixture in inclined square and rectangular cavities filled with a uniform porous medium in the presence of temperature-difference dependent heat generation (source) or absorption (sink) is considered. Transverse gradients of heat and mass are applied on two opposing walls of the cavity while the other two walls are kept adiabatic and impermeable to mass transfer. The problem is put in terms of the stream function-vorticity formulation. A numerical solution based on the finite-difference methodology is obtained for relatively high Lewis numbers. Representative results illustrating the effects of the inclination angle of the cavity, buoyancy ratio, Darcy number, heat generation or absorption coefficient and the cavity aspect ratio on the contour maps of the streamline, temperature, and concentration as well as the profiles of velocity, temperature and concentration at mid-section of the cavity are reported. In addition, numerical results for the average Nusselt and Sherwood numbers are presented for various parametric conditions and discussed.