Energy Streamlines Analyses on Natural Convection Within Porous Square Enclosure With Internal Obstructions

Author(s):  
Syeda Humaira Tasnim ◽  
Shohel Mahmud ◽  
Animesh Dutta

Natural convection through a porous layer heated from the side with internal flow obstructions have been investigated based on visualization of total energy flow via energy streamfunctions or energy streamlines. Energy streamline has been introduced previously by Mahmud and Fraser (2007, “Visualizing Energy Flows Through Energy Streamlines and Pathlines,” Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, 50, pp. 3990–4002) as an alternate convection heat transfer energy visualization technique. Energy streamlines consider all forms of related energy; for example, thermal energy, potential energy, kinetic energy, electrical energy, magnetic energy, and chemical energy. A finite volume method has been employed to solve momentum and energy balance as well as postprocessing energy streamfunctions. A parametric study has been carried out using the following parameters: Rayleigh number (Ra) from 103 to 106, Darcy number (Da) from 10−4 to 10−3, dimensionless thin fin lengths (L) 0.25, 0.5, and 0.75, dimensionless positions (H) 0.25, 0.5, and 0.75 with Prandtl number (Pr) 0.7. One finding of the present study is that, adding an obstruction in a cavity is similar to reducing Da of the porous medium. Therefore, the average Nusselt number calculated on the hot wall of the cavity always degraded compared to the no obstruction case whenever a baffle is attached. Thus the attached horizontal obstruction adds some thermal insulation effect. This finding is important in double wall space filled with fiberglass insulation in contemporary buildings, where the side wall is reinforced on the inside with structural members.

1970 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumon Saha ◽  
Noman Hasan ◽  
Chowdhury Md Feroz

A numerical study has been carried out for laminar natural convection heat transfer within a two-dimensional modified square enclosure having a triangular roof. The vertical sidewalls are differentially heated considering a constant flux heat source strip is flush mounted with the left wall. The opposite wall is considered isothermal having a temperature of the surrounding fluid. The rest of the walls are adiabatic. Air is considered as the fluid inside the enclosure. The solution has been carried out on the basis of finite element analysis by a non-linear parametric solver to examine the heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics. Different heights of the triangular roof have been considered for the present analysis. Fluid flow fields and isotherm patterns and the average Nusselt number are presented for the Rayleigh numbers ranging from 103 to 106 in order to show the effects of these governing parameters. The average Nusselt number computed for the case of isoflux heating is also compared with the case of isothermal heating as available in the literature. The outcome of the present investigation shows that the convective phenomenon is greatly influenced by the inclined roof height. Keywords: Natural convection, triangular roof, Rayleigh number, isoflux heating. Doi:10.3329/jme.v39i1.1826 Journal of Mechanical Engineering, vol. ME39, No. 1, June 2008 1-7


2013 ◽  
Vol 136 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanwei Hu ◽  
Yurong He ◽  
Shufu Wang ◽  
Qizhi Wang ◽  
H. Inaki Schlaberg

An experimental and numerical investigation on natural convection heat transfer of TiO2–water nanofluids in a square enclosure was carried out for the present work. TiO2–water nanofluids with different nanoparticle mass fractions were prepared for the experiment and physical properties of the nanofluids including thermal conductivity and viscosity were measured. Results show that both thermal conductivity and viscosity increase when increasing the mass fraction of TiO2 nanoparticles. In addition, the thermal conductivity of nanofluids increases, while the viscosity of nanofluids decreases with increasing the temperature. Nusselt numbers under different Rayleigh numbers were obtained from experimental data. Experimental results show that natural convection heat transfer of nanofluids is no better than water and even worse when the Rayleigh number is low. Numerical studies are carried out by a Lattice Boltzmann model (LBM) coupling the density and the temperature distribution functions to simulate the convection heat transfer in the enclosure. The experimental and numerical results are compared with each other finding a good match in this investigation, and the results indicate that natural convection heat transfer of TiO2–water nanofluids is more sensitive to viscosity than to thermal conductivity.


1990 ◽  
Vol 112 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Asako ◽  
H. Nakamura ◽  
M. Faghri

Numerical solutions are obtained for a three-dimensional natural convection heat transfer problem in a vertical air slot with a thin hexagonal honeycomb core. The air slot is assumed to be of such dimensions that the velocity and temperature fields repeat themselves in successive enclosures. The numerical methodology is based on an algebraic coordinate transformation technique, which maps the complex cross section onto a rectangle, coupled with a calculation procedure for fully elliptic three-dimensional flows. The calculations are performed for the Rayleigh number in the range of 103 to 105, for a Prandtl number of 0.7, and for five values of the aspect ratio of the honeycomb enclosure. The average Nusselt number results for the case of a thin honeycomb core are compared with the previously obtained results for a thick honeycomb core with conduction and adiabatic side wall boundary conditions.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Goodarzi ◽  
M. R. Safaei ◽  
A. Karimipour ◽  
K. Hooman ◽  
M. Dahari ◽  
...  

Different numerical methods have been implemented to simulate internal natural convection heat transfer and also to identify the most accurate and efficient one. A laterally heated square enclosure, filled with air, was studied. A FORTRAN code based on the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) was developed for this purpose. The finite difference method was applied to discretize the LBM equations. Furthermore, for comparison purpose, the commercially available CFD package FLUENT, which uses finite volume Method (FVM), was also used to simulate the same problem. Different discretization schemes, being the first order upwind, second order upwind, power law, and QUICK, were used with the finite volume solver where the SIMPLE and SIMPLEC algorithms linked the velocity-pressure terms. The results were also compared with existing experimental and numerical data. It was observed that the finite volume method requires less CPU usage time and yields more accurate results compared to the LBM. It has been noted that the 1st order upwind/SIMPLEC combination converges comparatively quickly with a very high accuracy especially at the boundaries. Interestingly, all variants of FVM discretization/pressure-velocity linking methods lead to almost the same number of iterations to converge but higher-order schemes ask for longer iterations.


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