Natural Convection Inside a Square Cavity Heated From Below and Symmetrically Cooled at Both Sides: Effects of Various Dirichlet Boundary Conditions at the Bottom Wall

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Satyajit Roy ◽  
Tanmay Basak

A numerical study is performed to investigate the steady laminar natural convection flow in a square cavity with uniformly and non-uniformly heated bottom wall, and adiabatic top wall maintaining constant temperature of cold vertical walls. A penalty finite element method with bi-quadratic rectangular elements has been used to solve the governing mass, momentum and energy equations. The numerical procedure adopted in the present study yields consistent performance over the range of parameters (Rayleigh number Ra, 103 ≤ Ra ≤ 105 and Prandtl number Pr, 0.7 ≤ Pr ≤ 10) with respect to continuous and discontinuous Dirichlet boundary conditions. Non-uniform heating of the bottom wall produces greater heat transfer rate at the center of the bottom wall than uniform heating case for all Rayleigh numbers but average Nusselt number shows overall lower heat transfer rate for non-uniform heating case. Critical Rayleigh numbers for conduction dominant heat transfer cases have been obtained.

Author(s):  
Ram Satish Kaluri ◽  
Tanmay Basak ◽  
A. R. Balakrishnan

Natural convection is a widely occurring phenomena which has important applications in material processing, energy storage devices, electronic cooling, building ventilation etc. The concept of ‘entropy generation minimization’, which is a thermodynamic approach for optimization, may be very useful in designing efficient thermal systems. In the current study, entropy generation in steady laminar natural convection flow in a square cavity is studied with following isothermal boundary conditions: (1) Bottom wall is uniformly heated (2) Bottom wall is sinusoidally heated. The side walls are maintained cold and the top wall is maintained adiabatic. The thermal boundary condition in non-uniform heating case (case 2) is such that the dimensionless average temperature of the bottom wall is equal to that of uniform heating case (case 1). The prime objective of this work is to investigate the influence of uniform and non-uniform heating on entropy generation. The governing mass, momentum and energy equations are solved using Galerkin finite element method. Streamlines, isotherms, contour maps of entropy generation due to heat transfer and fluid friction are studied for Pr = 0.01 (molten metals) and 7 (water) in range of Ra = 103–105. Detailed analysis on the effect of uniform and non-uniform thermal boundary conditions on entropy generation due to heat transfer and fluid friction has been presented. Also, the average Bejan’s number which indicates the relative dominance of entropy generation due to heat transfer or fluid friction and the total entropy generation are studied for each case.


2005 ◽  
Vol 127 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devashish Shrivastava ◽  
Benjamin McKay ◽  
Robert B. Roemer

Counter-current (vessel–vessel) heat transfer has been postulated as one of the most important heat transfer mechanisms in living systems. Surprisingly, however, the accurate quantification of the vessel–vessel, and vessel–tissue, heat transfer rates has never been performed in the most general and important case of a finite, unheated/heated tissue domain with noninsulated boundary conditions. To quantify these heat transfer rates, an exact analytical expression for the temperature field is derived by solving the 2-D Poisson equation with uniform Dirichlet boundary conditions. The new results obtained using this solution are as follows: first, the vessel–vessel heat transfer rate can be a large fraction of the total heat transfer rate of each vessel, thus quantitatively demonstrating the need to accurately model the vessel–vessel heat transfer for vessels imbedded in tissues. Second, the vessel–vessel heat transfer rate is shown to be independent of the source term; while the heat transfer rates from the vessels to the tissue show a significant dependence on the source term. Third, while many previous studies have assumed that (1) the total heat transfer rate from vessels to tissue is zero, and/or (2) the heat transfer rates from paired vessels (of different sizes and at different temperatures) to tissue are equal to each other the current analysis shows that neither of these conditions is met. The analytical solution approach used to solve this two vessels problem is general and can be extended for the case of “N” arbitrarily located vessels.


Author(s):  
Subramanian Muthukumar ◽  
Selvaraj Sureshkumar ◽  
Arthanari Malleswaran ◽  
Murugan Muthtamilselvan ◽  
Eswari Prem

Abstract A numerical investigation on the effects of uniform and non-uniform heating of bottom wall on mixed convective heat transfer in a square porous chamber filled with nanofluid in the appearance of magnetic field is carried out. Uniform or sinusoidal heat source is fixed at the bottom wall. The top wall moves in either positive or negative direction with a constant cold temperature. The vertical sidewalls are thermally insulated. The finite volume approach based on SIMPLE algorithm is followed for solving the governing equations. The different parameters connected with this study are Richardson number (0.01 ≤ Ri ≤ 100), Darcy number (10−4 ≤ Da ≤ 10−1), Hartmann number (0 ≤ Ha ≤ 70), and the solid volume fraction (0.00 ≤ χ ≤ 0.06). The results are presented graphically in the form of isotherms, streamlines, mid-plane velocities, and Nusselt numbers for the various combinations of the considered parameters. It is observed that the overall heat transfer rate is low at Ri = 100 in the positive direction of lid movement, whereas it is low at Ri = 1 in the negative direction. The average Nusselt number is lowered on growing Hartmann number for all considered moving directions of top wall with non-uniform heating. The low permeability, Da = 10−4 keeps the flow pattern same dominating the magnetic field, whereas magnetic field strongly affects the flow pattern dominating the high Darcy number Da = 10−1. The heat transfer rate increases on enhancing the solid volume fraction regardless of the magnetic field.


2003 ◽  
Vol 125 (4) ◽  
pp. 624-634 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xundan Shi ◽  
J. M. Khodadadi

A finite-volume-based computational study of steady laminar natural convection (using Boussinesq approximation) within a differentially heated square cavity due to the presence of a single thin fin is presented. Attachment of highly conductive thin fins with lengths equal to 20, 35 and 50 percent of the side, positioned at 7 locations on the hot left wall were examined for Ra=104,105,106, and 107 and Pr=0.707 (total of 84 cases). Placing a fin on the hot left wall generally alters the clockwise rotating vortex that is established due to buoyancy-induced convection. Two competing mechanisms that are responsible for flow and thermal modifications are identified. One is due to the blockage effect of the fin, whereas the other is due to extra heating of the fluid that is accommodated by the fin. The degree of flow modification due to blockage is enhanced by increasing the length of the fin. Under certain conditions, smaller vortices are formed between the fin and the top insulated wall. Viewing the minimum value of the stream function field as a measure of the strength of flow modification, it is shown that for high Rayleigh numbers the flow field is enhanced regardless of the fin’s length and position. This suggests that the extra heating mechanism outweighs the blockage effect for high Rayleigh numbers. By introducing a fin, the heat transfer capacity on the anchoring wall is always degraded, however heat transfer on the cold wall without the fin can be promoted for high Rayleigh numbers and with the fins placed closer to the insulated walls. A correlation among the mean Nu, Ra, fin’s length and its position is proposed.


2009 ◽  
Vol 131 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashok Kumar ◽  
P. Bera

A comprehensive numerical investigation on the natural convection in a hydrodynamically anisotropic porous enclosure is presented. The flow is due to nonuniformly heated bottom wall and maintenance of constant temperature at cold vertical walls along with adiabatic top wall. Brinkman-extended non-Darcy model, including material derivative, is considered. The principal direction of the permeability tensor has been taken oblique to the gravity vector. The spectral element method has been adopted to solve numerically the governing conservative equations of mass, momentum, and energy by using a stream-function vorticity formulation. Special attention is given to understand the effect of anisotropic parameters on the heat transfer rate as well as flow configurations. The numerical experiments show that in the case of isotropic porous enclosure, the maximum rates of bottom as well as side heat transfers (Nub and Nus) take place at the aspect ratio, A, of the enclosure equal to 1, which is, in general, not true in the case of anisotropic porous enclosures. The flow in the enclosure is governed by two different types of convective cells: rotating (i) clockwise and (ii) anticlockwise. Based on the value of media permeability as well as orientation angle, in the anisotropic case, one of the cells will dominate the other. In contrast to isotropic porous media, enhancement of flow convection in the anisotropic porous enclosure does not mean increasing the side heat transfer rate always. Furthermore, the results show that anisotropy causes significant changes in the bottom as well as side average Nusselt numbers. In particular, the present analysis shows that permeability orientation angle has a significant effect on the flow dynamics and temperature profile and consequently on the heat transfer rates.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (8) ◽  
pp. 2792-2808 ◽  
Author(s):  
Behnam Rafiei ◽  
Hamed Masoumi ◽  
Mohammad Saeid Aghighi ◽  
Amine Ammar

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of complex boundary conditions on natural convection of a yield stress fluid in a square enclosure heated from below (uniformly and non-uniformly) and symmetrically cooled from the sides. Design/methodology/approach The governing equations are solved numerically subject to continuous and discontinuous Dirichlet boundary conditions by Galerkin’s weighted residuals scheme of finite element method and using a non-uniform unstructured triangular grid. Findings Results show that the overall heat transfer from the heated wall decreases in the case of non-uniform heating for both Newtonian and yield stress fluids. It is found that the effect of yield stress on heat transfer is almost similar in both uniform and non-uniform heating cases. The yield stress has a stabilizing effect, reducing the convection intensity in both cases. Above a certain value of yield number Y, heat transfer is only due to conduction. It is found that a transition of different modes of stability may occur as Rayleigh number changes; this fact gives rise to a discontinuity in the variation of critical yield number. Originality/value Besides the new numerical method based on the finite element and using a non-uniform unstructured grid for analyzing natural convection of viscoplastic materials with complex boundary conditions, the originality of the present work concerns the treatment of the yield stress fluids under the influence of complex boundary conditions.


Author(s):  
Pawan Karki ◽  
Ajay Kumar Yadav ◽  
D. Arumuga Perumal

This study involves the effect of adiabatic obstacles on two-dimensional natural convection in a square enclosure using lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). The enclosure embodies square-shaped adiabatic obstacles with one, two, and four in number. The single obstacle in cavity is centrally placed, whereas for other two configurations, a different arrangement has been made such that the core fluid zone is not hampered. The four boundaries of the cavity considered here consist of two adiabatic horizontal walls and two differentially heated vertical walls. The current study covers the range of Rayleigh number (103 ≤ Ra ≤ 106) and a fixed Prandtl number of 0.71 for all cases. The effect of size of obstacle is studied in detail for single obstacle. It is found that the average heat transfer along the hot wall increases with the increase in size of obstacle until it reaches an optimum value and then with further increase in size, the heat transfer rate deteriorates. Study is carried out to delineate the comparison between the presences of obstacle in and out of the conduction dominant zone in the cavity. The number of obstacles (two and four) outside of this core zone shows that heat transfer decreases despite the obstacle being adiabatic in nature.


2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 1119-1132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saeid Jani ◽  
Mostafa Mahmoodi ◽  
Meysam Amini ◽  
Jafar Jam

In the present paper, natural convection fluid flow and heat transfer in a square cavity heated from below and cooled from sides and the ceiling with a thin fin attached to its hot bottom wall is investigated numerically. The right and the left walls of the cavity, as well as its horizontal top wall are maintained at a constant temperature Tc, while the bottom wall is kept at a constant temperature Th ,with Th > Tc. The governing equations are solved numerically using the finite volume method and the couple between the velocity and pressure fields is done using the SIMPLER algorithm. A parametric study is performed and the effects of the Rayleigh number and the length of the fin on the flow pattern and heat transfer inside the cavity are investigated. Two competing mechanisms that are responsible for the flow and thermal modifications are observed. One is the resistance effect of the fin due to the friction losses which directly depends on the length of the fin, whereas the other is due to the extra heating of the fluid that is offered by the fin. It is shown that for high Rayleigh numbers, placing a hot fin at the middle of the bottom wall has more remarkable effect on the flow field and heat transfer inside the cavity.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document