A Numerical Study of Natural Convection in a Square Enclosure with a Circular Cylinder at Different Vertical Locations

Abstract This paper presents a steady-state heat transfer model for the natural convection of mixed Newtonian-Non-Newtonian (Alumina-Water) and pure Non-Newtonian (Alumina-0.5 wt% Carboxymethyl Cellulose (CMC)/Water) nanofluids in a square enclosure with adiabatic horizontal walls and isothermal vertical walls, the left wall being hot and the right wall cold. In the first case the nanofluid changes its Newtonian character to Non-Newtonian past 2.78% volume fraction of the nanoparticles. In the second case the base fluid itself is Non-Newtonian and the nanofluid behaves as a pure Non-Newtonian fluid. The power-law viscosity model has been adopted for the non-Newtonian nanofluids. A finite-difference based numerical study with the Stream function-Vorticity-Temperature formulation has been carried out. The homogeneous flow model has been used for modelling the nanofluids. The present results have been extensively validated with earlier works. In Case I the results indicate that Alumina-Water nanofluid shows 4% enhancement in heat transfer at 2.78% nanoparticle concentration. Following that there is a sharp decline in heat transfer with respect to that in base fluid for nanoparticle volume fractions equal to and greater than 3%. In Case II Alumina-CMC/Water nanofluid shows 17% deterioration in heat transfer with respect to that in base fluid at 1.5% nanoparticle concentration. An enhancement in heat transfer is observed for increase in hot wall temperature at a fixed volume fraction of nanoparticles, for both types of nanofluid.

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Natural convection in a differentially heated enclosure with triangular roof

Journal of Mechanical Engineering ◽

10.3329/jme.v39i1.1826 ◽

1970 ◽

Vol 39 (1) ◽

pp. 1-7 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Sumon Saha ◽

Noman Hasan ◽

Chowdhury Md Feroz

Keyword(s):

Heat Transfer ◽

Nusselt Number ◽

Fluid Flow ◽

Natural Convection ◽

Average Nusselt Number ◽

Numerical Study ◽

Convection Heat Transfer ◽

Element Analysis ◽

Left Wall ◽

Square Enclosure

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

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