Natural Convection in a Vertical Annuli with Discrete Heat Sources

In this article, we numerically study natural convection heat transfer in a cylindrical annular cavity with discrete heat sources on the inner wall, whereas the outer wall is isothermally cooled at a lower temperature, and the top wall, the bottom wall, and unheated portions of the inner wall are assumed to be thermally insulated. To investigate the effect of discrete heating on the natural convection heat transfer, at most two heating sources located near the top and bottom walls are considered, and the size and location of these discrete heaters are varied in the enclosure. The governing equations are solved numerically by an implicit finite difference method. The effect of heater placements, heater lengths, aspect ratio, radii ratio, and modified Rayleigh number on the flow and heat transfer in the annuli are analyzed. Our numerical results show that when the size of the heater is smaller, the heat transfer rates are higher. We also found that the heat transfer in the annular cavity increases with radii ratio and modified Rayleigh number, and can be enhanced by placing a heater with the smaller length near the bottom surface.     

Thermosolutal convection from a discrete heat and solute source in a vertical porous annulus

Double-diffusive convection in a vertical annulus filled with a fluid-saturated porous medium is numerically investigated with the aim to understand the effects of a discrete source of heat and solute on the fluid flow and heat and mass transfer rates. The porous annulus is subject to heat and mass fluxes from a portion of the inner wall, while the outer wall is maintained at uniform temperature and concentration. In the formulation of the problem, the Darcy–Brinkman model is adopted to the fluid flow in the porous annulus. The influence of the main controlling parameters, such as thermal Rayleigh number, Darcy number, Lewis number, buoyancy ratio and radius ratio are investigated on the flow patterns, and heat and mass transfer rates for different locations of the heat and solute source. The numerical results show that the flow structure and the rates of heat and mass transfer strongly depend on the location of the heat and solute source. Further, the buoyancy ratio at which flow transition and flow reversal occur is significantly influenced by the thermal Rayleigh number, Darcy number, Lewis number and the segment location. The average Nusselt and Sherwood numbers increase with an increase in radius ratio, Darcy and thermal Rayleigh numbers. It is found that the location for stronger flow circulation is not associated with higher heat and mass transfer rates in the porous annular cavity.     

EFFECTS OF ADAPTIVITY ON FINITE ELEMENT SCHEMES FOR TURBULENT HEAT TRANSFER AND FLOW PREDICTIONS

This article reports convection heat transfer in a short and tall annular enclosure with two discrete isoflux heat sources of different lengths. The discrete heat sources are mounted at the inner wall and the outer wall is maintained at a lower temperature, whereas the top and bottom walls and the unheated portions of the inner wall are kept at adiabatic. An implicit finite-difference method is employed to solve the vorticity–stream function formulations of the governing equations. The significant influence of the discrete heaters on the flow and heat transfer is analyzed for a wide range of modified Rayleigh numbers, aspect ratio, and length ratio (?) of heat sources. Our numerical results reveal that the average Nusselt number decreases with aspect ratio, whereas the magnitude of maximum temperature increases with the aspect ratio. For most of the parametric cases considered in the present study, the heat transfer rate is found to be higher at the bottom heater than at the top heater except for ? = 0.5. The effect of heater length ratio on the heat transfer rate is noticeable for unit aspect ratio, whereas its effect is insignificant as the aspect ratio increases. Furthermore, it was found that the maximum temperature is found generally at the top heater except for the case ? = 0.5, where the maximum temperature is found at the bottom heater.     

Numerical simulation of free convection heat transfer in a vertical annular cavity with discrete heating

The main objective of this article is to investigate the effect of discrete heating on convection heat transfer in a vertical cylindrical annulus. In this analysis, the inner wall of the cavity has two discrete flush-mounted heat sources and the outer wall is isothermally cooled at a lower temperature and top and bottom walls are thermally insulated. The governing equations are solved using an implicit finite difference technique to investigate the influence of each parameter and in particular the radii ratio. The numerical results reveal that the heat transfer rate is always higher at the bottom heater. Also, the rate of heat transfer increases with radii ratio but decreases with aspect ratio. Further, the present results are in excellent agreement with the existing benchmark solutions.     

Natural convection in porous cavity with sinusoidal bottom wall temperature variation

Numerical study of natural convection in a porous cavity is carried out in the present paper. Natural convection is induced when the bottom wall is heated and the top wall is cooled while the vertical walls are adiabatic. The heated wall is assumed to have spatial sinusoidal temperature variation about a constant mean value which is higher than the cold top wall temperature. The non-dimensional governing equations are derived based on the Darcy model. The effects of the amplitude of the bottom wall temperature variation and the heat source length on the natural convection in the cavity are investigated for Rayleigh number range 20–500. It is found that the average Nusselt number increases when the length of the heat source or the amplitude of the temperature variation increases. It is observed that the heat transfer per unit area of the heat source decreases by increasing the length of the heated segment.     

Non-Darcian effects on natural convection heat transfer in a wavy porous enclosure

A numerical investigation is carried out to analyze natural convection heat transfer inside a cavity with a sinusoidal vertical wavy wall and filled with a porous medium. The vertical walls are isothermal while the top and bottom horizontal straight walls are kept adiabatic. The transport equations are solved using the finite element formulation based on the Galerkin method of weighted residuals. The validity of the numerical code used is ascertained by comparing our results with previously published results. The importance of non-Darcian effects on convection in a wavy porous cavity is analyzed in this work. Different flow models for porous media such, as Brinkman-extended Darcy, Forchheimer-extended Darcy, and the generalized flow models, are considered. Results are presented in terms of streamlines, isotherms, and local heat transfer. The implications of Rayleigh number, number of wavy surface undulation and amplitude of the wavy surface on the flow structure and heat transfer characteristics are investigated in detail while the Prandtl number is considered equal to unity.     

Natural convection heat transfer and entropy generation inside porous quadrantal enclosure with nonisothermal heating at the bottom wall

In this work, we study numerically the natural convection heat transfer and entropy generation characteristics inside a two-dimensional porous quadrantal enclosure heated nonuniformly from the bottom wall. The effect of Darcy number is significant in dictating the Nusselt number only for higher values of Rayleigh number and the variation is more profound for larger values of Darcy number. The variation of entropy generation rate is significant with the Darcy number only for higher values of Rayleigh number. The entropy generation due to heat transfer is the significant contributor of irreversibility at low values of Darcy number, while for larger values of Darcy number and Rayleigh number entropy generation due to fluid friction becomes dominant.     

Unsteady natural convection from a horizontal annulus filled with a porous medium

The unsteady natural convection flow from a horizontal cylindrical annulus filled with a non-Darcy porous medium has been studied. The unsteadiness in the problem arises due to the impulsive change in the wall temperature of the outer cylinder. The Navier–Stokes equations along with the energy equation governing the unsteady natural convection flow have been solved by the finite-volume method. The effect of time variation on the heat transfer is more pronounced only in a small time interval immediately after the start of the impulsive motion and the steady state is reached after certain time. The results show that the annulus completely filled with a porous medium has the best insulating effectiveness. Convection in the horizontal annulus is confined mostly at top and bottom regions. Hence, only these regions should be insulated. In case of annulus partially filled with a porous material, insulating the region near the outer cylinder is more effective than insulating the region near the inner cylinder. The effect of Darcy number on the heat transfer is more pronounced than that of the Grashof number.     

Effects of Heating Location and Size on Natural Convection in Partially Heated Open-Ended Enclosure by Using Lattice Boltzmann Method

Natural convection heat transfer in an square enclosure, consisting of a partially heated west wall with east end open to ambient, is investigated numerically by using an in-house computational fluid dynamics solver based on thermal lattice Boltzmann method. In particular, the influences of Rayleigh number (10³–10⁶), heating location (bottom, middle, and top) on west wall, and dimensionless heating length (0.25–0.75) on momentum and heat transfer characteristics of air are presented and discussed. The streamline patterns show bifurcation at the lowest Rayleigh number for bottom and middle heating, whereas at the highest Rayleigh number, all heating positions yield bifurcation and elongation of flow patterns with a secondary vortex near the lower side of open end. The middle and bottom heating locations show a linear increase in Nusselt number with heater size, whereas inverse dependence is seen for top heating. The maximum heat transfer is observed in the case of middle heating. As expected, average Nusselt number increased with increasing Rayleigh number. Finally, the functional dependence of the average Nusselt number on flow governing parameters (Rayleigh number and heating length) for different heating locations is presented as a simple predictive empirical relationship.     

A Thermal Nonequilibrium Approach to Natural Convection in a Square Enclosure Due to the Partially Cooled Sidewalls of the Enclosure

This article presents a numerical investigation of steady non-Darcy natural convection heat transfer in a square cavity filled with a heat-generating porous medium with partial cooling using a local thermal nonequilibrium (LTNE) model. Five different partial cooling boundary conditions and the fully cooled boundary condition are investigated under LTNE and local thermal equilibrium (LTE). The cooling portions of the left and the right sidewalls of the cavity are maintained at temperature T ₀ while the enclosure's top and bottom walls, as well as the inactive parts of its sidewalls, are kept insulated. The simulation results show that the placement order of wall cooling has a significant effect on the flow pattern and heat transfer rate. Compared with the fully cooled wall, the partially cooled wall of the cavity yielded a higher local Nusselt number for both fluid and solid phases. Under the same boundary conditions, the LTNE and LTE models can demonstrate significant differences in flow patterns and temperature fields. The total heat transfer rate increases with both Darcy number and Rayleigh number. Enhancement of interphase heat transfer coefficient (H) reduces the impact of Darcy number on the heat transfer rate of a porous cavity. Also, the total heat transfer rate of the porous medium decreases steadily with thermal conductivity ratio γ and interphase heat transfer coefficient H.     

Convective heat transfer combined with surface radiation in a rotating square cavity with a local heater

The effect of surface radiation on laminar natural convection in a rotating cavity with a discrete heater has been analyzed numerically. The enclosure is insulated at the bottom and top, heated by a constant temperature from the discrete heater located on the bottom wall, and cooled by a constant temperature from the side walls. Governing equations with corresponding initial and boundary conditions formulated in dimensionless stream function, vorticity, and temperature have been solved by finite difference method of the second-order accuracy. The effects of surface emissivity, Rayleigh number, and Taylor number on the fluid flow and heat transfer have been studied. Obtained results have revealed that rotation can be a very good control parameter for heat transfer and fluid flow.     

Thermal transport analysis for natural convection in a porous corrugated rhombic enclosure

A numerical study of fluid flow and heat transfer, applying natural convection is carried out in a porous corrugated rhombic enclosure. A uniform heating source is applied from the bottom boundary wall while the inclined side walls are maintained to a constant cold temperature and the top corrugated wall is retained at insulated condition inside the enclosure. The heat transfer and flow features are presented for a wide spectrum of Rayleigh numbers (Ra), 10⁴ ≤ Ra ≤ 10⁶, and Darcy numbers (Da), 10^?3 ≤ Da ≤ 10^?2. The number of undulations (n) for the top and bottom walls have been varied from 1 to 13 keeping the amplitude of undulation fixed. It is revealed that the characteristics of heat transfer are conceivably modulated by changing the parameter of the undulation number on the enclosure walls, specifically at the bottom and top. The influencing control of n in altering the heat transfer rate is felt maximum on the left wall and minimum for the right wall, and there is a strong interplay between Ra and Da together with n on dictating the heat transfer characteristics. The critical value, where heat transfer rate is observed as maximum is at n = 11 and thereafter the values decrease.     

Fully developed natural convection heat and mass transfer in a vertical annular porous medium with asymmetric wall temperatures and concentrations

This work examines the effects of the modified Darcy number, the buoyancy ratio and the inner radius-gap ratio on the fully developed natural convection heat and mass transfer in a vertical annular non-Darcy porous medium with asymmetric wall temperatures and concentrations. The exact solutions for the important characteristics of fluid flow, heat transfer, and mass transfer are derived by using a non-Darcy flow model. The modified Darcy number is related to the flow resistance of the porous matrix. For the free convection heat and mass transfer in an annular duct filled with porous media, increasing the modified Darcy number tends to increase the volume flow rate, total heat rate added to the fluid, and the total species rate added to the fluid. Moreover, an increase in the buoyancy ratio or in the inner radius-gap ratio leads to an increase in the volume flow rate, the total heat rate added to the fluid, and the total species rate added to the fluid.     

Combined convection heat transfer in a porous lid-driven enclosure due to heater with finite length

A numerical work is performed to analyze combined convection heat transfer and fluid flow in a partially heated porous lid-driven enclosure. The top wall of enclosure moves from left to right with constant velocity and temperature. Heater with finite length is located on the fixed wall where its center of location changes along the walls. The finite volume-based finite-difference method is applied for numerical experiments. Parameters effective on flow and thermal fields are Richardson number, Darcy number, center of heater and heater length. The results are shown that the best heat transfer is formed when the heater is located on the left vertical wall.     

Numerical Studies on Natural Convection in a Trapezoidal Enclosure With Discrete Heating

Abstract

A steady state laminar natural convection flow in a trapezoidal enclosure with discretely heated bottom wall, adiabatic top wall, and constant temperature cold inclined walls is performed. The finite volume based commercial code “ANSYS-FLUENT” is used to investigate the influence of discrete heating on natural convection flows in a trapezoidal cavity. The numerical solution of the problem covers various Rayleigh numbers ranging from 10³ to 10⁶, non-dimensional heating length ranging from 0.2 to 0.8 and Prandtl number is 0.7. The performance of the present numerical approach is represented in the form of streamfunction, temperature profile and Nusselt number. Heat transfer increases with increase of Rayleigh numbers at the corners of the cavity for same heating length from center of the bottom wall. However, the heat transfer rate is less and almost constant for the Rayleigh numbers considered. It is found that the average Nusselt number monotonically increases with increase of Rayleigh number and length of heat source. The variation of local and average Nusselt numbers is more significant for larger length of heating than smaller one. The heat transfer correlations useful for practical design problems have been predicted.     

Study of buoyancy-induced flows subjected to partially heated sources on the left and bottom walls in a square enclosure

In this paper, numerical simulations of laminar, steady, two-dimensional natural convection flows in a square enclosure with discrete heat sources on the left and bottom walls are presented using a finite-volume method. Two different orientated wall boundary conditions are designed to investigate the natural convection features. The computational results are expressed in the form of streamlines and isothermal lines for Rayleigh numbers ranging from 10² to 10⁷ in the cavity. In the course of study, a combination of third-order and exponential interpolating profile based on the convective boundedness criterion is proposed and tested against the partially heated cavity flow up to the highest Rayleigh number 10⁷. The effects of thermal strength and heating length on the hydrodynamic and thermal fields inside the enclosure are also presented. Numerical results indicate that the average Nusselt number increases as Rayleigh number increases for both cases. Moreover, it is seen that the effect of the heat transfer rate due to the heating strength on the left wall is different from the one on the bottom. For the heater size effect, it is observed that by increasing the length of heat source segment, the heat transfer rate is gradually increased for both cases.     

Natural convection in fluid–superposed porous layers heated locally from below

A numerical study of two-dimensional natural convection in fluid–superposed porous layers heated locally from below is reported based on the one-domain formulation of the conservation equations. The effects of five dimensionless parameters on overall Nusselt number are investigated: Rayleigh number based on overall layer height, heater-to-cavity length ratio, porous layer-to-cavity height ratio, domain aspect ratio, and Darcy number. Streamline and isotherm patterns indicate that convective motion is restricted to the overlying fluid layer with some penetration into the porous layer. Nusselt numbers increase with a decrease in the heater length and height ratio, and increase with the Darcy number. The size of the heat source does not affect the dependence of the heat transfer coefficient on height ratio and Darcy number. For domains with large aspect ratios, complex flow restructuring is observed with an increase in Rayleigh number. The present results represent an extension of the well studied problem of buoyant convection in fluid–superposed porous layers with a fully heated lower surface.     

Mixed convection within a porous heat generating horizontal annulus

A numerical investigation of mixed convection in a horizontal annulus filled with a uniform fluid-saturated porous medium in the presence of internal heat generation is carried out. The inner cylinder is heated while the outer cylinder is cooled. The forced flow is induced by the cold outer cylinder rotating at a constant angular velocity. The flow field is modeled using a generalized form of the momentum equation that accounts for the presence of porous medium viscous, Darcian and inertial effects. Discretization of the governing equations is achieved using a finite element scheme based on the Galerkin method of weighted residuals. Comparisons with previous works are performed and the results show excellent agreement. The effects of pertinent parameters such as the internal Rayleigh number, the Darcy number, the annulus gap, and the Richardson number on the flow and heat transfer characteristics are considered in the present study. The obtained results depict that the Richardson number plays a significant role on the heat transfer characterization within the annulus. The present results show that an increase in Reynolds number has a significant effect on the flow patterns within the annulus with respect to two-eddy, one-eddy and no-eddy flows. Categorization of the flow regimes according to the number of eddies is established on the Ra-Re plane for various Rayleigh numbers.     

Natural convection in a square cavity filled with a porous medium: Effects of various thermal boundary conditions

Natural convection flows in a square cavity filled with a porous matrix has been studied numerically using penalty finite element method for uniformly and non-uniformly heated bottom wall, and adiabatic top wall maintaining constant temperature of cold vertical walls. Darcy–Forchheimer model is used to simulate the momentum transfer in the porous medium. The numerical procedure is adopted in the present study yields consistent performance over a wide range of parameters (Rayleigh number Ra, 10³ ⩽ Ra ⩽ 10⁶, Darcy number Da, 10⁻⁵ ⩽ Da ⩽ 10⁻³, and Prandtl number Pr, 0.71 ⩽ Pr ⩽ 10) with respect to continuous and discontinuous thermal boundary conditions. Numerical results are presented in terms of stream functions, temperature profiles and Nusselt numbers. 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. It has been found that the heat transfer is primarily due to conduction for Da ⩽ 10⁻⁵ irrespective of Ra and Pr. The conductive heat transfer regime as a function of Ra has also been reported for Da ⩾ 10⁻⁴. Critical Rayleigh numbers for conduction dominant heat transfer cases have been obtained and for convection dominated regimes the power law correlations between average Nusselt number and Rayleigh numbers are presented.     

Buoyancy-induced flow,heat, and mass transfer in a porous annulus

This paper reports on double-diffusive natural convection heat transfer in a porous annulus between concentric horizontal circular and square cylinders. A pressure-based segregated finite volume method is used to solve the problem numerically. The diffusion fluxes are discretized using the MIND fully implicit scheme. Furthermore, a modified pressure correction equation is derived that implicitly accounts for the nonorthogonal diffusion terms, which are usually neglected in the standard SIMPLE algorithm. Results indicate that convection effects increase with an increase in Rayleigh number, Darcy number, porosity, and enclosure aspect ratio. Further, at low Darcy values, porosity has no effect on the flow, temperature, and concentration fields.