UNSTRUCTURED FINITE-VOLUME METHOD FOR RADIATIVE HEAT TRANSFER IN A COMPLEX TWO-DIMENSIONAL GEOMETRY WITH OBSTACLES

The radiative heat transfer in a complex two-dimensional enclosure with obstacles with participating medium is very important in practical engineering applications. In order to deal with this problem, in this study the finite-volume method (FVM) for radiation has been derived using the unstructured grid system. A general discretization equation was formulated by introducing the directional weight and the step scheme for spatial differencing. For its comparison and validation, two test cases, an equilateral triangular enclosure and a square enclosure with baffle, were chosen. Then, more complex and practical cases, such as a semicircular enclosure with cylinder hole, a square enclosure with finned internal cylinder, and a furnace with embedded cooling pipes, were investigated. All the results obtained by the unstructured FVM agreed very well with the exact solutions as well as the results obtained by the zone method. Furthermore, the wiggling behavior occurring in the blocked-off FVM was not produced by the unstructured FVM. Three types of manipulation of control angle overlap were also examined here. It was found that the solutions depended on the type of manipulation of control angle overlap, especially when the number of control angles was small. Usually, both the pixelation method and exact treatment introduced here yielded better solutions than the bold approximation.     

Numerical Method on Natural Convection and Radiation Heat Transfer with an Isotropic Scattering Medium

The finite-volume method (FVM) for radiation heat transfer with a nonscattering medium is extended to an isotropic scattering medium, and this method is implemented in the fluid flow solver GTEA on hybrid grids. For comparison and validation, three test cases, a semicircle enclosure with a hole, a rhombic enclosure, and a square cavity, are chosen. All the results obtained by the present FVM agree very well with the numerical solutions in the references. Furthermore, the effects of the extinction coefficient and scattering albedo on the flow and temperature distribution are studied numerically in the cavity based on present approach. As the extinction coefficient increases from 0.2 to 5, the temperature gradient adjacent to the hot and cold walls gradually decreases at Ra = 10⁵, however, the temperature profiles become similar at Ra = 10⁶. For Ra = 10⁵, 10⁶, the scattering albedo affects the structures of the isotherm and streamline to some extent. As the scattering albedo increases, the convection heat transfer in the middle region of the hot wall increases, but the radiation heat transfer and the total radiation heat transfer along the hot wall decrease.     

Application of the lattice Boltzmann method for solving the energy equation of a 2-D transient conduction-radiation problem

A lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is used to solve the energy equation in a test problem involving thermal radiation and to thus investigate the suitability of scalar diffusion LBM for a new class of problems. The problem chosen is transient conductive and radiative heat transfer in a 2-D rectangular enclosure filled with an optically absorbing, emitting and scattering medium. The energy equation of the problem is solved alternatively with a previously used finite volume method (FVM) and with the LBM, while the radiative transfer equation is solved in both cases using the collapsed dimension method. In a parametric study on the effects of the conduction-radiation parameter, extinction coefficient, scattering albedo, and enclosure aspect ratio, FVM and LBM are compared in each case. It is found that, for given level of accuracy, LBM converges in fewer iterations to the steady-state solution, independent of the influence of radiation. On the other hand, the computational cost per iteration is higher for LBM than for the FVM for a simple grid. For coupled radiation-diffusion, the LBM is faster than the FVM because the radiative transfer computation is more time-consuming than that of diffusion.     

NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF NATURAL CONVECTIVE AND RADIATIVE HEAT TRANSFER IN AN ARBITRARILY SHAPED ENCLOSURE

The flow and thermal characteristics of the interactions of natural convection and radiation in an enclosure containing circular ducts are analyzed numerically. For calculation of flow fields, the SIMPLE algorithm originally developed in Cartesian coordinates is extended and modified to apply to the curvilinear coordinates system. The radiation part of the problem for an arbitrarily shaped domain is solved by using the finite volume method (FVM). Cartesian velocity components are used as the dependent variables in momentum equations, and a nonstaggered grid system is employed. The flow and thermal fields for an irregular geometry are investigated for the variation of such parameters as scattering albedo, optical thickness, and Planck number. The test problem is compared with both the exact solutions and the discrete ordinates method solution. The results show that the FVM is an effective method to predict radiative heat transfer processes in irregular geometries and that the change of optical thickness has more effect than that of scattering albedo on flow and thermal fields.     

Lattice Boltzmann Method and Modified Discrete Ordinate Method Applied to Radiative Transport in a Spherical Medium with and without Conduction

This article deals with the application of the modified discrete ordinate method (MDOM) to calculate volumetric radiative information with and without conduction in a concentric spherical enclosure containing a participating medium. With radiative information known from the MDOM, the energy equation of the combined mode transient conduction and radiation heat transfer is formulated and solved using the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). Without conduction, for pure radiation case, two benchmark problems, representing nonradiative and radiative equilibrium situations are taken up. In the case of non-radiative equilibrium, an isothermal medium is bounded by cold walls and medium is the source of radiation, while in the case of radiative equilibrium, nonisothermal medium is confined between a hot and a cold wall, and the hot (inner sphere) wall is the radiation source. Depending upon the problem, heat flux, energy flow rate, emissive power, and temperature distributions in the medium are calculated for different values of parameters such as the extinction coefficient, the scattering albedo, the conduction-radiation parameter, the boundary emissivity, and the radius ratio. To validate the MDOM and the LBM-MDOM formulations, problems are also solved using the finite volume method (FVM) and the finite-difference method (FDM)–FVM approach, in which the FVM is used to calculate the volumetric radiation and the energy equation is also solved using the FDM. Results of the MDOM, LBM–MDOM, FVM and FDM–FVM are also benchmarked against those available in the literature. MDOM and LBM–MDOM have been found to provide accurate results.     

Influences of a confined elliptic cylinder at different aspect ratios and inclinations on the laminar natural and mixed convection flows

Numerical investigations were carried out for natural and mixed convection within domains with stationary and rotating complex geometry by using an immersed-boundary method. The method was first validated with flows induced by natural convection in the annulus between concentric circular cylinder and square enclosure, and the grid-function convergence tests were also examined. Natural convection induced by isothermally elliptic cylinder was further investigated for different Rayleigh numbers within the range of 10⁴–10⁶ and the influence of the outer enclosure was also considered. The parameters investigated in the study included Rayleigh number, axis ratio and inclination angle of the elliptic cross-section. Local and average heat transfer characteristics were fully studied around the surfaces of both inner cylinder and outer enclosure. Finally, mixed convection in a square enclosure with an active rotating elliptic cylinder was considered and the heat transfer quantities of the system were obtained for different rotating speeds.     

THE EFFECTS OF RADIATION ON NATURAL CONVECTION IN A RECTANGULAR ENCLOSURE DIVIDED BY TWO PARTITIONS

The phenomena of radiation-affected steady-laminar natural convection in a rectangular enclosure with two incomplete partitions are numerically examined under a large temperature difference. Pure convection, convection with surface radiation, and convection with surface gas radiation are considered and compared. To examine the effects of two incomplete partitions on thermofluid dynamics behavior, they are assumed to be very thin and adiabatic. The finite-volume method (FVM) is used for solving the radiative transport equation, assuming that partitions are radiatively opaque. After validating the numerical procedures, the detailed radiation effects were sought. Based on the results of this study, it was found that the radiation played a significant role in developing the fluid dynamic and thermal distributions compared with cases without radiation. Once radiation was involved, the surface radiation was dominant over the gas radiation. The baffle configuration was also found to affect the results of radiation.     

NATURAL CONVECTION AND RADIATION IN A SQUARE ENCLOSURE

Natural convection of a radiating fluid in a square enclosure is studied numerically. The coupled momentum, energy, and radiative transfer equations are solved by an iterative procedure. The solutions to the equation of radiative transfer are obtained by the discrete ordinates method using S4 and S8 quadratures. The method is based on control volume formulation and is fully compatible with the SIMPLER algorithm used to solve the momentum and energy equations. The effects of optical thickness and scattering on the flow and temperature fields and heat transfer rates are analyzed. The changes in the buoyant flow patterns and temperature distributions due to the presence of radiation in inclined or heat generating enclosures are also studied. Comparative results obtained by the P-I differential approximation are presented.     

Stability analysis for three-dimensional Rayleigh-Bénard convection with radiatively participating medium using spectral methods

In this study, a fluid subject to combined natural convection and radiation is studied by employing the Boussinesq approximation of the Navier-Stokes equations. The solution for the flow field within a three-dimensional rectangular enclosure is found numerically using a spectral method. The equation of radiation transfer for the participating medium is analyzed by the exact integral formulation. Black boundaries and a gray medium are prescribed. Linear stability analysis and weakly nonlinear analysis are used to determine the critical Rayleigh number for the onset of convection in the combined mode. For the system with flow, a modified second-order time splitting method and a spectral collocation method are introduced to minimize the errors in the computation. From numerical simulation and stability analysis, insight into the effect of radiation on this classical problem can be accomplished. The results show that the presence of a radiative source changes the static temperature gradient of the fluid, and generally results in increasing the flow critical values. The influences of the conduction-radiation parameter, Rayleigh number, and optical thickness on flow instabilities and bifurcations are discussed.     

A novel case study for thermal radiation through a nanofluid as a semitransparent medium via discrete ordinates method to consider the absorption and scattering of nanoparticles along the radiation beams coupled with natural convection

Natural convection in a volumetric radiant enclosure filled by a nanofluid is studied numerically for the first time by using discrete ordinates (DO) method to consider the absorption and scattering coefficients of nanoparticles on the radiation beams through the nanofluid as a semitransparent medium. Present nanofluid is a mixture of Al₂O₃ nanoparticles suspended in water as the base fluid. The volume concentration percentages of nanoparticles are almost small to make a semitransparent medium which means the achieved results can be used in the flat plate solar collectors. Moreover the SIMPLE algorithm of finite volume method for Navier-Stokes continuity, momentum and energy equations are solved and coupled with DO to simulate the total radiation and natural convection in a shallow inclined rectangular 2-D enclosure. This shape of enclosure is chosen due to it might represent the usual configuration of a solar collector. The enclosure inner walls are the gray diffuse emitters and reflectors. The effects of various amounts of Rayleigh number and volume concentration at different values of wavelength are investigated. The positive effect of wave length on radiation heat flux and consequently total heat flux of radiation and natural convection is observed.     

Effect of Darcy,fluid rayleigh and heat generation parameters on natural convection in a porous square enclosure: A Brinkman-extended Darcy model

A Pressure-velocity solution for natural convection for fluid saturated heat generating porous medium in a square enclosure is analysed by finite element method. The numerical solutions obtained for wide range of fluid Rayleigh number, Ra_f, Darcy number, Da, and heat generating number, Q_d. The justification for taking these non-dimensional parameters independently is to establish the effect of individual parameters on flow patterns. It has been observed that peak temperature occurs at the top central part and weaker velocity prevails near the vertical walls of the enclosure due to the heat generation parameter alone. On comparison, the modified Rayleigh number used by the earlier investigators[4,6], can not explain explicitly the effect of heat generation parameter on natural convection within an enclosure having differentially heated vertical walls. At higher Darcy number, the peak temperature and peak velocity are comparatively more, resulting in better enhancement of heat transfer rate.     

Analysis of Conduction and Radiation Heat Transfer in a 2-D Cylindrical Medium Using the Modified Discrete Ordinate Method and the Lattice Boltzmann Method

This article deals with the analysis of radiative transport with and without conduction in a finite concentric cylindrical enclosure containing absorbing, emitting, and scattering medium. Isothermal medium as the radiation source confined between the cold cylinders and a nonisothermal medium with the inner cylinder as the radiation source are the two nonradiative and radiative equilibrium problems. They involve only calculation of radiative information. In the third problem, a conducting-radiating medium is thermally perturbed by raising the temperature of the inner cylinder. In all problems, radiative information is computed using the modified discrete ordinate method (MDOM), and in the third problem, the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is used to formulate and solve the energy equation. Depending on the problems, effects of various parameters such as the extinction coefficient, the scattering albedo, the boundary emissivity, the conduction-radiation parameter, and the radius ratio are studied on temperature and heat flux distributions. The MDOM and the LBM-MDOM results are compared with those available in the literature. To further establish the accuracy of the MDOM and the LBM-MDOM results, in all problems, comparisons are made with the results obtained from the finite volume method (FVM) and the finite difference method-FVM approach, in which FVM provides the radiative information. The selection of the FDM-FVM for the third problem is also with the objective that for this problem, not much work is reported in which the FVM is used to calculate the radiative information. MDOM and LBM-MDOM results are found to compare well with those available in the literature, and in all cases they are in excellent agreement with FVM and FDM-FVM approaches.     

Natural Convection in a Differentially Heated Cavity with Parallel Heat-Generating Baffles

Natural convection in a horizontal differentially heated square cavity containing two vertical heat generating baffles is studied numerically. The baffles are assumed to generate heat uniformly at the same or different rates. Asymptotic steady-state results for the vorticity–stream function formulation are presented in the form of streamline and isotherm plots. The fluid flow, heat transfer, and average Nusselt number are investigated for different heat generation ratios and spacing between the baffles. Convection within the cavity gets augmented for increasing values of heat generation ratio. When the two baffles are located very near the cavity walls, an increase in heat generation ratio induces a strong buoyancy convective flow. When they are very close to each other an increase in heat generation ratio strengthens the innermost cell around the baffles, which in turn drives the global flow at a faster rate through a pair of intermediate inner cells. It is found that the blocking effect of the baffles strongly depends on heat generation ratio and spacing between the baffles. The heat transfer rate varies nonlinearly against spacing between the baffles, and the possible physical reason is given.     

Heat transfer from a horizontal fin array by natural convection and radiation—A conjugate analysis

The problem of natural convection heat transfer from a horizontal fin array is theoretically formulated by treating the adjacent internal fins as two-fin enclosures. A conjugate analysis is carried out in which the mass, momentum and energy balance equations for the fluid in the two-fin enclosure are solved together with the heat conduction equations in both the fins. The numerical solutions by using alternating direction implicit (ADI) method yield steady state temperature and velocity fields in the fluid, and temperatures along the fins. Each end fin of the array is exposed to limited enclosure on one side and to infinite fluid medium on the other side. Hence a separate analysis is carried out for the problem of end fin exposed to infinite fluid medium with appropriate boundary conditions. From the numerical results, the heat fluxes from the fins and the base of the two-fin enclosure, and the heat flux from the end fin are calculated. Making use of the heat fluxes the total heat transfer rate and average heat transfer coefficient for a fin array are estimated. Heat transfer by radiation is also considered in the analysis. The results obtained for a four-fin array are compared with the experimental data available in literature, which show good agreement. Numerical results are obtained to study the effectiveness for different values of fin heights, emissivities, number of fins in a fixed base, fin base temperature and fin spacing. The numerical results are subjected to non-linear regression and equations are obtained for heat fluxes from the two-fin enclosure and single fin as functions of Rayleigh number, aspect ratio and fin emissivity. Also regression equations are obtained to readily calculate the average Nusselt number, heat transfer rate and effectiveness for a fin array.     

Numerical simulation of turbulent natural convection of nanofluid with thermal radiation inside a tall enclosure under the influence of magnetohydrodynamic

In the present study, the natural convective heat transfer in the turbulent flow of water/CuO nanofluid with volumetric radiation and magnetic field inside a tall enclosure has been numerically investigated. The thermophysical properties of nanofluid have been considered variable with temperature and the effects of Brownian motion of nanoparticles have been considered. The main objective of this work is an investigation of the effect of using water/CuO nanofluid and presence of magnetic field on turbulent natural convection in three types of enclosures (vertical, inclined, and horizontal) by considering the volumetric radiation. The governing equations on turbulent flow domain under the influence of the magnetic field and by considering the combination of volumetric radiation and natural convection have been solved by a coupled algorithm. For validating the present research, a comparison has been carried out with the laminar natural convection flow under the influence of the magnetic field and radiation effects and also, the natural turbulent convection flow of previous studies and a proper coincidence has been achieved. The results indicated that by increasing volume fraction and Hartmann number the average Nusselt number enhances and reduces, respectively. By adding 1% CuO nanoparticles to the base fluid, heat transfer improves from 10.59% to 17.05%. However, by increasing the volume fraction from 1% to 4%, heat transfer improves from 1.35% to 4.90%. By increasing Hartmann number from 0 to 600, heat transfer reduces from 9.29% to 22.07%. Also, the results show that the ratio of deviation angle of the enclosure to the horizontal surface has considerable effects on heat transfer performance. Therefore, in similar conditions, the inclined enclosure with a deviation angle of 45° compared to the vertical and horizontal enclosure has better thermal performance.     

Free convection heat transfer in a partially divided vertical enclosure with conducting end walls

A numerical study has been made of natural convection in an enclosure with perfectly conducting horizontal end walls and finitely conducting baffles. Results obtained using the Boussinesq model for density variation show good agreement with reported measurements of natural convection in a partitioned enclosure. Except at low Rayleigh numbers, a separation bubble is observed behind the baffle. The strength of the separation bubble increases while the strength of the main flow (moving up the hot wall and down the cold one) decreases with increasing baffle conductivity. The average Nusselt number for the enclosure is significantly smaller in the presence of the baffles. Except at low Rayleigh numbers (where baffle conductivity has little influence) the Nusselt number values decrease with increasing baffle conductivity.     

Three-dimensional numerical simulation of convection and radiation in a differentially heated cavity using the discrete ordinates method

The main purpose of this paper is to study, in a three-dimensional, differentially heated cavity, the phenomenon of radiation and natural convection in both transparent and participating media. The discrete ordinates method (DOM) is used to solve the radiative transfer equation. The Navier-Stokes equations (NSE), describing natural convection, are solved with a segregated SIMPLE-like algorithm. For non-participating media, the coupling between the radiative transfer and NSE is done via the radiative heat exchange between surfaces. For participating media, a source term is added in the energy equation. The local and mean heat flux as a function of the Rayleigh number is studied, for both transparent and participating media with different optical thicknesses. The effect of the Planck number on the heat flux is also analyzed for different values of the Rayleigh number. Also, a comparison between a purely two-dimensional case and the results obtained in the mid-plane of a long rectangular enclosure is presented.     

Performance evaluation of four radiative transfer methods in solving multi-dimensional radiation and/or conduction heat transfer problems

This article reports results of the four popular and widely used numerical methods, viz., the Monte Carlo method (MCM), the discrete transfer method (DTM), the discrete ordinates method (DOM) and the finite volume method (FVM) used to calculate radiative information in any thermal problem. Different classes of problems dealing with radiation and/or conduction heat transfer problems in a 2-D rectangular absorbing, emitting and scattering participating medium have been considered. In radiative equilibrium and non-radiative equilibrium cases, the MCM results have been used as the benchmark data for comparing the performances of the DTM, the DOM and the FVM. In the combined radiation and conduction mode problem, the energy equation has been formulated using the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). To compare the performance of the DTM, the DOM and the FVM, the required radiative field data computed using these methods have been provided to the LBM formulation. Temperature distributions obtained using the four methods and those obtained from the LBM in conjunction with the DTM, the DOM and the FVM have been compared for different parameters such as the extinction coefficient, the scattering albedo, the conduction-radiation parameter, the wall emissivity, the aspect ratio and heat generation rate. In all the cases, results of these methods have been found in good agreements. Computationally, the DTM was found the most time consuming, and the DOM was computationally the most efficient.     

Effect of surface radiation on conjugate natural convection in a horizontal annulus driven by inner heat generating solid cylinder

This paper reports a numerical study of the laminar conjugate natural convection heat transfer with and without the interaction of the surface radiation in a horizontal cylindrical annulus formed between an inner heat generating solid circular cylinder and an outer isothermal circular boundary. Numerical solutions are obtained by solving the governing equations with a pressure correction method on a collocated (non-staggered) mesh. Steady-state results are presented for the flow and temperature distributions and Nusselt numbers for the heat generation based Grashof number ranging from , solid-to-fluid thermal conductivity ratios of 1, 5, 10, 50 and 100, radius ratios of 0.226 and 0.452 and surface emissivities of 0–0.8 with air as the working medium. It is observed that surface radiation reduces the convective heat transfer in the annulus compared to the pure natural convection case and enhances the overall Nusselt number.     

Radiation Element Method Coupled with the Lattice Boltzmann Method Applied to the Analysis of Transient Conduction and Radiation Heat Transfer Problem with Heat Generation in a Participating Medium

This article deals with the implementation of the radiation element method (REM) with the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) to solve a combined mode transient conduction-radiation problem. Radiative information computed using the REM is provided to the LBM solver. The planar conducting-radiating participating medium is contained between diffuse gray boundaries, and the system may contain a volumetric heat generation source. Temperature and heat flux distributions in the medium are studied for different values of parameters such as the extinction coefficient, the scattering albedo, the conduction-radiation parameter, the emissivity of the boundaries, and the heat generation rate. To check the accuracy of the results, the problem is also solved using the finite-volume method (FVM) in conjunction with the LBM. In this case, the data for radiation field are calculated using the FVM. The REM has been found to be compatible with the LBM, and in all the cases, results of the LBM-REM and the LBM-FVM have been found to provide an excellent comparison.