High-accuracy bench mark solutions to natural convection in a square cavity

A fourth-order high-accuracy finite difference method is presented for the bouyancy-driven flow in a square cavity with differentially heated vertical walls. The two bench mark solutions against which other solutions can be compared were obtained. The present solution is seemed to be accurate up to fifth decimal. The proposed scheme is stable and convergent for high Rayleigh number, and will be applicable to general problems involving flow and heat transfer, especially in three dimensions.List of symbols a thermal diffusivity - g gravitational acceleration - h mesh length in the x-direction - k time step - L side length of cavity - Pr Prandtl number - Ra Rayleigh number = gTL³/a - t time - T_c, T_h surface temperatures (see Fig. 1a) - T temperature - T temperature difference = T_h - T_c - u, v velocity in the x and y directions, respectively - x, y coordinates - x, y mesh lengths in the x- and y-directions, respectivelyGreek symbols volumetric expansion coefficient - kinematic viscosity - stream function - vorticity