Natural convection flow in a square cavity with internal heat generation and a flush mounted heater on a side wall

Abstract

In this study natural convection flow in a square cavity with heat generating fluid and a finite size heater on the vertical wall have been investigated numerically. To change the heat transfer in the cavity, a heater is placed at different locations on the right vertical wall of the cavity, while the left wall is considered to be cold. In addition, the top and bottom horizontal walls are considered to be adiabatic and the cavity is assumed to be filled with a Bousinessq fluid having a Prandtl number of 0.72. The governing mass, momentum and energy equations along with boundary conditions are expressed in a normalized primitive variables formulation. Finite Element Method is used in solution of the normalized governing equations. The parameters leading the problem are the Rayleigh number, location of the heater, length of the heater and heat generation. To observe the effects of the mentioned parameters on natural convection in the cavity, we considered various values of heater locations, heater length and heat generation parameter for different values of Ra varying in the range 10² to 10⁵. Results are presented in terms of streamlines, isotherms, average Nusselt number at the hot wall and average fluid temperature in the cavity for the mentioned parameters. The results showed that the flow and thermal fields through streamlines and isotherms as well as the rate of heat transfer from the heated wall in terms of Nusselt number are strongly dependent on the length and locations of the heater as well as heat generating parameter.

DOI: 10.3329/jname.v7i2.3292