Heat transfer analysis of viscous incompressible fluid by combined natural convection and radiation in an open cavity

Abstract

The effect of radiation on natural convection of Newtonian fluid contained in an open cavity is investigated in this study. The governing partial differential equations are solved numerically using the Alternate Direct Implicit method together with the Successive Overrelaxation method. The study is focused on studying the flow pattern and the convective and radiative heat transfer rates are studied for different values of radiation parameters, namely, the optical thickness of the fluid, scattering albedo, and the Planck number. It was found that, in the optically thin limit, an increase in the optical thickness of the fluid raises the temperature and radiation heat transfer of the fluid. However, a further increase in the optical thickness decreases the radiative heat transfer rate due to increase in the energy level of the fluid, which ultimately reduces the total heat transfer rate within the fluid. © 2014 M. Saleem et al.