Mixed Convection Heat Transfer of a Hybrid Nanofluid in a Trapezoidal Prism with an Adiabatic Circular Cylinder

Abstract

This communication presents the mixed convection flow of hybrid nanofluid flow in a trapezoidal prism cavity. The cavity contains an adiabatic circular cylinder filled with Ag-MgO water hybrid nanofluid. The top surface of a prism cavity is heated to a uniform temperature of Th, and the bottom surface of the prism is cooled to a temperature of Tc. The other surfaces of a prism are thermally insulated. The equations governing the flow problem are obtained using conservation principles and nondimensionalized with the help of nondimensional variables. Then, with the help of the Galerkin finite element method algorithm embedded in COMSOL Multiphysics® software, the numerical simulation was performed. The streamlines and isotherms on the surfaces of the cavity have been plotted and thoroughly discussed. The results reveal that buoyant convection distorts the isothermal fields as the Richardson number increases, so does fluid flow penetration in the cavity. The results also reveal that as the Richardson number and volume fraction of hybrid nanoparticles increase, the average Nusselt number diminishes.