Thermal Convection Inside Three-Dimensional Differentially Heated Cavity Under Laminar and Transitional Flow Conditions

Abstract

The study presents the heat transfer phenomena of steady buoyancy driven flows inside a three-dimensional square enclosure. The thermal boundary condition of this enclosure are the vertical side walls are maintained at constant temperature difference and all the other walls are adiabatic. Reynolds averaged Navier stokes (RANS) equations are used to model the flow phenomena inside the enclosure, these equations are discretized using finite difference method (FDM) based Fortran code which was developed in house. The study is done for varying Grashof numbers 105 ≤ Gr ≤ 107 and a constant Prandtl number 6.2. The results indicated that as the Grashof number increases the temperature along the enclosure decreases by 24.2% and the rate of transfer of heat inside the enclosure increased by 26%.