Laminar mixed convection in shallow inclined driven cavities with hot moving lid on top and cooled from bottom

• Published in: Applied thermal engineering 2007-04, Vol.27 (5), p.1036-1042
• Main Author: Sharif, M.A.R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Driven cavities; Energy; Energy. Thermal use of fuels; Exact sciences and technology; Heat transfer; Inclined cavities; Mixed convection; Numerical simulation; Theoretical studies. Data and constants. Metering
• ISSN: 1359-4311
• DOI: 10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2006.07.035

Laminar mixed convective heat transfer in two-dimensional shallow rectangular driven cavities of aspect ratio 10 is studied numerically. The top moving lid of the cavity is at a higher temperature than the bottom wall. Computations are performed for Rayleigh numbers ranging from 10 5 to 10 7 keeping the Reynolds number fixed at 408.21, thus encompassing the dominating forced convection, mixed convection, and dominating natural convection flow regimes. The fluid Prandtl number is taken as 6 representing water. The effects of inclination of the cavity on the flow and thermal fields are investigated for inclination angles ranging from 0° to 30°. Interesting behaviours of the flow and thermal fields with increasing inclination are observed. The streamline and isotherm plots and the variation of the local and average Nusselt numbers at the hot and cold walls are presented. The average Nusselt number is found to increase with cavity inclination. The rate of increase of the average Nusselt number with cavity inclination is mild for dominating forced convection case while it is much steeper in dominating natural convection case.