Buongiorno's model nanofluid natural convection inside a square cavity with thermal radiation

Abstract

Natural convection flow and heat transfer characteristics of Buongiorno's mathematical model nanofluid flow inside square cavity with isothermal conditions on both side walls and adiabatic conditions on top and bottom walls is studied numerically in this analysis. Finite difference method is employed to solve the governing partial differential equations formulated in stream function, nanoparticle volume fraction and temperature numerically. The results are presented in the form of streamlines, isotherms, isoconcentrations, local Nusselt number and Sherwood number for various values of influenced parameters, such as, Rayleigh number (100 ≤ Ra ≤ 300), buoyancy ratio parameter (0.1 ≤ Nr ≤ 0.9), Lewis number (1.0 ≤ Le ≤ 10), thermophoresis number (0.1 ≤ Nt ≤ 0.5), Brownian motion number (0.1 ≤ Nb ≤ 0.9) and radiation number (0.1 ≤ R ≤ 0.9) and are represented through graphs. It is detected that the values of rate of heat transfer elevates with rising values of Rayleigh number (Ra).