Coupled heat transfer through an alveolar structure heated by a uniform heat flux

Abstract

Abstract Coupled heat transfers through alveolar structures submitted to uniform heat flux are little studied, even for cavities with low aspect ratio. This work presents a numerical study of combined heat transfer through an alveolar structure. The hot wall is heated by a uniform flux while the cold wall is kept isothermal at a constant temperature. Natural convection, conduction heat transfer in the solid partitions and radiation exchange between gray and diffuse surfaces are accounted for. The governing equations for conservation of mass, momentum and energy are discretized by the finite volume approach and solved by the SIMPLE algorithm. The effects of the Rayleigh number, the number of holes in a vertical row on the heat transfer and flow structures are presented and analyzed. The results show that the heat transfer through the system could be considerably decreased by using an alveolar structure having four holes in a vertical row.