Effect of Hump Configurations of Porous Square Cavity on Free Convection Heat Transfer

Abstract

Free convection is widely used in engineering applications, including solar energy, electronic devices, nuclear energy, and heat exchangers. A computational simulation utilizing Ansys Fluent-CFD was employed to examine the natural convection heat transfer inside a square cavity filled with pure water and saturated metal foam as a porous medium (porosity ɛ =0.9). The enclosure's lower wavy wall exhibits a high temperature (Th), while the side and upper walls have a low temperature (Tc). For different Rayleigh numbers, the study examines hump configuration and the bottom wall hump number (N). The predominant design of heat transmission was improved using the circular hump design parameters of ɛ=0.9, N=4 and Tc= 25C˚ for different Ra. This resulted in significant improvements in heat transfer enhancement and energy enhancement which were enhanced by 1.13 times, for both. The authenticity research included determining the optimal design for the square enclosure. This involved estimating the effects of hump configure and number of humps for bottom wall of enclosure. These parameters have not been studied yet. The optimum case showed the highest heat transfer coefficient (h) at circular hump, N=4 and Ra = 30´103. While the standard case had N=0 and Ra = 5´103. The CFD simulation results indicate that the primary objective of the study was achieved through the optimal design, which resulted in a significant enhancement of hydrothermal performance for both heat transfer enhancement and energy enhancement 1.13 times compared to standard case.