Effect of inlet and outlet location on the mixed convective cooling inside the ventilated cavity subjected to an external nanofluid

Abstract

In this paper, mixed convection flow and temperature fields in a vented square cavity subjected to an external copper–water nanofluid are studied numerically. The natural convection effect is attained by heating from the constant flux heat source on the bottom wall and cooling from the injected flow. In order to investigate the effect of inlet and outlet location, four different placement configurations of the inlet and outlet ports are considered. In each of them, both the inlet and outlet ports are alternatively located either on the top or the bottom of the sides and external flow enters in to the cavity through an inlet opening in the left vertical wall and exits from another opening in the opposite wall. The remaining boundaries are considered adiabatic. The governing equations have been solved using the finite volume approach, using SIMPLE algorithm on the collocated arrangement. The study has been carried out for the Reynolds number in the range of 50 ≤ Re ≤ 1000, with Richardson numbers 0 ≤ Ri ≤ 10 and for solid volume fraction 0 ≤ ϕ ≤ 0.05. Results are presented in the form of streamlines, isotherms, average Nusselt number. In addition, the effects of solid volume fraction of nanofluids on the hydrodynamic and thermal characteristics have been investigated and discussed. The algorithm and the computer code have been also compared with numerical results in order to verify and validate the model.