Effect of Various Tilted Positions of a Thin Fin on Natural Convection of Laminar Viscous Flow in a Square Cavity

Abstract

An exhaustive numerical investigation is carried out to analyze the role of an isothermal heated thin fin on fluid flow and temperature distribution visualization in an enclosure. Natural convection within square enclosures finds remarkable pragmatic applications. In the present study, a finite difference approach is performed on two-dimensional laminar flow inside an enclosure with cold side walls and adiabatic horizontal walls. The fluid flow equations are reconstructed into vorticity - stream function formulation and these equations are employed utilizing the finite-difference strategy with incremental time steps. The parametric study includes a wide scope of Rayleigh number, Ra, and inclination angle ϴ of the thin fin. The effect of different Rayleigh numbers ranging Ra = 104-106 with Pr=0.71 for all the inclination angles from 0°-360° with uniform rotational length of angle 450 of an inclined heated fin on fluid flow and heat transfer have been investigated. The heat transfer rate within the enclosure is measured by means of local and average Nusselt numbers. Regardless of inclination angles of the thin fin, a slight enhancement in the average Nusselt number is observed when Rayleigh number increased for both the cases of the horizontal and vertical position of the thin fin. When the fin has inclined no change in average Nusselt number is noticed for distinct Rayleigh numbers.