Finite Volume Simulation of Steady Laminer Natural Convection Heat Transfer Through a Mercury –filled Triangular Enclosure with an Isothemal Cold Side Walls and an Isothemal Hot Bottom Wall.

Abstract

Thermal and flow fields due to laminar steady natural convection in a triangular enclosure having thick conducting sidewalls have been investigated numerically. Inclined left and right side walls are maintained at isothermal cold temperatures while the bottom wall is maintained at isothermal hot temperature. Problem has been analyzed and the non-dimensional governing equations are solved using finite volume approach and employing more nodes at the fluid – solid interface. Triangular enclosure is assumed to be filled with mercury as a liquid metal with a Prandtl number of 0.026. Rayleigh number varies from 104 to 106 where the flow and thermal fields are computed for various Rayleigh numbers. Consequently, it was observed that the stream function and temperature contours strongly change with high Rayleigh number.The streamline and isotherm plots and the variations of the average Nusselt number at the hot bottom wall and the cold inclined side walls are also presented. The results explained a good agreement with another published results.