Free convective flow in an enclosure with a cooled inclined upper surface

Abstract

Natural convective air flow in an enclosure with a horizontal lower wall, vertical side-walls and a straight inclined top wall has been numerically studied. The lower wall is at a uniform high temperature while the top wall is cooled to a uniform lower temperature. The temperature of the side-walls varies in a prescribed way between the temperatures of the bottom and top walls. This flow situation is related to that occurring in a proposed system for use in “developing” countries for drying crops such as corn and rice. It has been assumed that the flow is steady, laminar, and two-dimensional and that the fluid properties are constant except for the density change with temperature that gives rise to the buoyancy forces. The governing equations have been expressed in terms of stream function and vorticity and written in dimensionless form. The finite element method has been used to obtain the solution to these dimensionless equations. Results have been obtained for enclosures with aspect ratios of between 0.25 and 1 for top surface angles of inclination of between 0 and 45° and for Rayleigh numbers, based on the enclosure width, of between 1000 and 107. The results have been used to study the effect of changes in the governing parameters on the flow pattern in the enclosure and on the mean heat transfer rate to the upper surface.