Hydromagnetic natural convective heat transfer flow in an isosceles triangular cavity filled with nanofluid using two-component nonhomogeneous model

Abstract

In this paper, a numerical investigation is presented to study Buongiorno's mathematical model for hydromagnetic free convection flow in an isosceles triangular cavity filled with nanofluid. The inclined walls of the cavity are maintained at constant cold temperature whereas various combinations of the thermal boundary conditions at the bottom heated wall are considered. The cavity is permeated by an inclined uniform magnetic field and the effects of Brownian motion and thermophoresis are incorporated into the nanofluid model. The Galerkin weighted residual finite element method has been employed to solve the governing partial differential equations after converting them into a non-dimensional form using a suitable transformation of variables. In the numerical simulations, alumina-water based nanofluid has been taken into account. Comparisons with previously published work are performed and excellent agreement is obtained. The effects of various parameters such as Hartmann number, Rayleigh number and inclined magnetic field angle on streamlines, isotherms and isoconcentrations have been displayed graphically. The heat transfer augmentation for various combination of model parameters as well as various thermal boundary conditions have been done in light of the average Nusselt number from the bottom heated wall. The results show that the heat transfer rate can be decreased with the increasing values of the Hartmann number and inclination angle of the magnetic field but it can be increased by increasing the Rayleigh number and by reducing the diameter of the nanoparticles. The obtained numerical results also indicate that the variable thermal boundary conditions have significant effects on the flow and thermal fields.