Influences of Physical Parameters on Mixed Convection in a Horizontal Lid-Driven Cavity with an Undulating Base Surface

Abstract

The problem of steady, laminar, and incompressible mixed convection flow in a horizontal lid-driven cavity is studied. In this investigation, two vertical walls of the cavity are perfectly insulated and the wavy bottom wall is considered at an identical temperature higher than the top lid. The enclosure is assumed to be filled with a Bousinessq fluid. The study includes computations for different physical parameters, such as cavity aspect ratio (AR) from 0.5 to 2, amplitude of undulating wall (A) from 0 to 0.075, and number of undulations (λ) from 0 to 3. The pressure-velocity form of Navier-Stokes and energy equations are used to represent the mass, momentum, and energy conservations of the fluid medium in the cavity. The governing equations and boundary conditions are converted to dimensionless form and solved numerically by the penalty finite element method with discretization by triangular mesh elements. Flow and heat transfer characteristics are presented in terms of streamlines, isotherms, average Nusselt number (Nu), and maximum temperature (θ max ) of the fluid. Results show that the wavy lid-driven cavity can be considered an effective heat transfer mechanism at larger wavy surface amplitude, as well as the number of waves and cavity aspect ratio.