Laminar natural convection of Copper - Titania/Water hybrid nanofluid in an open ended C - shaped enclosure with an isothermal block

Abstract

A finite difference based, two dimensional numerical analysis on the laminar natural convection inside the differentially heated C - shaped open cavity with an isothermal square block is presented using the vorticity - stream function approach. The enclosure is filled up with hybrid nanofluid of Cu - TiO2/water. The left vertical wall is assumed as hot and the right wall is considered as cold wall. All the horizontal walls at the top and bottom are considered as adiabatic. The inlet port is located on the top right portion and the outlet is placed at the bottom right portion of the C shaped cavity. The square isothermal block of size L/5 is placed at the middle of the web of the cavity. The variables considered are Rayleigh number (104 to 106) and the solid hybrid particles (0 to 5%). The physics of the fluid flows with a single phase model are illustrated with streamlines, isotherms and average Nusselt number. When Rayleigh number increases, the strength of the primary vortex diminishes. Heat transfer enhanced monotically with the increase in percentage of hybrid nano composites at Ra=104 and 105.