Mixed convection heat transfer inside a differentially heated square enclosure in presence of a rotating heat conducting cylinder

Abstract

A numerical study of mixed convection heat transfer phenomena in a square cavity containing a heat conducting rotating cylinder has been investigated. A discrete isoflux heater is placed at the bottom wall of the enclosure while the top wall is kept adiabatic. Left and right sidewalls of the enclosure are assumed to be maintained at constant low temperature. A two-dimensional solution for steady laminar mixed convection flow is obtained by using the finite element scheme based on the Galerkin method of weighted residuals for different rotating speeds of the cylinder varying over the range of 0-1000 keeping the Rayleigh number fixed at 5×104 and the Prandtl number at 0.7. The effects of rotating speeds of the cylinder, its radius and conductivity ratio of the rotating cylinder and working fluid on the streamlines, isotherms, local Nusselt number, average Nusselt number and other heat transfer and fluid flow phenomena are investigated. The results indicate that the flow field, temperature distribution and h...