Modeling and simulation of hybrid Casson nanofluid mixed convection in a partly heated trapezoidal enclosure

Abstract

The current article aimed to model and analyze hybrid Casson nanofluid mixed convection in the partly heated enclosure using the finite element method. In this model, Al203−Cu hybrid nanofluid is considered. The computations are carried out for a variety of model parameters, including the Richardson number (between 0.1 and 100), the parameter of Casson fluid (between 0.1 and 1), and the volume fraction of hybrid nanoparticles (between 0% and 2%). The solution domain is discretized using a finite element mesh with uniform triangular elements. The unknown values of the governing equations were approximated using interpolation functions within those finite elements. It is scrutinized that, the plot of temperature contours varies when the Richardson number Ri changes. The contours of the temperature are more concentrated at the bottom wall than on the non-parallel side walls, due to the presence of hot temperature at the bottom wall of the enclosure. The inclusion of hybrid nanoparticles demonstrates that the stream function drops to some amount as the volume percentage of hybrid nanoparticles increases. Further, when the small value of Ri is considered, the heat transfer rate is found to be minimum due to lower fluid inertia and then heat transfer behaviors change rapidly by increasing Ri which is caused by the domination of fluid inertia.