Natural convection heat transfer between concentric rectangular parallelepipeds

Abstract

Natural convection heat transfer between concentric rectangular parallelpipeds was studied numerically for low Rayleigh numbers Ra(≦ 3500) with aspect ratios of the inner parallelepiped of 2.0, 4.0, 6.0, and 8.0. It has been found that the flow patterns for the higher Rayleigh numbers in the space over the inner parallelpiped are ring or rectangular rolls. The number of rolls increases with the aspect ratio. The flow pattern in the side space is an oblong circulation, which extends into the bottom space. The local Nusselt number distribution on the top surface of the inner parallelpiped has peaks at the stagnation points. The relation between the Nusselt and Rayleigh numbers on the top surface is similar to that of the Rayleigh–Benard convection obtained by Silveston (Chandrasekhar S.Hydrodynamic and Hydromagnetic Stability, 1961, p 68, Oxford University Press), while on the side and bottom surfaces the Nusselt number increases proportionately with the power of the Rayleigh number. © 2001 Scripta Technica, Heat Trans Asian Res, 30(2): 152–163, 2001