Numerical investigation of convective cooling in a rectangular vented cavity with two inlets and a hot obstacle

Abstract

The current numerical study analyzes an air-filled vented cavity of AR 1.5 with two inlets and one outlet under laminar convective flow. Rayleigh’s number is varied between 103 and 106. The inlets are located at the bottom of the vertical walls, whereas the outlet is placed in the middle of the top wall. The vertical walls are hot, and the influence of Rayleigh’s number is studied in this configuration. With each rise in Ra, the thermal recirculation increased, which increased the temperature in that region. The influence of the presence of a hot block is analyzed by placing a hot block at the center of the bottom wall. The impact of the block’s dimensionless width and depth is studied by varying each value from 0.2H to 0.8H, keeping the other perpendicular dimension as 0.3H. The flow field, thermal field, velocity components, and heat transfer rates were analyzed. The presence of a hot block creates a hydrodynamic blockage and shifts the streamlines. The findings show that when the block’s size is increased parallel to the hot wall, the heat transfer rate is higher than the other direction variation. Correlation relationships for the overall Nusselt number with other variables are attained with two power models.