Numerical Simulation for Nanofluid Flow in a Wall Driven Cavity with Solid Hindrance: Impact of Thermal Conductivity Ratio and Heat Generation

Abstract

The current work performs the heatline revelation for combined convection of nanofluid within an enclosure with two moving walls at several thermal conductivity ratios plus heat generation parameter. A solid obstacle that produces uniform heat q per unit area is positioned at the middle of the domain. Sliding lids are assigned to the opposite side walls. Two cases: (I) vertical lids are moving in the same directions and (II) horizontal lids are moving in the opposite directions are analyzed. The computational fluid throughout the enclosed space is water-alumina nanofluid. The Finite Element Method of Galerkin’s weighted residual technique is used to solve the governing nonlinear partial differential equations. Numerical estimations are conducted for a wide range of solid fluid thermal conductivity ratio (0.2 ≤ K ≤ 50) and heat generation parameter (1 ≤ Q ≤ 4) for both cases. Outcomes are obtained as streamlines, isothermal lines, heatlines, heat transfer rate and average heat flow. The results show that the heat flux magnitude is higher for case II than case I but the rate of heat transfer stays nearly same for both cases which increase for the increment of Q and decrement of K. Finally, correlations have been established between the heatfunction with parameters K and Q. There exist strong correlations between the variables which measured from the R-squared values.