Study of mixed convection in two layers of saturated porous medium and nanofluid with rotating circular cylinder

Abstract

In this study, a numerical investigation of mixed convective heat transfer in a square enclosure partitioned in two layers with a rotating circular cylinder at the middle of the cavity has been carried out. The experiments are performed with Al2O3–water nanofluid (upper layer) and superposed porous medium (lower layer). The upper and lower horizontal walls are assumed to be insulated, while the left and right walls are kept at high and low temperature respectively. Galerkin finite element method has been used to solve the dimensionless governing equations. This study is focused to investigate the effect of Darcy number (10−2≤ Da ≤10−5), Rayleigh number (103≤ Ra≤106), dimensionless angular rotational velocity (−6000≤ W ≤ 6000), solid volume fraction (0≤ ɸ ≤0.06), and the radius of the inner circular cylinder (R = 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3) on the heat transfer, fluid flow, and the physical characteristics thermal of the thermal fields. The results show that the intensity of the flow, steep temperature gradient, and the average Nusselt number (Nu) increase with increasing the value of Darcy number, Rayleigh number, and solid volume fractions at any cylinder radius. Moreover, the recirculation and isotherm distribution lines of the fluid at low Darcy numbers are high when the cylinder rotates counter-clockwise compering with clockwise. The findings also revealed that when W = 0, the maximum Nu is at R = 0.1 and decreases as the cylinder radius increases. Moreover, at high Darcy number, the highest local Nusselt number is found at the porous layer region in case of clockwise rotation while at the nanofluid layer region in case of anti-clockwise rotation.