Thermosolutal mixed convection of a shear thinning fluid due to partially active mixed zones within a lid-driven cavity

Abstract

In this paper, a generalized forced convective flow inside a cubical enclosure filled with a non-Newtonian power-law fluids is carried out numerically. The flow is influenced due to a discrete temperature and mass gradients along its short side walls. The non-Newtonian fluid considered here are described by the power-law model (also known as the Ostwald–de Waele model), which leads to a relationship between the shear stress and shear rate. The fluid is assumed to be laminar, incompressible and suppose to satisfy the Boussinesq approximation. A detailed physical insights into the flow, heat and mass transfer effects due to the different physical parameters such as Reynolds number (0<Re⩽200), Grashof number (GrT=100), power law index (0.2⩽n⩽1) and Lewis number (1⩽Le⩽10) are presented. Comparison of the present result with the published results are found to be satisfactory for wide range of physical parameters. The results reveal that the location and length of the heating and cooling zones has a significant contribution on the flow, heat and mass transfer. The rate of heat transfer is found to be maximum on minimizing the heat source length and maximizing the power law index.