Time-periodic natural convection in a pentagonal house with pitched roof during one day

Abstract

A numerical investigation of unsteady natural convective flow and heat transfer in a pentagonal house is performed. We set a sinusoidal periodic heat flux boundary condition for the pitched roof. Local radial basis function method and Fourier spectral method are adopted to solve the governing equations. The Rayleigh number varies from 103 to 105, the period of the roof heat flux ranges from 10 to 1,000, and the amplitude is set as 0.1, 0.3, and 0.5, respectively. It is found that all the control parameters significantly impact the fluid flow and heat transfer. The temperature and flow fields exhibit periodic behavior due to the sinusoidal heat source. The increasing Rayleigh number leads to a larger periodic average Nusselt number of the top and right walls and a smaller value of the bottom wall. Moreover, an obvious hysteresis phenomenon of heat transfer occurs especially for high Rayleigh number and large period.