Turbulent natural convection combined with thermal surface radiation inside an inclined cavity having local heater

Abstract

A numerical study of turbulent natural convection with thermal surface radiation inside an inclined square enclosure with a local heat source has been performed. The main attention is paid to the effect of the inclination angle on the fluid flow and heat transfer. Two-dimensional equations of conservation of mass, momentum and energy using the k–ε turbulence model have been solved by finite difference method. Localized heating has been simulated by a centrally located heat source on the bottom wall. The angle of inclination, changed from 0 to π, is used as a control parameter for heat transfer. A detailed numerical analysis has been conducted for a wide range of Rayleigh number of 108–1010 and surface emissivity 0≤ε˜≤0.9. The results show that a growth of the cavity inclination angle leads to a reduction of radiative Nusselt number. In general, it was found that the values of Rayleigh number, inclination angle and surface emissivity have significant effect on the temperature and stream function contours within the enclosure. Therefore, these parameters can be very good control parameters for fluid flow and heat transfer inside the cavity. The developed numerical method and obtained results can be widely used in different engineering problems, e.g. the simulation of air flow and heat transfer from heat-generating elements in power engineering. Moreover, the obtained results provide better technical support for development and research of electronic cooling systems.