Visualization of Heat Transport during Natural Convection Within Porous Triangular Cavities via Heatline Approach

Abstract

In this article, natural convection in a porous triangular cavity has been analyzed. Bejan's heatlines concept has been used for visualization of heat transfer. Penalty finite-element method with biquadratic elements is used to solve the nondimensional governing equations for the triangular cavity involving hot inclined walls and cold top wall. The numerical solutions are studied in terms of isotherms, streamlines, heatlines, and local and average Nusselt numbers for a wide range of parameters Da (10−5–10−3), Pr (0.015–1000), and Ra (Ra = 103–5 × 105). For low Darcy number (Da = 10−5), the heat transfer occurs due to conduction as the heatlines are smooth and orthogonal to the isotherms. As the Rayleigh number increases, conduction dominant mode changes into convection dominant mode for Da = 10−3, and the critical Rayleigh number corresponding to the on-set of convection is obtained. Distribution of heatlines illustrate that most of the heat transport for a low Darcy number (Da = 10−5) occurs from the top region of hot inclined walls to the cold top wall, whereas heat transfer is more from the bottom region of hot inclined walls to the cold top wall for a high Darcy number (Da = 10−3). Interesting features of streamlines and heatlines are discussed for lower and higher Prandtl numbers. Heat transfer analysis is obtained in terms of local and average Nusselt numbers (Nu l , Nu t ) and the local and average Nusselt numbers are found to be correlated with heatline patterns within the cavity.