Comparison of different turbulence models and flow boundary conditions in predicting turbulent natural convection in a vertical channel with isoflux plates

Abstract EN

This paper presents the results of a numerical investigation of turbulent natural convection flow and heat transfer in a vertical parallel-plate open channel using six different turbulence models and four different inlet boundary conditions.

The turbulence models considered are the Standard and renormalization group (RNG) k −ε models and two different Low Reynolds number k −ε models in addition to two different versions of the Reynolds stress model (RSM).

The inlet boundary conditions considered include uniform inlet pressure, extended inlet geometry, radial inlet flow and uniform inlet velocity.

The flow and thermal fields obtained using these models and inlet conditions are compared to experimental data available in the literature.

The results indicate that the low Reynolds number k −ε model [1] and uniform pressure inlet condition exhibit close agreement with the experimental results.