Study of mixed convection in square lid-driven with eccentric circular body

Abstract EN

In this study, a numerical simulation using a finite element scheme is carried out for a laminar steady mixed convection problem in a two-dimensional square cavity of length (L), containing eccentric adiabatic circular body of radius (r = 0.2 L).

The vertical walls of the cavity are differentially heated where the right wall is subjected to an isothermal temperature higher than that the opposite left lid.

Both the top and the bottom wall of the cavity are adiabatic.

Four different cases have been studied based on the location of the circular body.

Cases I, II, III and IV refer to the circular is located near the top, right, bottom and left walls of the cavity respectively.

Results are presented for upward (+y) and downward (-y) directions of the left lid in vertical axis and for different values of Richardson numbers (Ri = 0.1, 1 and 10).

The cavity under study is filled with air with Prandtle number is taken as 0.71.

Fluid flow and thermal fields and the local Nusselt number are presented for all four case studies.

The results shows that the behavior of temperature contours, streamlines and velocity profile is sensitive to the location of the circular body and to the direction of lid and this results explain also, that the maximum values of local Nusselt number occurs when the left lid moving downward (-y) refers to higher heat transfer.