THERMAL SCIENCE

International Scientific Journal

Authors of this Paper

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Walid Aich

,

Imen Hajri

,

Ahmed Omri

NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF NATURAL CONVECTION IN A PRISMATIC ENCLOSURE

ABSTRACT
Natural convection heat transfer and fluid flow have been examined numerically using the control-volume finite-element method in an isosceles prismatic cavity, submitted to a uniform heat flux from below when inclined sides are maintained isothermal and vertical walls are assumed to be perfect thermal insulators, without symmetry assumptions for the flow structure. The aim of the study is to examine a pitchfork bifurcation occurrence. Governing parameters on heat transfer and flow fields are the Rayleigh number and the aspect ratio of the enclosure. It has been found that the heated wall is not isothermal and the flow structure is sensitive to the aspect ratio. It is also found that heat transfer increases with increasing of Rayleigh number and decreases with increasing aspect ratio. The effects of aspect ratio become significant especially for higher values of Rayleigh number. Eventually the obtained results show that a pitchfork bifurcation occurs at a critical Rayleigh number, above which the symmetric solutions becomes unstable and asymmetric solutions are instead obtained.
KEYWORDS
Rayleigh number, nusselt number, natural convection, prismatic cavity, heat transfer
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2009-07-20
PAPER REVISED: 2009-12-27
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2010-01-03
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI1102437A
CITATION EXPORT: view in browser or download as text file
THERMAL SCIENCE YEAR 2011, VOLUME 15, ISSUE Issue 2, PAGES [437 - 446]
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Numerical analysis of natural convection in a prismatic enclosure

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