TY - JOUR
TI - Natural convection air flow in vertical upright-angled triangular cavities under realistic thermal boundary conditions
AU - Sieres Jaime
AU - Campo Antonio
AU - Martínez-Súarez José Antonio
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2016
VL - 20
IS - 5
SP - 1407
EP - 1420
PT - Article
AB - This paper presents an analytical and numerical computation of laminar  natural convection in a collection of vertical upright-angled triangular  cavities filled with air. The vertical wall is heated with a uniform heat  flux; the inclined wall is cooled with a uniform temperature; while the upper  horizontal wall is assumed thermally insulated. The defining aperture angle φ  is located at the lower vertex between the vertical and inclined walls. The  finite element method is implemented to perform the computational analysis of  the conservation equations for three aperture angles φ (= 15º, 30º and 45º)  and height-based modified Rayleigh numbers ranging from a low Ra = 0 (pure  conduction) to a high 109. Numerical results are reported for the velocity  and temperature fields as well as the Nusselt numbers at the heated vertical  wall. The numerical computations are also focused on the determination of the  value of the maximum or critical temperature along the hot vertical wall and  its dependence with the modified Rayleigh number and the aperture angle.