Natural convection and entropy generation in a large aspect ratio cavity with walls of finite thickness

Abstract

Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Malta, 16-18 July, 2012.In this work, the heat transfer and fluid flow process in a vertical cavity of large aspect ratio, AR = 12, with walls of finitethickness, heatedfrom twoportions localizedin the side walls of the cavity near the bottom, is studied. The equations of motion are written in non-dimensional form, depending of five non dimensional parameters (the Rayleigh number, the Prandtl number, the thermal and conductivity ratio of the fluid and the material of the cavity and the non-dimensional width of the walls) and are solved numerically by the use of the SIMPLE algorithm. Calculations were performed for three different values of the Rayleigh number for two values of the thickness of the wall, and fixed values for the rest of parameters