Natural Convection in Porous Square Cavities with Discrete Heat Sources on Bottom and Side Walls

Wiratchada Kalaoka, Supot Witayangkurn

Abstract

A numerical study of natural convection flow in porous square cavities with discrete heat sources is studied in this paper. Two cases depending on varying the positions of discrete heat sources on the walls are considered. For case 1, two heat sources are located at the lower portion on the side walls while they are located at the upper for case 2. Both of case 1 and case 2, there is one heat source located at the center portion on the bottom wall and the top wall is adiabatic. The study is performed for different Darcy numbers, (Da = 10−4 − 10−2) while Rayleigh number (Ra = 105) and Prandtl number (Pr = 0.72) are kept constant. FlexPDE 6.14 student version is used to solve the governing equations which is based on the finite element method. The results are displayed in the terms of isotherms, streamlines and heatlines. It is found that the temperature distribution is more distributed in the cavities. The strength of convection is stronger as seen from the greater magnitudes of streamfunctions. Thermal mixing is intensified which is shown by the formation of heatlines cells.