Numerical Simulations of an Unsteady Confined Natural Convection Flow

Author(s):  
Gillian Leplat ◽  
Emmanuel Laroche ◽  
Philippe Reulet ◽  
Pierre Millan

A two-dimensional numerical analysis of a laminar natural convection flow within an air-filled enclosure is proposed in this paper from an unstable configuration previously studied experimentally. The flow is driven by a heated square-section cylinder located at the center of a square-section enclosure. Instabilities are observed for an aspect ratio (height of the cylinder over the height of the cavity) of 0.4 and cause the flow to turn into a three-dimensional and unsteady regime characterized by a symmetry breaking and large scale high amplitude flappings around the cylinder. The multi-physic computational software CEDRE, developed at the ONERA, is used to study this unstable behavior and a time-dependent compressible flow solver is used to perform the two-dimensional simulations under the low Mach number approximation, corresponding to the mid-depth cross-section of the enclosure from the experimental configuration. The first results on the investigation of the first unstable modes confirm the onset of the instabilities at the Rayleigh number of the experiment with asymmetrical motions of the fluid around the cylinder. Further analyses highlight the critical Rayleigh number that defines the instability threshold of the first bifurcation which origin and nature could have been identified. Finally, joint fluid-solid simulations are performed to determine more precisely the role of boundary conditions in the onset of instabilities.

2016 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roushanara Begum ◽  
MZI Bangalee

Effects of different boundary conditions at the surfaces of the extended computational domain on buoyancy driven natural convection flow in a three dimensional open cavity are studied numerically. This study is carried out for turbulent flow where Rayleigh number is greater than 108. Air is used as working fluid having properties at 25°C temperature and 1atm pressure. To capture the turbulent nature of the flow k - ? model is used. ANSYS CFX software is used to solve the governing equations subject to the corresponding boundary conditions. The methodology is verified through a satisfactory comparison with some published results. Average mass flow, temperature, stream line, contour velocity and velocity profile are studied at different height. An extended computational domain around the physical domain of the cavity at different surrounding conditions is considered to investigate the effect of its existence on the computation. Effects of different surrounding boundary conditions on the physical domain of the cavity are studied and reported.A relation among non-dimensional parameters such as Nusselt number, Rayleigh number, Prandlt number and Reynolds number is also reported.Dhaka Univ. J. Sci. 64(1): 31-37, 2016 (January)


1994 ◽  
Vol 116 (2) ◽  
pp. 400-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. W. M. Henkes ◽  
C. J. Hoogendoorn

By numerically solving the Reynolds equations for air and water in a square cavity, with differentially heated vertical walls, at Rayleigh numbers up to 1020 the scalings of the turbulent natural convection flow are derived. Turbulence is modeled by the standard k–ε model and by the low-Reynolds-number k–ε models of Chien and of Jones and Launder. Both the scalings with respect to the Rayleigh number (based on the cavity size H) and with respect to the local height (y/H) are considered. The scalings are derived for the inner layer, outer layer, and core region. The Rayleigh number scalings are almost the same as the scalings for the natural convection boundary layer along a hot vertical plate. The scalings found are almost independent of the k–ε model used.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cui Huimin ◽  
Xu Feng ◽  
C. Saha Suvash ◽  
Liu Qingkuan

2007 ◽  
Vol 586 ◽  
pp. 259-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. X. TRIAS ◽  
M. SORIA ◽  
A. OLIVA ◽  
C. D. PÉREZ-SEGARRA

A set of complete two- and three-dimensional direct numerical simulations (DNS) in a differentially heated air-filled cavity of aspect ratio 4 with adiabatic horizontal walls is presented in this paper. Although the physical phenomenon is three-dimensional, owing to its prohibitive computational costs the majority of the previous DNS of turbulent and transition natural convection flows in enclosed cavities assumed a two-dimensional behaviour. The configurations selected here (Rayleigh number based on the cavity height 6.4 × 108, 2 × 109 and 1010, Pr = 0.71) are an extension to three dimensions of previous two-dimensional problems.An overview of the numerical algorithm and the methodology used to verify the code and the simulations is presented. The main features of the flow, including the time-averaged flow structure, the power spectra and probability density distributions of a set of selected monitoring points, the turbulent statistics, the global kinetic energy balances and the internal waves motion phenomenon are described and discussed.As expected, significant differences are observed between two- and three-dimensional results. For two-dimensional simulations the oscillations at the downstream part of the vertical boundary layer are clearly stronger, ejecting large eddies to the cavity core. In the three-dimensional simulations these large eddies do not persist and their energy is rapidly passed down to smaller scales of motion. It yields on a reduction of the large-scale mixing effect at the hot upper and cold lower regions and consequently the cavity core still remains almost motionless even for the highest Rayleigh number. The boundary layers remain laminar in their upstream parts up to the point where these eddies are ejected. The point where this phenomenon occurs clearly moves upstream for the three-dimensional simulations. It is also shown that, even for the three-dimensional simulations, these eddies are large enough to permanently excite an internal wave motion in the stratified core region. All these differences become more marked for the highest Rayleigh number.


Author(s):  
M Saleem ◽  
S Asghar ◽  
M A Hossain

The transient two-dimensional natural convection flow of Newtonian fluid in an open rectangular cavity has been studied numerically. The flow is induced due to constant internal heat generation. The alternate direct implicit (ADI) finite difference, together with upwind finite-difference scheme and successive over relaxation method, are used to solve the non-dimensional equations numerically. Effects of Rayleigh number, Ra, Prandtl number, Pr, and cavity aspect ratio, A, on the flow patterns and isotherms as well as on the heat transfer rate are studied graphically. The maximum temperature induced due to the constant volumetric heat source is found with the increase in cavity width, and to decrease with the increase in Prandtl number and Rayleigh number. The numerical model employed here is found to be in good agreement with the previous work.


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