Laminar natural/mixed convection of high viscosity fluid in a square cavity

Book · Tue Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1996

OSTI ID:428127

Guo, Z Y; Qi, J W ^[1]; Lloyd, J R ^[2]

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1. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China). Dept. of Engineering Mechanics
2. Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI (United States). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

A numerical study from the viewpoint of the relative magnitude of inertial to viscous effects have been carried out for laminar natural/mixed convections in a two-dimensional differentially heated square cavity. Results indicate that the natural/mixed convection can be divided into three flow regimes according to Rayleigh number: the boundary layer, the transition and the creeping motion regimes. For the boundary layer regime, the large Prandtl number leads to a reduction in both boundary layer thickness and characteristic velocity. The characteristic velocity is therefore proportional to {radical}(Gr/Pr). For the creeping motion regime, the characteristic velocity is proportional to Gr and independent on Pr, and the Nusselt number approaches 1. For the laminar mixed convection, the quantity measuring the relative importance of natural to forced convection is Gr/(Re{sup 2}Pr) for the boundary regime and Gr/Re for the creeping motion regime.

• OSTI ID: 428127
• Report Number(s): CONF-960815--; ISBN 0-7918-1506-4
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
CAVITIES
FORCED CONVECTION
LAMINAR FLOW
NATURAL CONVECTION
NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
THEORETICAL DATA