Natural convection in a square cavity with temperature dependent viscosity

Book · Sun Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1995

OSTI ID:458405

Mahdi, H S; Wedgworth, K R ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Texas-Pan American, Edinburg, TX (United States)

A finite volume (FV) approach with upwind convection is used to predict the two-dimensional unsteady flow in a square cavity. The fluid has constant properties except for the viscosity, which is temperature dependent. Natural convection is induced by differentially heated vertical walls. The formulation is made in terms of the energy, vorticity, and stream function. Biquadratic interpolation formulae are used to approximate the temperature, vorticity, and stream function over the finite volumes, to which the conservation laws are applied in integral form. Unsteady predictions are carried sufficiently forward in time to reach a steady state. Results are presented for a Rayleigh numbers equal to 10{sup 4}, 10{sup 5}, and 10{sup 6}. 11x11, 21x21, and 31x31 meshes are used. The steady state results were compared with published results obtained using constant fluid properties for the same Rayleigh number. The current numerical predictions are considered acceptable.

• OSTI ID: 458405
• Report Number(s): CONF-951135--; ISBN 0-7918-1751-2
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
CAVITIES
FINITE ELEMENT METHOD
NATURAL CONVECTION
SQUARE CONFIGURATION
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE
THEORETICAL DATA
UNSTEADY FLOW
VISCOSITY