Title: A lattice Boltzmann model for natural convection with a large temperature difference

Authors: Xin-Rong Zhang, Yuhui Cao

Addresses: Department of Energy and Resource Engineering, College of Engineering, Peking University, Room 301, Fangzheng Building, No. 298 Chengfulu Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100871, China. ' Department of Energy and Resource Engineering, College of Engineering, Peking University, Room 301, Fangzheng Building, No. 298 Chengfulu Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100871, China

Abstract: A Variable Property Thermal Lattice BGK (VPTLBGK) model is proposed for the natural convection with a large temperature difference. The basic idea is replacing constant relaxation times by spatially varying ones so that the variable transport coefficients in LBE are realised. Numerical results show that the VPTLBGK model is effective in studying the variable property effects. It is found that a Rayleigh-number-dependent power-law relation is satisfied between the Nusselt number and the Rayleigh number for the natural convection with variable transport coefficients.

Keywords: natural convection; variable property effects; heat transfer; LBM; lattice Boltzmann method; temperature differences; modelling; transport coefficients.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2011.042179

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2011 Vol.11 No.5, pp.269 - 278

Published online: 31 Aug 2011 *

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