Title: Numerical investigation of two dimensional natural convection and entropy generation inside a porous square enclosure with sinusoidally heated wall

Authors: Prashant Meshram; Saurabh Bhardwaj; Amaresh Dalal

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, B.S.F. Polytechnic, Gwalior-475005, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati-781039, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati-781039, India

Abstract: In this paper, effect of sinusoidal heating on natural convection heat transfer and fluid flow has been studied in two dimensional square cavity saturated with porous medium. The governing equations have been formulated using Darcy-Forchheimer model and Boussinesq approximation. Finite volume method has been used to solve the governing equation. Computations are done for the wide range of Rayleigh number, Ra = 10³ − 10⁶ and Darcy number, Da = 10⁵ − 10³ considering air (Pr = 0.71) as working fluid. In this analysis, it is observed that in the presence of sinusoidal heating of the bottom wall, transition from conduction to convection mode of heat transfer occurs at 10⁴ ≤ Ra ≤ 10⁵. It is also found that at high Ra and high Da, fluid friction irreversibility dominates the heat transfer irreversibility in the cavity and the maximum entropy generation is found for Da = 10³ and Ra = 10⁶ in this parameteric study.

Keywords: natural convection; porous medium; square cavity; sinusoidal heating; entropy generation; porous square enclosures; heat transfer; fluid flow; finite volume method; fluid friction irreversibility.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2016.075150

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2016 Vol.16 No.2, pp.88 - 101

Received: 08 Mar 2014
Accepted: 24 Nov 2014
Published online: 05 Mar 2016 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article