Thermal convection and entropy generation of ferrofluid in an enclosure containing a solid body

Abstract

Purpose

This study/paper aims to deal with thermal convection and entropy production of a ferrofluid in an enclosure having an isothermally warmed solid body placed inside. It should be noted that this research deals with a development of passive cooling system for the electronic devices.

Design/methodology/approach

The domain of interest is a square chamber of size L including a rectangular solid block of sizes l₁ and l₂. Thermal convection of ferrofluid (water–Fe₃O₄ nanosuspension) is analyzed within this enclosure. The solid body is considered to be isothermal with temperature T_h and also its area is L²/9. The vertical borders are cold with temperature T_c and the horizontal boundaries are adiabatic. The flow driven by temperature gradient in the cavity is two-dimensional. The governing equations, formulated in dimensionless primitive variables with corresponding initial and boundary conditions, are worked out by using the finite volume technique with the semi-implicit method for pressure-linked equations algorithm on a uniformly staggered mesh. The influence of nanoparticles volume fraction, aspect ratio of the solid block and an irreversibility ratio on energy transport and flow patterns are examined for the Rayleigh number Ra = 10⁷.

Findings

The results show that the nanoparticles concentration augments the thermal transmission and the entropy production increases also, while the augmentation of temperature difference results in a diminution of entropy production. Finally, lower aspect ratio has the significant impact on heat transfer, isotherms, streamlines and entropy.

Originality/value

An efficient numerical technique has been developed to solve this problem. The originality of this work is to analyze convective energy transport and entropy generation in a chamber with internal block. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the effects of irreversibility ratio are scrutinized for the first time. The results would benefit scientists and engineers to become familiar with the analysis of convective heat transfer and entropy production in enclosures with internal isothermal blocks, and the way to predict the heat transfer rate in advanced technical systems, in industrial sectors including transportation, power generation, chemical sectors, electronics, etc.

Citation

Chinnasamy, S., Priyadharsini, S. and Sheremet, M. (2021), "Thermal convection and entropy generation of ferrofluid in an enclosure containing a solid body", International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, Vol. 31 No. 9, pp. 2940-2961. https://doi.org/10.1108/HFF-08-2020-0494