Influences of aspect ratio and wall boundary condition on laminar Rayleigh–Bénard convection of Bingham fluids in rectangular enclosures
International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow
ISSN: 0961-5539
Article publication date: 6 February 2017
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the aspect ratio (AR; ratio of enclosure height:length) dependence of steady-state Rayleigh–Bénard convection of Bingham fluids within rectangular enclosures for both constant wall temperature and constant wall heat flux boundary conditions. A nominal Rayleigh number range 103 ≤ Ra ≤ 105 (Ra defined based on the height) for a single representative value of nominal Prandtl number (i.e. Pr = 500) has been considered for 1/4 ≤ AR ≤ 4.
Design/methodology/approach
The bi-viscosity Bingham model is used to mimic Bingham fluids for Rayleigh–Bénard convection of Bingham fluids in rectangular enclosures. The conservation equations of mass, momentum and energy have been solved in a coupled manner using the finite volume method where a second-order central differencing scheme is used for the diffusive terms and a second-order up-wind scheme is used for the convective terms. The well-known semi-implicit method for pressure-linked equations algorithm is used for the coupling of the pressure and velocity.
Findings
It has been found that buoyancy-driven flow strengthens with increasing nominal Rayleigh number Ra, but the convective transport weakens with increasing Bingham number Bn, because of additional flow resistance arising from yield stress in Bingham fluids. The relative contribution of thermal conduction (advection) to the total thermal transport strengthens (diminishes) with increasing AR for a given set of values of Ra and Pr for both Newtonian and Bingham fluids for both boundary conditions, and the thermal transport takes place purely because of conduction for tall enclosures.
Originality/value
Correlations for the mean Nusselt number
Keywords
Citation
Yigit, S. and Chakraborty, N. (2017), "Influences of aspect ratio and wall boundary condition on laminar Rayleigh–Bénard convection of Bingham fluids in rectangular enclosures", International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 310-333. https://doi.org/10.1108/HFF-09-2015-0366
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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