Study of Mixed Convection Heat Transfer Inside a Vented Square Cavity with Inner Heated Cylinder

Abstract

The problem of mixed convection heat transfer for laminar air flow in a square cavity with
inner heated cylinder is numerically analyzed by finite element method using software
package (FlexPDF) to solve the conservation of governing equations. The right vertical wall
is kept at constant temperature and the others are adiabatic. An external flow enters the cavity
through an opening in the left vertical wall and exits from another opening in the right vertical
wall. Results of streamlines, isotherms, average temperature and average Nusselt number of
the heated wall are presented for Ri = 0 to 12, 50 Re 200, Pr = 0.71 and inlet position hi =
0.2. From the present analysis it is found that with increases of Re and Ri numbers the
convective heat transfer becomes predominant over the conduction heat transfer. The results
of streamlines and isotherms are compared with available result of Rahman et al.[8], a good
agreement has been achieved.