Numerical Simulation of Turbulent Natural Convection of Air in a Rectangular Enclosure

Abstract

Turbulent natural convection of air inside a rectangular enclosure is studied numerically. The vertical surfaces of the enclosure are kept at constant temperature difference of 40K, with the hot surface at 313K and the opposite cold surface at 273K. The other surfaces are adiabatic. The finite volume based solver Fluent 6.3.26 with Boussinesq approximation was used to conduct the numerical study. The k – ω two equation RANS – based turbulence model was used for turbulent simulation. The velocity contours, streamlines, and isotherms have been studied on varying the aspect ratios of 0.5, 1 and 2 of the enclosure. Results have been represented graphically and from the interpretation, we can see that increasing the aspect ratio increases eddies at the top of the hot surface and at the bottom of the cold surface and the flow on the two vertical surfaces

Keywords: Natural Convection, Turbulence, Aspect Ratio, Numerical simulation