THREE-DIMENSIONAL LAMINAR BUOYANT FLOW IN A HORIZONTAL CIRCULAR CYLINDER WITH DIFFERENTIALLY HEATED END WALLS AT HIGH RAYLEIGH NUMBERS

Abstract

A numerical study is made of natural convection inside a horizontal cylinder with differentially heated ends. The geometric aspect ratio L/R is taken to be 2.0, and the Rayleigh number varies from 10 ⁴ to 10 ⁷ . The approach is based on primitive-variable finite differences discretized in generalized orthogonal coordinates. The governing equations are given in curvilinear orthogonal coordinates and the corresponding finite-difference control-volume formulation is presented. The resulting flow and temperature fields are compared to those known for other aspect ratios and Rayleigh numbers. Overall heat transfer data have also been obtained and compared with those from several approximate theories.