NUMERICAL EXPERIMENTS WITH FLUID CONVECTION IN TILTED NONRECTANGULAR ENCLOSURES

Abstract

Numerical experiments were performed on an incompressible fluid contained in a tilted nonrectangular enclosure. Rayleigh numbers of l0²-l0⁵ and Prandtl numbers of 0.001-100 are considered. The wall angles are 22.5°, 45°, and 77.5° with aspect ratios of 3 and 6. Results indicate that the heat transfer and fluid motion within the enclosure are strong functions of Rayleigh number, Prandtl number, and orientation angle of the enclosure. For Rayleigh numbers greater than 1& and Prandtl numbers greater than 0.1, a minimum and a maximum mean Nusselt number occurred as the angle of orientation was increased from 0° to 360°. A transition in the mode of circulation occurred at the angles corresponding to the minimum or maximum rate of heat transfer.

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T. S. Lee

The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of a National University of Singapore research grant (RP890633) and the assistance of S. C. Yeo, L. H. Quek, and W. M. Ong during the course of this project.