HIGHER ORDER PENALTY-GALERKIN FINITE ELEMENT APPROACH TO LAMINAR NATURAL CONVECTION IN A SQUARE CAVITY

Abstract

The performance of a penalty-Galerkin finite element method with quartic triangular elements when applied to laminar natural convection in a square cavity with differentially heated vertical walk and adiabatic horizontal walls is studied. The numerical calculations were carried out for Rayleigh numbers of 10⁴ 10⁵, 10⁶, and 10⁷ on several successively refined meshes. The computational results are presented in terms of velocity components, temperature, stream function, and Nusselt number. The numerical procedure adopted in the present study yields consistent performance with respect to mesh refinement, and comparisons with previously published results indicate fairly close agreements.

Notes

Address correspondence to Seppo Syrjala, Energy and Process Engineering, Tampere University of Technology, P.O. Box 589, 33101 Tampere, Finland.