EFFECT OF PRANDTL NUMBER AND COMPUTATIONAL SCHEMES ON THE OSCILLATORY NATURAL CONVECTION IN AN ENCLOSURE

Abstract

Numerical calculations were carried out for natural convection of low-Prandtl-number fluid. These calculations include the inertial terms that were approximated by six kinds of schemes, i.e., upwind scheme, hybrid scheme, second-order central difference method, Kawamura-Kuwahara scheme, Utopia scheme, and fourth-order central difference method. The average Nusselt number depended significantly on the schemes. The occurrence of oscillatory flow also depended on the schemes for inertial terms. Higher order up-winding approximations for inertial terms appear to be required to calculate natural convection of low-Prandtl-number fluids like liquid metal, even if the Rayleigh number is not large enough.

Notes

Address correspondence to Dr. Hiroyuki Ozoe, Institute of Advanced Material Study, Kyushu University, Kasuga, Fukuoka 816, Japan.