FINITE ELEMENT SOLUTIONS OF LAMINAR AND TURBULENT FLOWS WITH FORCED AND MIXED CONVECTION IN AN AIR-COOLED ROOM

Abstract

This article applies the finite element method to study characteristics of forced and mixed convection in an air-cooled room. Numerical solutions are obtained in both the laminar and turbulent regimes. The computed thermal and flow fields and the distributions of kinetic and thermal eddy energy as well as their dissipations are presented. The results show that air coating is not effective in the laminar mixed convection while in the turbulent flow the effect of air cooling is evident. Further, it is better to calculate the turbulent Prandtl number in mixed convection flow by the thermal turbulence two-equation model.

Notes

Address correspondence to Dr. Cha'o-Kuang Chen, Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Cheng-Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan 70101, Republic of China.