CONTROL VOLUME FINITE ELEMENT NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF MIXED CONVECTION IN AN AIR-COOLED CAVITY

Abstract

This paper presents a numerical study of transient mixed convection of laminar flows in an air-cooled cavity in which a fluid is injected at a temperature lower than the initial temperature of the cavity. A control volume finite element method (CVFEM) using triangular elements is employed to discretize the governing equations. The performance of the numerical algorithm is first tested. In order to investigate the quality of the ventilation and cooling, the dynamic and thermal fields are numerically determined for a large range of Reynolds and Richardson numbers and for different inlet-outlet locations. Cooling efficiency is examined at transient and at steady regimes.