Natural convection in a differentially heated cavity with a square obstruction on the sidewall

Abstract

Natural convection in a differentially heated cavity with a square obstruction placed in the middle of the hot wall is investigated numerically. The results demonstrate that, firstly, the thermal boundary layer flow, blocked by the obstruction, forms a lower intrusion front, which then detaches from the hot wall, bypasses the obstruction, and reattaches to the thermal boundary layer. While the reattachment occurs, a complicated flow with circulations is induced, and the heat transfer through the hot wall is significantly enhanced.

Keywords:

• Natural convection
• differentially heated cavity
• obstruction
• heat transfer

Additional information

Notes on contributors

F Xu

Feng Xu has been Research Associate of Civil and Environmental Engineering at James Cook University since 2006. Prior to joining JCU, Feng was appointed Research Assistant in 1992 and promoted to Research Associate in 1999 at Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Since 2004, he has also been appointed Research and Teaching Assistant in School of Engineering at JCU.

Feng obtained his B.S. in Oceanography at Ocean University of China and his M.S. in fluid mechanics at Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2003, he won IPRS scholarship and joined into JCU for his PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering. His research activities include industrial and environmental fluid mechanisms through theoretical analyses, numerical simulations and laboratory experiments. In 1993, Feng was awarded the First Prize of Best Papers of Urban Environment & Ecology Journal of China for a paper on Numerical Modeling of Water Quality and Forecast of Pollution Capacity in River Nets. Recently, his research has extended to natural convection and enhancement of heat transfer.

J C Patterson

Professor John Patterson is a Professor of Engineering in the School of Engineering at James Cook University. Until 2006, he was Head of the School of Engineering at JCU. Prior to moving to JCU in 1996, he was Head of the Department of Environmental Engineering at the University of WA.

John’s research activities have historically covered a wide range of topics, including reservoir and estuary dynamics, mixing and water quality modelling. His current research interests lie in the area of buoyancy driven flows, with particular emphasis on thermal natural convection. He has published over 100 international journal and refereed conference papers, and has given a number of invited presentations at international conferences. He has received over $6 million in research grants from the Australian Research Council and other National Competitive Grants.

C Lei

Chengwang Lei is a Senior Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at James Cook University. His current research is mainly focused on natural convection heat transfer, which covers topics such as natural convection induced exchange flows and mixing in natural water bodies, heat transfer through attics of buildings, and enhancement of heat transfer through a differentially heated cavity. He also has experience in both experimental and numerical modelling of vortex shedding flows over circular cylinders with applications to offshore pipelines. Since 1997, Chengwang has published over 40 refereed papers in international journals and conferences. He has been invited to review technical papers for a number of international journals including International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat and Fluid Flow, Journal of Heat Transfer, Numerical Heat Transfer, Heat Transfer Engineering and Journal of Fluids and Structures.

Chengwang obtained his Bachelor and Master degrees in Mechanical Engineering at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China, and his PhD degree in Civil and Resource Engineering at The University of Western Australia. Prior to taking up a Lecturer position at James Cook University in 2003, he was an ARC Australian Postdoctoral Fellow. He also had three years industrial experience as a Mechanical Engineer in a machinery company in China. Currently, he is lecturing in areas of thermodynamics, heat and mass transfer, refrigeration and air-conditioning, and dynamics and acoustics.