Natural Convection Heat Transfer of Copper–Water Nanofluid in a Square Cavity With Time-Periodic Boundary Temperature

Abstract

This paper presents a numerical study of natural convective heat transfer of copper–water nanofluid in a square enclosure where the temperature of the left vertical sidewall is sinusoidally oscillated with a constant average temperature, the right sidewall is cooled at a relatively low temperature, and the other walls are kept adiabatic. The influence of pertinent parameters such as Rayleigh number, solid volume fraction of copper nanoparticles, and dimensionless time period on the heat transfer characteristics is studied. The results show that the heat transfer rate increases using copper nanoparticles.

Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (number 51266006), the Natural Science Foundation of Gansu Province, China (number 1014RJZA030), and the Scientific Research Development Foundation of Lanzhou University of Technology, China (number BS04200903).