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ABSTRACT
Numerical study is carried out to investigate the effect of different fin shapes on heating a square cavity by small heating strip located at the bottom wall. The natural convection of air is considered with constant heat flux from heat source which is located at the center of the bottom wall. The width of the heating strip is assumed to be 20% of the total width of the bottom wall. The remaining (non-heated) part of the bottom wall and the top wall are adiabatic and the side walls are maintained at constant temperature. The investigation considered four shapes of aluminum fins with equal area and equal base width. The easy to fabricate fin shapes are considered as: rectangular, one triangular, two opposite triangular and two isosceles triangular shape. Other parameters considered are the total area of the fin (or the height of the fin) and the Grashof number in the laminar flow range. It is found that the heat transfer can be enhanced by either increasing the Grashof number or the height of the fins. In most of the investigated cases the heat transfer in the case of the two opposite triangular fins shape is found to be higher than that of the other shapes under the same conditions.
Acknowledgsments
The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers as their comments led to improvements of the manuscript. The author also appreciates the support from the Universiti Teknologi Brunei for facilitating the study.
Nomenclature
| g | = | acceleration due to gravity (ms−2) |
| Gr | = | Grashof number |
| H | = | cavity height (m) |
| h | = | fin height (m) |
| k | = | thermal conductivity (Wm−1K−1) |
| Nu | = | local Nusselt number |
| = | average Nusselt number | |
| p | = | pressure (Nm−2) |
| Pr | = | Prandtl number |
| Qw | = | wall heat flux (Wm−2) |
| T | = | temperature (K) |
| u, v | = | velocity components (ms−1) |
| W | = | heated segment width (m) |
| x, y | = | Cartesian coordinates (m) |
Greek symbols
| α | = | thermal diffusivity (m2s−1) |
| β | = | thermal expansion coefficient (K−1) |
| μ | = | dynamic viscosity (kg.m−1s−1) |
| ϑ | = | kinematic viscosity (m2s−1) |
| ρ | = | density (kgm−3) |
Subscripts
| c | = | constant |
| f | = | fluid |
| s | = | solid |
| o | = | reference point |
| w | = | wall |
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Nawaf H. Saeid
Nawaf H. Saeid is a Professor of Thermofluid Engineering at the Universiti Teknologi Brunei. He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from the University of Mosul in Iraq, and his Ph.D. degree from the University Politehnica Bucharest in Romania. His research contribution and expertise include: thermodynamics, computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer, refrigeration and air conditioning, thermal energy management, acoustics and noise control, numerical techniques and computer programming.