Analytical Study of Natural Convection in a Cavity With Volumetric Heat Generation

Abstract

An analytical study has been conducted for natural convection in a cavity of different aspect ratios with uniform volumetric heat generation. Two different boundary conditions are investigated for the cavity, viz., all walls are isothermal; two horizontal walls are adiabatic and two vertical walls are isothermal. A stream function vorticity formulation is used where the variables are expanded in terms of Rayleigh number, defined as Ra=gβh5q‴∕ανk. The governing equations are reduced, to biharmonic equations, and these biharmonic equations are solved using one of the methods, available in the literature. It is observed that the horizontal component of velocity is smaller than the vertical component near the center and the vertical walls of the cavity. The results for velocity profiles are compared with the simulations obtained from Fluent and they are found to be in good agreement.