Free convection in a tilted triangle porous cavity filled with Cu-water nanofluid with flush mounted heater on the wall

Abstract

Purpose

Steady-state free convection heat transfer and fluid flow of Cu-water nanofluid is investigated within a porous tilted right-angle triangular enclosure. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

The flush mounted heater with finite size is placed on one right-angle wall. The temperature of the inclined wall is lower than the heater, and the rest of walls are adiabatic. The governing equations are obtained based on the Darcy's law, and the nanofluid model adopted is that by Tiwari and Das. The transformed dimensionless governing equations were solved numerically by finite difference method, and the solution for algebraic equations was obtained through successive under relaxation method.

Findings

Investigations were made as the tilted angle of the cavity varies within under different values of Rayleigh number for a porous medium with and solid volume fraction parameter of Cu-water nanofluid with. It is found that the maximum value of the average Nusselt number is achieved with the highest Rayleigh number when the tilted angle of the cavity is 150°, while the minimum value of the average Nusselt number is obtained with the lowest Rayleigh number when the tilted angle of the cavity locates at 240°. As soon as the flow convection in the cavity is not significant, increasing can improve the value of, but opposite effects appear when flow convection becomes stronger.

Originality/value

The present results are new and original for the heat transfer and fluid flow in a porous tilted triangle enclosure filled by Cu-water nanofluid. The results would benefit scientists and engineers to become familiar with the flow behaviour of such nanofluids, and the way to predict the properties of this flow for possibility of using nanofluids in advanced nuclear systems, in industrial sectors including transportation, power generation, chemical sectors, ventilation, air-conditioning, etc.

Citation

Sun, Q. and Pop, I. (2014), "Free convection in a tilted triangle porous cavity filled with Cu-water nanofluid with flush mounted heater on the wall", International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 2-20. https://doi.org/10.1108/HFF-10-2011-0226