Numerical Study of Conjugate Natural Convection from Discrete Heat Sources.

Abstract

The coupling between natural convection and conduction within rectangular enclosure was investigated numerically. Three separate heat sources were flush mounted on a vertical wall and an isoflux condition was applied at the back of heat sources. The governing equations were solved using control volume formulation. A modified Rayleigh number and a substrate/fluid thermal conductivity ratio were used in the range 10^4 −10^7 and 10−10^3 respectively. The investigation was extended to examine high thermal conductivity ratio values. The results illustrated that, when Rayleigh number increased the dimensionless heat flux and local Nusselt number increased and the boundary layers along hot, cold and horizontal walls were reduced significantly. An opposite behaviour for the thermal spreading in the substrate and the dimensionless temperature, were decreased for higher Rayleigh number. Moreover, the thermal spreading in the substrate increased for higher substrate conductivity, which affected the temperature level. However the effect of the substrate is negligible when the thermal conductivity ratio higher than 1,500.