Numerical study of coupled double-diffusive natural convection and radiation in a square cavity filled with A N2-CO2 mixture

The coupling of transient double diffusive convection with radiation is investigated numerically in a square cavity filled with a mixture of N-2 and CO2. Horizontal temperature and concentration gradients are prescribed and the temporal evolution of the flow has been computed in both aiding and opposing situations. The numerical results show that gas radiation modifies the structure of the velocity and thermal fields and accelerates the convergence to steady state in aiding case, while it favours the generation of instabilities and delays the arrival to a stable solution in opposing one. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.