Heat flow visualization for natural convection in rhombic enclosures due to isothermal and non-isothermal heating at the bottom wall

Analysis has been carried out for the energy distribution and thermal mixing in steady laminar natural convective flow through the rhombic enclosures with various inclination angles, phi for various industrial applications. Simulations are carried out for various regimes of Prandtl (Pr) and Rayleigh (Ra) numbers. Dimensionless streamfunctions and heatfunctions are used to visualize the flow and energy distribution, respectively. Multiple flow circulations are observed at Pr = 0.015 and 0.7 for all phi s at Ra = 10(5). On the other hand, two asymmetric flow circulation cells are found to occupy the entire cavity for phi = 75 degrees at higher Pr (Pr = 7.2 and 1000) and Ra (Ra = 10(5)). Heatlines are found to be parallel circular arcs connecting the cold and hot walls for the conduction dominant heat transfer at Ra = 10(3). The enhanced convective heat transfer is explained with dense heatlines and convective loop of heatlines at Ra = 10(5). Heatlines clearly demonstrate that the left wall receives heat from the bottom wall as heatlines directly connect both the walls whereas the convective heat circulation cells play lead role to distribute the heat along the right wall, especially for smaller phi s. On the other hand, the heat flow is evenly distributed to both side walls at higher phi s via convection as well as direct conductive transport. Significant convective heat transfer from the bottom hot wall to the left cold wall occurs for phi = 30 degrees cavity whereas the heat transfer to the right cold wall is maximum for phi = 75 degrees irrespective of Pr. Average Nusselt number studies also show that phi = 30 degrees cavity gives maximum heat transfer rate from the bottom to left wall irrespective of Pr in isothermal heating case. On the other hand, enhanced thermal mixing occurs at phi = 75 degrees for both isothermal and non-isothermal heating strategies except at Pr = 0.015 in isothermal heating case. (c) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.