Numerical simulation of free convection heat transfer in a vertical annular cavity with discrete heating

The main objective of this article is to investigate the effect of discrete heating on convection heat transfer in a vertical cylindrical annulus. In this analysis, the inner wall of the cavity has two discrete flush-mounted heat sources and the outer wall is isothermally cooled at a lower temperature and top and bottom walls are thermally insulated. The governing equations are solved using an implicit finite difference technique to investigate the influence of each parameter and in particular the radii ratio. The numerical results reveal that the heat transfer rate is always higher at the bottom heater. Also, the rate of heat transfer increases with radii ratio but decreases with aspect ratio. Further, the present results are in excellent agreement with the existing benchmark solutions. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.