Saddam Hossain Mullick
Department of Mechanical Engineering, NIT Sikkim, Ravangla, South Sikkim 737139, India
Debabrata DasGupta
Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi, 110006, India
Pranab Kumar Kundu
Department of Mechanical Engineering, MNNIT Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh 211004, India
Study of buoyancy actuated heat transfer characteristics
inside an air saturated porous structure circular enclosure has
been numerically analyzed thoroughly. Influences of central
angle and the Darcy number on the natural convection are
examined in the present work. The transport conservative
equations are solved with the help of Ansys fluent, a
commercial software. The velocity and pressure terms present
in the continuity and momentum equations are coupled with the
help of SIMPLE algorithm. In order to model the porous
structure and body force term, the user defined function (UDF)
is pertained. The central angle (φ) is varied from 15° to 45° and Da is varied from 10-4 to 10-1. One important finding from the study is the critical Da, beyond which convection leading heat transfer inside the cavity reduces with the increase in central angle. The magnitude of vortex strength improves with the inclination angle.