Analysis of the flow and heat transfer characteristics for assisting incompressible laminar flow past an open cavity

A numerical study has been carried out to analyze the effects of mixed convective assisting flow past three-dimensional open cavity over a wide range of Reynolds (100–1000) and Richardson (0.001–10) numbers. The vertical walls in the inflow and outflow sides are isothermal while all other walls are adiabatic. The cavity is assumed to be cubic in geometry and the flow is laminar. A direct numerical simulation is undertaken to investigate the flow structure, the heat transfer characteristics and the complex interaction between the induced stream flow at ambient temperature and the buoyancy-induced flow from the heated wall. It is found that the flow becomes stable at moderate Grashof number and exhibits a three-dimensional structure, while for high Richardson number the mixed convection effects come into play and push the recirculating zone further upstream and the flow may becomes unstable.