Buoyancy driven heat transfer in nanofluids due to wall mounted heat source

This work is focussed on the numerical modeling of mixed convection heat transfer effects in a lid-driven cavity filled with a copper–water nanofluid. A heated wall mounted block with constant heat flux is attached along the vertical wall. The left vertical wall is maintained at higher temperature compared to the right vertical wall and the other (top and bottom) walls are insulated. A finite volume based numerical approach with QUICK scheme is used for the solution of nonlinear governing equations. A computational visualization technique is used to represent the two dimensional results of streamlines, isotherms, average Nusselt number and bulk-average temperature for a wide range of physical parameters, namely Reynolds number, Rayleigh number and solid volume fraction. The effective fluid flow and heat transfer variation are analyzed by placing the heated mounted block first along the left vertical wall (Case-I) and then along the right vertical wall (Case-II) to test the maximum heat transfer effects. The changes in main characteristics of the flow due to variation of Reynolds number and Rayleigh number are elaborated. The effect of various flow parameters on the thermal conductivity behavior for both cases is discussed based on average Nusselt number and bulk-average temperature and found that Case-I shows higher heat transfer rate compared to Case-II, for higher Re,Ra and ϕϕ.