Mixed convection in a lid-driven square cavity filled by a nanofluid: Buongiorno's mathematical model

Steady laminar mixed convection inside a lid-driven square cavity filled with water based nanofluid is studied numerically. The cavity is subjected to the moving upper and lower walls. The top and bottom moving walls are maintained at constant temperatures and nanoparticle volume fractions. The vertical walls of the cavity are thermally insulated. The appliance of the numerical analysis was finite difference method with upwind scheme treatments of the convective terms included in the momentum and energy equations. The governing parameters are the Reynolds, Grashof, Prandtl and Lewis numbers along with the buoyancy-ratio, the Brownian motion, the thermophoresis and the moving parameters. The effects of these parameters on the local Nusselt, local Sherwood, the mean Nusselt and Sherwood numbers, as well as on the developments of streamlines, isotherms and isoconcentrations have been analyzed. The results have shown that these parameters have substantial effects on the flow and heat transfer characteristics. The comparison with known results from the open literature shows excellent agreement.