Numerical study of the flow in a three-dimensional thermally driven cavity

Solutions for the fully compressible Navier–Stokes equations are presented for the flow and temperature fields in a cubic cavity with large horizontal temperature differences. The ideal-gas approximation for air is assumed and viscosity is computed using Sutherland's law. The three-dimensional case forms an extension of previous studies performed on a two-dimensional square cavity. The influence of imposed boundary conditions in the third dimension is investigated as a numerical experiment. Comparison is made between convergence rates in case of periodic and free-slip boundary conditions. Results with no-slip boundary conditions are presented as well. The effect of the Rayleigh number is studied.Results are computed using a finite volume method on a structured, collocated grid. An explicit third-order discretization for the convective part and an implicit central discretization for the acoustic part and for the diffusive part are used. To stabilize the scheme an artificial dissipation term for the pressure and the temperature is introduced. The discrete equations are solved using a time-marching method with restrictions on the timestep corresponding to the explicit parts of the solver. Multigrid is used as acceleration technique.