Parametric study on natural convection of nanofluids in a heated chamber

In this work, we conducted a numerical study of laminar natural convection in a closed cavity. The top and the bottom of the cavity are adiabatic, the upper part of the left wall is subjected to a hot temperature TH, and the lower part of the right wall is subjected to a cold temperature TC. The governing equations were discretized by the finite volume method using the power law schema. The dynamic viscosity and the effective thermal conductivity of the nanofluid are approximated respectively by the model of Brinkman and Maxwell Garnetts. Numerical simulations are performed using pure water and a mixture of water and nanoparticules (Al2O3, Cu and TiO2) for a Rayleigh Number from 103 to 106 and a fraction of nanoparticules between 0 and 0.1. The results obtained shows that the heat transfer improves if we increase the volume fraction of the nanoparticules and the Rayleight Number.