Three-dimensional natural convection of molten Lithium in a differentially heated rotating cubic cavity about a vertical ridge

•Thermal buoyancy, centrifugal and Coriolis forces affect the rotating molten Lithium flow.•Coriolis forces suppress thermal buoyancy effects.•Increasing centrifugal forces involve the buoyancy forces.•Heat transfer rate decreases significantly with Taylor number for weak rotational number.

Laminar natural convection heat transfer in three-dimensional molten Lithium filled differentially heated enclosure, rotating about the vertical ridge is studied numerically. Computations are performed for a wide range of dimensionless parameters including the rotational Rayleigh number, and Taylor number while the values of Rayleigh number and Prandtl numbers are maintained constant at Ra = 2 × 104 and Pr = 0.0321, respectively. The results indicate that Coriolis forces seem to have a dominant role to suppress the thermal buoyancy driven effects. Transverse velocity isovaleurs show three-dimensional characteristics of the flow. By increasing, the Taylor number, the maxima of heat transfer gradually reduced about 55%. In the contrast, high rotational Rayleigh number values are found to significantly alter the flow patterns by increasing mixing which turn enhances the heat transfer.

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