Natural convection in a cubical cavity with different heat source configurations

Numerical investigation of laminar unsteady natural convection in closed cubical cavity having local heat source of different geometric shapes has been performed. Particularly, five various shapes of heater have been analyzed, namely, one shape with a rectangular cross-section, three shapes with trapezoidal cross-sections and one shape with a triangular cross-section. The considered shapes illustrate a smooth transition from rectangular cross-section to triangular one through trapezoidal forms. The effects of Rayleigh number and these heater configurations on fluid flow and heat transfer have been studied. It has been found that trapezoidal shapes are more effective taking into account high heat removal rate from the heater.