3D Simulation of Natural Convection in a Cubic Cavity with Several Differentially Heated Walls

Abstract

Applications of convective heat transfer are very abundant in different fields such as industry, engineering, and everyday life. Given the importance of these applications, this paper proposes a three-dimensional numerical simulation of natural convection using a hybrid approach. This technique is based on the lattice Boltzmann method associated with the multiple relaxation time model for the treatment of the fluid flow and on the finite difference approximation for the temperature calculation. The thermal problem considered is the study of convection in a cubic cavity filled with air. The cavity is differentially heated by its different faces. The hybrid code used is validated by analyzing the free convection in a cubic cavity with two differentially heated walls. Different quantities such as velocity, temperature, local and average Nusselt numbers, and Rayleigh number are studied in this work to characterize the heat exchange between the fluid and the isothermal cavity walls.