Effect of Heating Elements Orientation on Heat Transfer in a Cubical Cavity

In this work, the effect of the orientation of three heating elements on natural convection in a three-dimensional cubical cavity has been investigated numerically using the finite volume method. Three different arrangements of the three identical and parallel elements fixed on one of the vertical sidewalls of the cubical cavity are considered. They are either in the vertical direction (case I), inclined at an angle 45° (case II) or horizontal (case III). The opposite vertical sidewall is kept at a cold temperature and the others walls are adiabatic. The number of Pr is fixed at 0.71 while the number of Ra varies from 103 to 106. The results found show that case II leads to a more important heat transfer.