Two-Dimensional numerical simulation of natural convection in a square cavity

The present work is based on a numerical simulation of natural convection in a stationary two-dimensional cavity filled with incompressible air. This convection is subjected to a horizontal temperature gradient and the flow is modeled by differential equations of conservation. Numerical calculations were performed on a mesh using the procedure of finite volume and Simplec algorithm was used to solve the pressure-velocity coupling in the equations governing the flow. The thermal and dynamic fields of the flow in a square cavity were obtained and compared with the experimental results and they are in good concordance. The obtained results also show the intensity of the flow induced by the buoyancy force and allowed to see the influence of Rayleigh number due either to the change in size or to the difference temperature on the thermal and dynamic behavior.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.mech.23.4.14482