Unsteady development of Marangoni convection in a sidewall moving open cavity

Abstract

Abstract In this study, simultaneous effect of free, forced and Marangoni convection on fluid flow and heat transfer in a sidewall moving open cavity is investigated. The cavity is filled with low Prandtl number fluid (Pr = 0.054); such a situation can be find in the application of liquid metal and semiconductor melts. Free convection is induced due to the heating of fluid from the bottom of the cavity. Forced convection is originated due to the translation of the sidewalls either in upward or downward direction. Whereas, the Marangoni convection is generated in the upper portion of the fluid due to imposed temperature gradient along the top free surface. The transient phenomena of the combined effects are analyzed numerically in dimensionless forms utilizing an in-house CFD code. The analyses are conducted under different pertinent parameters such as Marangoni number, Biot number, Reynolds number and Richardson number. The study is conducted to explore the flow-field structures and heat transfer characteristics in the presence of three convection modes with their relative strengths.