Prediction of Turbulent Cavity Flow Driven by Buoyancy and Shear

Abstract

A finite-difference numerical procedure, incorporating a buoyant version of the k-ε turbulence model, is employed to compute turbulent, mixed convection in a square cavity for Reynolds number Re =104 to 2 × 105, and Archimedes number Ar=0 to 0.4. For Ar>0–04 stable advancement of the solution procedure is obtained only through the use of an ‘inertial relaxation’ method. The calculated flow, temperature, and turbulence fields are presented and compared with available experimental data. At high Re and low Ar the predicted heat transfer agrees with the correlation Nu = 1.16 Re0.5. When buoyancy is pronounced the computed Nu is some 15 per cent higher than the data; this is suspected to be due to the turbulence model, and possible improvements to the model are suggested.