Modeling the Natural Convection Flow in a Square Porous Enclosure Filled with a Micropolar Nanofluid under Magnetohydrodynamic Conditions

Abstract

The laminar, natural convective flow of a micropolar nanofluid in the presence of a magnetic field in a square porous enclosure was studied. The micropolar nanofluid is considered to be an electrically conductive fluid. The governing equations of the flow problem are the conservation of mass, energy, and linear momentum, as well as the angular momentum and the induction equations. In the proposed model, the Darcy–Brinkman momentum equations with buoyancy and advective inertia are used. Experimentally obtained forms of the dynamic viscosity, the thermal conductivity, and the electric conductivity are employed. A meshless point collocation method has been applied to numerically solve the flow and transport equations in their vorticity-stream function formulation. The effects of characteristic dimensionless parameters, such as the Rayleigh and Hartmann numbers, for a range of porosity and solid volume fraction of Al2O3 particles in a water-based micropolar nanofluid on the flow and heat transfer in the cavity are investigated. The results indicate that the intensity of the magnetic field significantly affects both the flow and the temperature distributions. Moreover, the addition of nanoparticles deteriorates the heat-transfer efficiency under specific conditions.