Numerical Investigation of Mixed Convection and Entropy Generation in a Wavy-Walled Cavity Filled with Nanofluid and Involving a Rotating Cylinder

Abstract

This numerical study considers the mixed convection and the inherent entropy generated in Al 2 O 3 –water nanofluid filling a cavity containing a rotating conductive cylinder. The vertical walls of the cavity are wavy and are cooled isothermally. The horizontal walls are thermally insulated, except for a heat source segment located at the bottom wall. The dimensionless governing equations subject to the selected boundary conditions are solved numerically using the Galerkin finite-element method. The study is accomplished by inspecting different ranges of the physical and geometrical parameters, namely, the Rayleigh number ( 10 3 ≤ R a ≤ 10 6 ), angular rotational velocity ( 0 ≤ Ω ≤ 750 ), number of undulations ( 0 ≤ N ≤ 4 ), volume fraction of Al 2 O 3 nanoparticles ( 0 ≤ ϕ ≤ 0.04 ), and the length of the heat source ( 0.2 ≤ H ≤ 0.8 ) . The results show that the rotation of the cylinder boosts the rate of heat exchange when the Rayleigh number is less than 5 × 10 5 . The number of undulations affects the average Nusselt number for a still cylinder. The rate of heat exchange increases with the volume fraction of the Al 2 O 3 nanoparticles and the length of the heater segment.