Investigation of the Natural Convection within a Cold Circular Enclosure Containing Three Equal-Sized Cylinders of Hot Surface

Abstract

The present work is conducted for studying the natural convection in a circular enclosure that contains three equal-sized cylinders in tandem arrangement. The outer cylinder has a cold surface and the enclosure internals have hot surfaces. The relation between the density of the fluid and the temperature is treated by the Boussinesq approximation. The fluid used for the investigation is Newtonian and incompressible. The results present the roles of some non-dimensional parameters (Rayleigh (Ra) and Prandtl (Pr) numbers) on the buoyancy-driven flow and the convective heat transfer. The obtained results revealed an intensification of the v-velocity component in the annular space and an enhancement in the heat transfer rates with the rise of Rayleigh number.