Constructal Design of Rectangular Fin Intruded Into Mixed Convective Lid-Driven Cavity Flows

Abstract

The present work shows a numerical study of laminar, steady, and mixed convective flow inside lid-driven square cavity with intruded rectangular fin in its lower surface. The main purpose here is to maximize the heat transfer between the rectangular fin and the surrounding mixed convective flow inside a lid-driven cavity by means of constructal design. The problem is subject to two constraints, the lid-driven cavity and intruded fin areas. The ratio between the fin and cavity areas is kept fixed (ϕ = 0.05). The investigated geometry has one degree-of-freedom (DOF), the fin aspect ratio (H1/L1), which is varied in the range 0.1 ≤ H1/L1 ≤ 10. The aspect ratio of the cavity is maintained fixed (H/L = 1.0). The effect of the fin geometry over the Nusselt number is investigated for several Rayleigh (RaH = 103, 104, 105 and 106) and Reynolds numbers (ReH = 10, 102, 3.0 × 102, 5.0 × 102, 7.0 × 102 and 103). For all simulations, the Prantdl number is fixed (Pr = 0.71). The conservation equations of mass, momentum, and energy are numerically solved with the finite volume method. Results showed that fin geometry (H1/L1) has strong influence over the Nusselt number in the fin. It was also observed that the effect of H1/L1 over Nusselt number changes considerably for different Rayleigh numbers and for the lowest magnitudes of Reynolds numbers, for example, differences of nearly 770% between RaH = 106 and forced convective flow were observed for the lowest Reynolds number studied (ReH = 10).