Three-Dimensional Laminar Natural Convection in an Inclined Air Slot With Hexagonal Honeycomb Core

Abstract

Numerical solutions are obtained for a three-dimensional natural convection heat transfer problem in an inclined air slot with a hexagonal honeycomb core. The air slot is assumed to be long and wide such that the velocity and temperature fields repeat themselves in successive enclosures. The numerical methodology is based on an algebraic coordinate transformation technique, which maps the complex cross section onto a rectangle, coupled with a calculation procedure for fully elliptic three-dimensional flows. The calculations are performed for Rayleigh numbers in the range of 103 to 105, inclination angles in the range of −90 to 80 deg, Prandtl number of 0.7, and for five values of the aspect ratio. Three types of thermal boundary condition for the honeycomb side walls are considered. The average Nusselt number results are compared with those for a rectangular two-dimensional enclosure.