Computational Study of Turbulent Natural Convection in a Side-Heated Near-Cubic Enclosure at a High Rayleigh Number

摘要

The physical problem under consideration here is turbulent natural convection at a high Rayleigh number in a square cavity. The flow is driven by a temperature difference imposed on opposing vertical side-walls of the enclosure. The buoyancy mechanism forces the flow upward near the hot wall and downward near the cold wall. Due to the presence of horizontal walls, an enclosed circulating flow is established, which is characterized by thin fast-flowing vertical boundary layers, thick slowly-moving horizontal boundary layers and an almost stagnant core region. Furthermore, the corners where the vertical boundary layers impinge on horizontal walls are characterized by strong streamline curvature.