Natural convection heat transfer in cubical enclosures with partial heating of one of the vertical walls

摘要

Natural convection of air in a cubical enclosure of edge L with a cold wall covering one of the vertical surfaces and a hot square sector of side s centred on the opposite wall is considered. The overall heat transfer shows similar dependancies to the case of side heated cavities for s/L >=0.5. The main circulation cell is similar to that in the test problem, but becomes progressively distorted by expansions, contractions and secondary loops at high Ra and at low values of s/L. It is shown that the average fluid temperature can be used as a criterion for transition to a convective regime.