This paper presents a numerical study on the laminar natural convection in horizontal concentric domed cavities heated from the inside surface. A commercial CFD package is used to solve for the flow and temperature fields. The results show that for large cavity gap spacing-to-radius ratios, the cavity flow is mono-cellular and steady state. For small gap spacing ratios, however, the cavity flow may be multi-cellular and transient periodic. Practical correlations for the heat transfer coefficient as a function of the cavity shape and gap spacing ratio are developed for both flow regimes. The critical gap spacing ratio that yields the maximum Nusselt number is quantified for each cavity shape.
展开▼
