Natural Convection Heat Transfer Enhancement in a Closed Cavity with Partition Utilizing Nano Fluids

The principal objective of the present work is to conduct investigations leading to a more complete explanation of natural convective heat transfer in a partitioned cavity utilizing nano fluids. The nano fluid used, which is composed of Aluminum oxide nano particles in suspension of Ethylene glycol, has been provided at various particle concentrations ranging from 0 to 30% in volume. The study is carried out numerically for a range of Rayleigh numbers, partition heights and aspect ratio. The flow and temperature distributions are taken to be two-dimensional. Regions with the same velocity and temperature distributions can be identified as symmetry of sections. One half of such a rectangular region is chosen as the computational domain taking into account the symmetry about the partition. Transport equations are modeled by a stream function-vorticity formulation and are solved numerically by finite-difference schemes. Results are presented in the form of streamline and isotherm plots as well as the variation of local Nusselt number at the partition under different conditions.