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The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of finite wall thickness on the natural convection and entropy generation in a square cavity filled with Al₂O₃–water nanofluid in the presence of bottom heat source.

The moving isothermal heater was placed on the bottom solid wall. The vertical walls (left and right walls) were fully maintained at low temperatures. The rest of the bottom solid wall along with the top horizontal wall was kept adiabatic. The boundaries of the domain are assumed to be impermeable; the fluid within the cavity is a water-based nanofluid having Al₂O₃ nanoparticles. The Boussinesq approximation is applicable. The dimensionless governing equations subject to the selected boundary conditions are solved using the finite difference method. The current proposed numerical method is proven excellent through comparisons with the existing experimental and numerical published studies.

Numerical results were demonstrated graphically in several forms including streamlines, isotherms and local entropy generation, as well as the local and average Nusselt numbers. The results reveal that the thermal conductivity and thickness of the solid wall are important control parameters for optimization of heat transfer and Bejan number within the partially heated square cavity.

According to the past research studies mentioned above and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the gap regarding the problem with entropy generation analysis and natural convection in partially heated square cavity has yet to be filled. Because of this, this study aims to investigate the entropy generation analysis as well as the natural convection in nanofluid-filled square cavity which was heated partially. A square cavity with an isothermal heater located on the bottom solid horizontal wall of the cavity and partly cold sidewalls are essential problems in thermal processing applications. Hence, the authors believe that this present work will be a valuable contribution in improving the thermal performance.

The purpose of this paper is to study problem of conjugate MHD natural convection of Al₂O₃-water nanofluid in a square cavity with conductive inner block using Buongiorno’s two-phase model numerically.

An isothermal heater is placed on the left wall of the square cavity, while the right wall is maintained at a constant cold temperature. The horizontal top and bottom walls are kept adiabatic. The boundaries of the annulus are assumed to be impermeable, the fluid within the cavity is a water-based nanofluid having Al₂O₃ nanoparticles. The Boussinesq approximation is applicable. The governing equations subject to the boundary conditions are solved using the finite difference method.

Numerical results are presented graphically in the form of streamlines, isotherms and nanoparticles distributions as well as the local and average Nusselt numbers. The results show that the effect of the nanoparticles addition on the average Nusselt number is essential for low Rayleigh, high Hartmann and high values of length ratio when attenuated the convective flow.

According to exist studies and to the authors’ best knowledge, so far, there have been no studies of conjugate natural convection of Al₂O₃-water nanofluid in a square cavity with a conductive inner block using Buongiorno’s two-phase model with the effect of the magnetic field. Thus, the authors believe that this work is new and valuable. The aim of this study is to investigate the MHD natural convection of Al₂O₃-water nanofluid in a square cavity with conductive inner block using Buongiorno’s two-phase model.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of two-phase nanofluid model on mixed convection in a double lid-driven square cavity in the presence of a magnetic field. The authors believe that this work is a good contribution for improving the thermal performance and the heat transfer enhancement in some engineering instruments.

The current work investigates the problem of mixed convection heat transfer in a double lid-driven square cavity in the presence of magnetic field. The used cavity is filled with water-Al₂O₃ nanofluid based on Buongiorno’s two-phase model. The bottom horizontal wall is maintained at a constant high temperature and moves to the left/right, while the top horizontal wall is maintained at a constant low temperature and moves to the right/left. The left and right vertical walls are thermally insulated. The dimensionless governing equations are solved numerically using the Galerkin weighted residual finite element method.

The obtained results show that the heat transfer rate enhances with an increment of Reynolds number or a reduction of Hartmann number. In addition, effects of thermophoresis and Brownian motion play a significant role in the growth of convection heat transfer.

According to above-mentioned studies and to the authors’ best knowledge, there has no study reported the MHD mixed convection heat transfer in a double lid-driven cavity using the two-phase nanofluid model. Thus, the authors of the present study believe that this work is valuable. Therefore, the aim of this comprehensive numerical study is to investigate the effects of two-phase nanofluid model on mixed convection in a double lid-driven square cavity in the presence of a magnetic field. The authors believe that this work is a good contribution for improving the thermal performance and the heat transfer enhancement in some engineering instruments.

This paper aims to investigate the fluid structure interaction analysis of conjugate natural convection in a square containing internal solid cylinder and flexible right wall.

The right wall of the cavity is flexible, which can be deformed due to the interaction with the natural convection flow in the cavity. The top and bottom walls of the cavity are insulated while the right wall is cold and the left wall is partially heated. The governing equations for heat, flow and elastic wall, as well as the grid deformation are written in Arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian formulation. The governing equations along with their boundary conditions are solved using the finite element method.

The results of the present study show that the presence of the solid cylinder strongly affects the transient solution at the initial times. The natural convection flow changes the shape of the flexible right wall of the cavity into S shape wall due to the interaction of the flow and the structure. It is found that the increase of the flexibility of the right wall increases the average Nusselt number of the hot wall up to 2 per cent.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, the unsteady natural convection in an enclosure having a flexible wall and inner solid cylinder has never been reported before.

This paper aims to study analytically and numerically the problem of transient natural convection heat transfer in a trapezoidal cavity with spatial side-wall temperature variation.

The governing equations subject to the initial and boundary conditions are solved numerically by the finite difference scheme consisting of the alternating direction implicit method and the tri-diagonal matrix algorithm. The left sloping wall of the cavity is heated to non-uniform temperature, and the right sloping wall is maintained at a constant cold temperature, while the horizontal walls are kept adiabatic.

It is shown that the heat transfer rate increases in non-uniform heating increments, whereby low wave number values are more affected by the convection. The best heat transfer enhancement results from larger side wall inclination angle; however, trapezoidal cavities require longer time compared to that of square to reach steady state.

The study of natural convection heat transfer in a trapezoidal cavity filled with nanofluid and heated by spatial side-wall temperature has not yet been undertaken. Thus, the authors of the present study believe that this work is valuable.

This paper aims to investigate the role of shapes of containers (nine different containers) on entropy generation minimization involving identical cross-sectional area (1 sq. unit) in the presence of identical heating (isothermal). The nine containers are categorized into three classes based on their geometric similarities (Class 1: square, tilted square and parallelogram; Class 2: trapezoidal type 1, trapezoidal type 2 and triangular; Class 3: convex, concave and curved triangular).

Galerkin finite element method is used to solve the governing equations for a representative fluid (engine oil: Pr = 155) at Ra = 10³–10⁵. In addition, finite element method is used to solve the streamfunction equation and evaluate the entropy generation terms (S_ψ and S_θ). Average Nusselt number ( Nub¯) and average dimensionless spatial temperature ( θ^) are also evaluated via the finite element basis sets.

Based on larger Nub¯, larger θ^ and optimal S_total values, containers from each class are preferred as follows: Class 1: parallelogrammic and square, Class 2: trapezoidal type 1 and Class 3: convex (larger θ^, optimum S_total) and concave (larger Nub¯). Containers with curved walls lead to enhance the thermal performance or efficiency of convection processes.

Comparison of entropy generation, intensity of thermal mixing ( θ^) and average heat transfer rate give a clear picture for choosing the appropriate containers for processing of fluids at various ranges of Ra. The results based on this study may be useful to select a container (belonging to a specific class or containers with curved or plane walls), which can give optimal thermal performance from the given heat input, thereby leading to energy savings.

This study depicts that entropy generation associated with the convection process can be reduced via altering the shapes of containers to improve the thermal performance or efficiency for processing of identical mass with identical heat input. The comparative study of nine containers elucidates that the values of local maxima of S_ψ (S_ψ,max), S_θ (S_θ,max) and magnitude of S_total vary with change in shapes of the containers (Classes 1–3) at fixed Pr and Ra. Such a comparative study based on entropy generation minimization on optimal heating during convection of fluid is yet to appear in the literature. The outcome of this study depicts that containers with curved walls are instrumental to optimize entropy generation with reasonable thermal processing rates.