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The purpose of this paper is to show a thermodynamic analysis to determine the contribution of each term of the total energy balance.

The thermodynamic analysis comprises a number of numerical simulations where some terms, typically ignored by the commonly used approximations, are removed from the total energy equation to quantify the effects in the flow and heat transfer fields. The case study is the differentially heated square cavity flow, in which the effects of work done by the pressure forces contribute significantly to the energy balance. Because local magnitudes are computed here for discussion, the dimensional form of the governing equations is preferred and a numerical model without any restrictive approximation about the role of the pressure is used.

The results show that the work of gravity forces term is in perfect balance with the work of pressure forces term, and thus, ignoring the contribution of one of them yields an incorrect solution. In addition, it is shown that the assumption of zero divergence of the Boussinesq approximation can be erroneous, even for a natural convection flow case where the temperature difference is very small.

As the flow and heat transfer governing equations are complex, simplifying assumptions are generally used; that is, the Boussinesq and low Mach number approximations. These assumptions are systematically adopted without any validation process and without considering that they modify the physical meaning of one or more of the thermodynamic quantities, particularly the pressure. This fact results in inconsistencies of the different forms of energy.

This is the first time that the terms of the total energy balance are quantified in such a way, in a differentially heated square cavity flow, which is a case study addressed by several authors.

Variable density flows play an important role in many technological devices and natural phenomena. The purpose of this paper is to develop a robust and accurate method for low Mach number flows with large density and temperature variations.

Low Mach number approximation approach is used in the paper combined with a predictor-corrector method and accurate compact scheme of fourth and sixth order. A novel algorithm is formulated for the projection method in which the boundary conditions for the pressure are implemented in such a way that the continuity equation is fulfilled everywhere in the computational domain, including the boundary nodes.

It is shown that proposed implementation of the boundary conditions considerably improves a solution accuracy. Assessment of the accuracy was performed based on the constant density Burggraf flow and for two benchmark cases for the natural convection problems: steady flow in a square cavity and unsteady flow in a tall cavity. In all the cases the results agree very well with exemplary solutions.

A staggered or half-staggered grid arrangement is usually used for the projection method for both constant and low Mach number flows. The staggered approach ensures stability and strong pressure-velocity coupling. In the paper a high-order compact method has been implemented in the framework of low Mach number approximation on collocated meshes. The resulting algorithm is accurate, robust for large density variations and is almost free from the pressure oscillations.

Modelling accurately the transient behaviour of natural convection flow in enclosures been a challenging task because of a variety of numerical errors which have limited achieving the higher order temporal accuracy. A fourth-order accurate finite difference method in both space and time is proposed to overcome these numerical errors and accurately model the transient behaviour of natural convection flow in enclosures using vorticity–streamfunction formulation.

Fourth-order wide stencil formula with appropriate one-sided difference extrapolation technique near the boundary is used for spatial discretisation, and classical fourth-order Runge–Kutta scheme is applied for transient term discretisation. The proposed method is applied on two transient case studies, i.e. convection–diffusion of a Gaussian Pulse and Taylor Vortex flow having analytical solution.

Error magnitude comparison and rate of convergence analysis of the proposed method with these analytical solutions establish fourth-order accuracy and prove the ability of the proposed method to truly capture the transient behaviour of incompressible flow. Also, to test the transient natural convection flow behaviour, the algorithm is tested on differentially heated square cavity at high Rayleigh number in the range of 10³-10⁸, followed by studying the transient periodic behaviour in a differentially heated vertical cavity of aspect ratio 8:1. An excellent comparison is obtained with standard benchmark results.

The developed method is applied on 2D enclosures; however, the present methodology can be extended to 3D enclosures using velocity–vorticity formulations which shall be explored in future.

The proposed methodology to achieve fourth-order accurate transient simulation of natural convection flows is novel, to the best of the authors’ knowledge. Stable fourth-order vorticity boundary conditions are derived for boundary and external boundary regions. The selected case studies for comparison demonstrate not only the fourth-order accuracy but also the considerable reduction in error magnitude by increasing the temporal accuracy. Also, this study provides novel benchmark results at five different locations within the differentially heated vertical cavity of aspect ratio 8:1 for future comparison studies.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the Boussinesq approach for a wide range of Ra (10 × 6 to 10 × 11) in two-dimensional (square cavity) and three-dimensional (cubic cavity) problems for air- and liquid-filled domains.

The thermal behavior in “differentially heated cavities” filled with air (low and medium Rayleigh) and water (high Rayleigh) is solved using computational fluid dynamics (CFDs) (OpenFOAM) with a non-compressible (Boussinesq) and compressible approach (real water properties from the IAPWS database).

The results from the wide range of Rayleigh numbers allowed for the establishment of the limitation of the Boussinesq approach in problems where the fluid has significant density changes within the operation temperature range and especially when the dependence of density with temperature is not linear. For these cases, the symmetry behavior predicted by Boussinesq is far from the compressible results, thus inducing a transient heat imbalance and leading to a higher mean temperature.

The main limitation of the present research can be found in the shortage of experimental data for very high Rayleigh problems.

Practical implications of the current research could be use of the Boussinesq approach by carefully observing its limitations, especially for sensible problems such as the study of pressure vessels, nuclear reactors, etc.

The originality of this paper lies in addressing the limitations of the Boussinesq approach for high Rayleigh water systems. This fluid is commonly used in numerous industrial equipment. This work presents valuable conclusions about the limitations of the currently used models to carry out industrial simulations.

This paper aims to present and then resolve the thermodynamic inconsistencies inherent in the usual Boussinesq model, especially with respect to the second law, and to highlight the effects of the correction.

The Boussinesq model (i.e. still assuming ▽v=0) is made thermodynamically consistent by maintaining in the heat equation, primarily the work of pressure forces, secondarily the heat generated by viscous friction. Numerically speaking, the modifications are very easy and hardly affect the computing time. However, new non‐dimensional parameters arise, especially the non‐dimensional adiabatic temperature gradient, ϕ.

There are presented and interpreted results of systematic numerical simulations done for a two‐dimensional square differentially‐heated cavity filled with air at 300K, with Rayleigh number ranging from 3,000 to 10⁸ and ϕ ranging from 10⁻³ to 2. All configurations are stationary and the fluid is far from its critical state. Nevertheless, the pressure‐work effect (similar to the piston effect) enhances the heat transfer while diminishing the convection intensity. The magnitude of this effect is non‐negligible as soon as ϕ reaches 0.02.

The domain where the thermodynamic Boussinesq model must be used encompasses configurations relevant to building engineering.

Exact second‐law analyses can be developed with the so‐corrected model.

The purpose of this paper is to study a gas bubble flowing in a micro-channel filled with liquid and to quantify the compressibility effects induced in the bubble by a heat supply at the walls of the channel.

The paper presents a model and its numerical implementation. A hybrid method combining front-tracking techniques and a Heaviside step function is introduced to ensure an accurate satisfaction of the mass and energy conservation laws.

Compressibility effects in the bubble are quantified. Test cases for numerical simulations of two-phase flows involving heat transfer are proposed.

The authors present original test cases in which expansion or compression of a gas bubble flowing in a liquid are induced by heat transfer at the wall.

Finite element solutions of improved quality are obtained by optimizing the location of nodes of the finite element grid, while keeping the number of degrees of freedom fixed. The formulation of the grid optimization problem is based on the reduction of error associated with interpolation of the exact solution, using functions from the finite element space. Element sizes are selected as design variables: length in R and area in R. Approximate optimal conditions are introduced to obtain a set of operationally useful equations that can be used as guidelines for construction of improved grids. Example problems are given for illustrations.

Numerical computations were performed for the heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics of natural convection with an internal vertical channel composed by a pair of parallel plates in a rectangular enclosure. The inner plates and the bounding wall of the enclosure were maintained at uniform but different temperatures. The plates were symmetrically arranged. Unsteady computation was performed to simulate the evolution process of the natural convection developing from the zero initial field. The cases of Ra = 2 × 10⁴, 2 × 10⁵ and 10⁶ were studied. A symmetrical steady solution was achieved for the case of Ra = 2 × 10⁴. For Ra = 2 × 10⁵ and 10⁶, time dependent asymmetrical processes were observed. The flow oscillating process seemed to be more complex at Ra = 2 × 10⁵ than that at Ra = 10⁶, which is quasi‐periodic with two frequencies.

Steady‐state two‐dimensional solutions to the full compressible Navier‐Stokes equations are computed for laminar convective motion of a gas in a square cavity with large horizontal temperature differences. No Boussinesq or low‐Mach number approximations of the Navier‐Stokes equations are used. Results for air are presented. The ideal‐gas law is used and viscosity is given by Sutherland’s law. An accurate low‐Mach number solver is developed. Here an explicit third‐order discretization for the convective part and a line‐implicit central discretization for the acoustic part and for the diffusive part are used. The semi‐implicit line method is formulated in multistage form. Multigrid is used as the acceleration technique. Owing to the implicit treatment of the acoustic and the diffusive terms, the stiffness otherwise caused by high aspect ratio cells is removed. Low Mach number stiffness is treated by a preconditioning technique. By a combination of the preconditioning technique, the semi‐implicit discretization and the multigrid formulation a convergence behaviour is obtained which is independent of grid size, grid aspect ratio, Mach number and Rayleigh number. Grid converged results are shown for a variety of Rayleigh numbers.

External natural convection is rarely studied by numerical simulation in the literature due to the fact that flow of interest takes place in an unbounded domain and that if a limited computational domain is used the corresponding outer boundary conditions are unknown. In this study, we propose outer boundary conditions for a limited computational domain and make the corresponding numerical implementation in the scope of a projection method combining spectral methods and domain decomposition techniques. Numerical simulations are performed for both steady natural convection about an isothermal cylinder and transient natural convection around a line‐source. An experiment is also realized in water using particle image velocimetry and thermocouples to make a comparison during transients of external natural convection around a platinum wire heated by Joule effect. Good agreement, observed between numerical simulations and experiments, validated the outer boundary conditions proposed and their numerical implementation. It is also shown that, if one tolerates prediction error, numerical results obtained remain at least reasonable in a region near the line‐source during the entire transients. We thus paved the way for numerical simulation of external natural convection although further studies remain to be done for higher heating power (higher Rayleigh number).