Numerical Simulation of the Flow in an Open Cavity with Heat and Mass Transfer - Selected Topics of Computational and Experimental Fluid Mechanics - page 343

1 Introduction

The fluid flow in an open cavity with heat and mass transfer is an important issue
in many technological processes. Deng et al. ( 2004 ) investigated the fluid, heat and
contaminant transport structures of mixed convection in a two-dimensional venti-
lated room with heat and contaminant sources while Beya and Lili ( 2007 ) analyzed
the unsteady heat and mass transfer by mixed convection in a two-dimensional ven-
tilated enclosure, obtaining the streamlines, heatlines and masslines for different
cases. More recently, Serrano-Arellano and Gijon-Rivera ( 2014 ) studied the heat
and mass transfer in a two dimensional differentially heated closed square cavity,
where the working fluid is initially at rest and with a uniform temperature. Kuznetsov
and Sheremet ( 2009 ) reported a numerical study on the conjugate heat transfer in a
rectangular enclosure under the assumption of internal mass transfer and in the pres-
ence of local heat and contaminant sources. The double-diffusive mixed convection
in a lid-driven triangular cavity filled with air has been examined by Hasanuzzaman
et al. ( 2012 ). The bottom and inclined walls of the triangle had constant high tem-
perature and low temperature, respectively. On the other hand Shehata et al. ( 1999 )
both studied both experimentally and numerically the mass transfer to the bottom
wall of a cavity in the presence of an external unsteady flow, while Jeng et al. ( 2009 )
reported an experimental and numerical study of the flow structure and mass transfer
on inclined, low aspect ratio enclosures. The present study addresses the effect of the
heater length and Reynolds number on the heat and mass transfer in an open cavity.

2 Problem Formulation

Consider an open cavity with a hot plate at the bottom which generates the thermal
decomposition of a substance, as shown in Fig. 1 . The flow is assumed to be laminar,
steady and two-dimensional. The Reynolds numbers ( Re

), based on the
velocity of the inlet flow U m and the height h of the entrance of the cavity, studied
in this investigation were Re

= U m h /ν

= 10 , 25 and 50 for a Schmidt number of Sc = 425

Fig. 1 Geometry of the open cavity with heat and mass transfer