Influence of Partition Location on Natural Convection in a Partitioned Enclosure

In this study, Natural convection heat transfer and fluid flow of square partitioned enclosure with two partitions protruding centrally from the end walls of an enclosure have been analysed numerically using finite element method. The enclosure has opposite isothermal walls at different temperatures. The thickness and length of the partitions is fixed and equal to 1/10 and 1/4 of width of the enclosure respectively. Computation for Rayleigh number in the range of 10⁴ to 10⁶ has been conducted. The influence of different thermal boundary conditions at the end walls and at the partitions is included in the investigation. ‘Standard’ boundary conditions are introduced as more appropriate to simulate situations of practical engineering interest. To solve the relevant governing equations a segregated sequential solution algorithm is used after employing Boussinesq approximation. These equations after discretization were solved by using the tridiagonal matrix algorithm. Results clearly demonstrate that partition location has a significant effect on heat transfer.