Natural Convection of Turbulent Al2O3-Water Nanofluid with Variable Properties in a Cavity with a Heat Source and Heat Sink on Vertical Walls

Natural convection heat transfer of Al2O3-water nanofluid with variable properties in the turbulent flow inside a cavity with a heat source and heat sink on the vertical walls is studied numerically. Base fluid viscosity, thermal conductivity, and viscosity of nanofluids, are a function of temperature and volume fraction. The governing equations in the two-dimensional space are discretized using the control volume method. Turbulence computations are performed using the k-w-SST model. The results show that change in the placement of heat source and heat sink and Raleigh number have the effect on streamlines and isotherms. For Rayleigh numbers 107 and 108, the Nusselt number increases with increasing volume fraction of nanoparticles to 1%, and then decreases with increasing volume fraction of nanoparticles. Also, for some cases it is observed that the Nusselt number of nanofluids is less than the base fluid and therefore in these cases using nanofluids for enhanced heat transfer is not proposed. For Rayleigh numbers 107 and 108, the least Nusselt number occurs in top-bottom case, and the most Nusselt number occurs in bottom – bottom case.