Numerical Study of Natural Convection Heat Transfer inside a Triangular Cavity with Flexible Sidewalls Containing a Cylindrical Heat Source

In this study, the natural convection heat transfer within a triangular cavity with elastic diagonal walls containing a cylindrical heat source is investigated. The assumed fluid inside the cavity is air. The flexible diagonal walls of the cavity are considered to be at a constant cold temperature of Tc and the cylindrical heat source is at the hot temperature of Th. The governing equations are discretized using Galerkin finite element method and to describe the motion of the fluid, the arbitrary Eulerian-Lagrangian approach is used. In this study, the interaction of fluid and solid fields and the effect of cylindrical heat source position on flow and temperature fields are examined. For this purpose, the effect of Rayleigh number and changing the position of the heat source along the vertical centerline on the deformation of flexible walls, flow and temperature fields, and heat transfer rate are investigated. The results show that for a fixed position of the heat source, an increase in the Rayleigh number increases the maximum of the stream function, the average Nusselt number, and the deformation of the flexible walls. Also, the results show that the position of the heat source depending on the Rayleigh number has different effects on the temperature and flow fields.