Effects of a Rotating Cone on the Mixed Convection in a Double Lid-Driven 3D Porous Trapezoidal Nanofluid Filled Cavity under the Impact of Magnetic Field

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2020 Mar 2;10(3):449. doi: 10.3390/nano10030449.

Abstract

Effects of a rotating cone in 3D mixed convection of CNT-water nanofluid in a double lid-driven porous trapezoidal cavity is numerically studied considering magnetic field effects. The numerical simulations are performed by using the finite element method. Impacts of Richardson number (between 0.05 and 50), angular rotational velocity of the cone (between -300 and 300), Hartmann number (between 0 and 50), Darcy number (between 10 - 4 and 5 × 10 - 2 ), aspect ratio of the cone (between 0.25 and 2.5), horizontal location of the cone (between 0.35 H and 0.65 H) and solid particle volume fraction (between 0 and 0.004) on the convective heat transfer performance was studied. It was observed that the average Nusselt number rises with higher Richardson numbers for stationary cone while the effect is reverse for when the cone is rotating in clockwise direction at the highest supped. Higher discrepancies between the average Nusselt number is obtained for 2D cylinder and 3D cylinder configuration which is 28.5% at the highest rotational speed. Even though there are very slight variations between the average Nu values for 3D cylinder and 3D cone case, there are significant variations in the local variation of the average Nusselt number. Higher enhancements in the average Nusselt number are achieved with CNT particles even though the magnetic field reduced the convection and the value is 84.3% at the highest strength of magnetic field. Increasing the permeability resulted in higher local and average heat transfer rates for the 3D porous cavity. In this study, the aspect ratio of the cone was found to be an excellent tool for heat transfer enhancement while 95% enhancements in the average Nusselt number were obtained. The horizontal location of the cone was found to have slight effects on the Nusselt number variations.

Keywords: 3D cavity; MHD flow; finite element method; nanofluid; porous media; rotating cone.