Convective heat transfer in a porous enclosure saturated by nanofluid with different heat sources

The present study is proposed to investigate the effects of various lengths and different locations of the heater on the left sidewall in a square lid-driven porous cavity filled with nanofluid. A higher temperature is maintained on the left wall where three different lengths and three different locations of the heat source are considered for the analysis. The right wall is kept at a lower temperature while the top and bottom walls, and the remaining portions of the heated wall are adiabatic. The governing equations are solved by finite volume method. The results show that among the different lengths of the heat source, an enhancement in the heat transfer rate is observed only for the length LH = 1/3 of the heat source. In the case of location of the heat source, the overall heat transfer rate is increased when the heat source is located at the top of the hot wall. For Ri = 1 and 0.01, a better heat transfer rate is obtained when the heat source is placed at the top of the hot wall whereas for Ri = 100, it occurs when the heating portion is at the middle of the hot wall. As the solid volume fraction increases, the viscosity of the fluid is increased, which causes a reduction in the flow intensity. An addition of nanoparticles in the base fluid enhances the overall heat transfer rate significantly for all Da considered. The permeability of the porous medium plays a major role in convection of nanofluid than porosity. A high heat transfer rate (57.26%) is attained for Da = 10-1 and χ = 0.06. © 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.