THE EFFECT OF VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL PARTITIONS ON NATURAL CONVECTION IN A HEATED ENCLOSURE

In this paper, turbulent buoyancy induced convection in a partitioned square cavity with conducting baffles is numerically investigated to determine overall heat transfer performance. The finite volume method using polyhedral cells is used to solve the governing mass, momentum and energy equations and to predict the flow patterns and heat transfer in the cavity. The cavity consisted of two adiabatic vertical walls, an isothermal horizontal wall located at the bottom at T-h and the top wall isothermal at T-c. The configuration was investigated for Ra = 9.1 x 10(7) to Ra = 1.9 x 10(9) (turbulent). The conducting baffles are assigned various values of effective thermal resistances, calculated using thermal conductivity. The effects of these conducting baffles and their effective thermal resistance are shown in terms of temperature and velocity contour plots and average Nusselt number. Results indicated that the presence of baffles influenced the heat transfer from the hot wall considerably, and it was concluded that a partitioned enclosure containing conducting partitions can be used to represent an enclosed greenhouse containing raised benches with single/multiple racks.