NATURAL-CONVECTION IN A PARTITIONED ENCLOSURE - NUMERICAL PREDICTION

Two-dimensional natural convection flows in square enclosures, with two identical partitions located at the top and bottom walls, are analysed for laminar flow. Side walls are assumed to be isothermal while the top and bottom walls are adiabatic. The Rayleigh number is varied from 10(4) to 10(7). Calculations are made for different partition heights ; their non dimensional length varies from 0 (non-partitioned enclosure) to 0,5 (two separate enclosures), and partition conductivities from 1 to 200. Results show that the presence of partition is relatively unimportant if the partitions do not cover more than half of the total height of the cavity. Therefore because that the opening is sufficiently reduced it is interesting to see how it generates four layers limited and two whirpool are alined with the first bisector.