Open Access

ARTICLE

Effect of Hole Configuration on Heat Transfer through a Hollow Block Subjected to Solar Flux

Mourad Najjaoui^1,*, Thami Ait-Taleb¹, Abdelhalim Abdelbaki², Zaki Zrikem², Hassan Chaib¹

1 Polydiscilinary Faculty of Ouarzazate, Ibn Zohr University, Ouarzazate, 638, Morocco
2 Faculty of Sciences Semlalia, Cadi Ayyad University, Marrakesh, 2390, Morocco

* Corresponding Author: Mourad Najjaoui. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Materials and Energy an Updated Image for 2021)

Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing 2022, 18(5), 1339-1348. https://doi.org/10.32604/fdmp.2022.021564

Received 21 January 2022; Accepted 20 February 2022; Issue published 27 May 2022

Abstract

In this paper, some effort is provided to optimize the geometry of a concrete hollow brick (used in the construction of building roofs) in order to increase the related thermal resistance, thereby reducing energy consumption. The analysis is conducted for three different configurations of the hollow concrete bricks. Coupling of conduction, natural convection and thermal radiation phenomena is considered. Moreover, the flows are assumed to be laminar and two-dimensional for the whole range of parameters examined. The conservation equations are solved by a finite difference method based on the control volumes approach and the SIMPLE algorithm for velocity-pressure coupling. The results show that the aspect ratio affects neither the nature of the fluid flow nor the number of convective cells. However, the extension of the circulation cells increases with this parameter. Moreover, the cavities with a large aspect ratio lead to significant reductions in the heat transfer through the hollow block, these reductions reaching approximately 14%.

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Keywords

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