Open Access

ARTICLE

BIFURCATIONS OF NATURAL CONVECTION FLOWS FROM AN ENCLOSED CYLINDRICAL HEAT SOURCE

by

a DIMeC - Dipartimento di Ingegneria Meccanica e Civile, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Via Vignolese, 905, I-41125, Modena (MO), Italy
b DIIM - Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale e Meccanica, Università degli Studi di Catania, Viale Andrea Doria, 6, I-95125 Catania (CT), Italy

* Corresponding Author: Email:

Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer 2011, 2(2), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.5098/hmt.v2.2.3003

Abstract

A numerical analysis of transitional natural convection from a confined thermal source is presented. The system considered is an air-filled, square-sectioned 2D enclosure containing a horizontal heated cylinder. The resulting flow is investigated with respect to the variation of the Rayleigh number, for three values of the aspect ratio A. The first bifurcation of the low-Ra fixed-point solution is tracked for each A-value. Chaotic flow features are detailed for the case A = 2.5. The supercritical behaviour of the system is investigated using nonlinear analysis tools and phase-space representations, and the effect of the flow on heat transfer is discussed.

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Keywords

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