Effect of curvature on thermocapillary-buoyancy convection in a shallow annular pool

✍ Scribed by Qi-Wei Shang; Ying-Jie Liu; You-Rong Li

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 392 KB
• Volume: 36
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1099-2871
• DOI: 10.1002/htj.20157

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

In order to understand the influence of curvature on thermocapillary‐buoyancy convection in a differentially heated annular pool with an outer heated cylinder ($__r__o=40 mm$) and an inner cooled cylinder (r~i~=20 or 10 mm), a series of unsteady two‐dimensional numerical simulations using the finite‐volume method was conducted. The pool was filled with 0.65 cSt silicone oil (Prandtl number Pr=6.7); its depth changed from 0.5 to 1.5 mm. Simulation results show that the flows with different curvature are all stable at small temperature differences. Increasing the temperature difference, the flow transition to an oscillatory flows occurs. The critical temperature difference, depending on the curvature of annulus, is determined. It was found that there is a good agreement between the simulation and the experiment results on the critical temperature difference. ©2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res, 36(4): 187– 197, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/htj.20157