An Examination of Natural Convection Within a Spherical Enclosure Using HP-Adaptive FEM

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-5-2006

Publication Title

9th AIAA/ASME Joint Thermophysics and Heat Transfer Conference Proceedings, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Volume

4

First page number:

2410

Last page number:

2422

Abstract

Numerical results are presented for natural convection within a spherical enclosure using an hp-adaptive finite element technique. The time dependent laminar 3-D equations of motion and energy for an incompressible fluid are solved. The hp-adaptive model is based on both mesh refinement and increasing spectral order to produce enhanced accuracy while attempting to minimize computational cost. The 3-D hp-adaptive FEM code is first benchmarked by solving the natural convection heat transfer problem in a deferentially heated cavity. Results are in good agreement with the literature. Natural convection is simulated within a sphere heated from below and cooled from above. Four recirculation cells initially develop during the early phase of the transient solution.

Keywords

Fluid dynamics; Heat – Convection; Natural; Heat – Transmission; Laminar flow; Mathematical models; Numerical analysis

Disciplines

Fluid Dynamics | Heat Transfer, Combustion | Mechanical Engineering | Numerical Analysis and Computation

Language

English

Permissions

Use Find in Your Library, contact the author, or interlibrary loan to garner a copy of the item. Publisher policy does not allow archiving the final published version. If a post-print (author's peer-reviewed manuscript) is allowed and available, or publisher policy changes, the item will be deposited.

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