International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 44 (2013) 327–335

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International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhff

Non-homogeneous model for a side heated square cavity filled

with a nanofluid
Michele Celli ⇑
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale, Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna, Viale Risorgimento 2, I-40136 Bologna, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A side heated two dimensional square cavity filled with a nanofluid is here studied. The side heating con-
Received 4 February 2013 dition is obtained by imposing two different uniform temperatures at the vertical boundary walls. The
Received in revised form 24 June 2013 horizontal walls are assumed to be adiabatic and all boundaries are assumed to be impermeable to the
Accepted 4 July 2013
base fluid and to the nanoparticles. In order to study the behavior of the nanofluid, a non-homogeneous
Available online 27 July 2013
model is taken into account. The thermophysical properties of the nanofluid are assumed to be functions
of the average volume fraction of nanoparticles dispersed inside the cavity. The definitions of the nondi-
Keywords:
mensional governing parameters (Rayleigh number, Prandtl number and Lewis number) are exactly the
Non-homogeneous model
Nanofluid
same as for the clear fluids. The distribution of the nanoparticles shows a particular sensitivity to the low
Side heating Rayleigh numbers. The average Nusselt number at the vertical walls is sensitive to the average volume
Square cavity fraction of the nanoparticles dispersed inside the cavity and it is also sensitive to the definition of the
Rayleigh number thermophysical properties of the nanofluid. Highly viscous base fluids lead to a critical behavior of the
Buongiorno’s model model when the simulation is performed in pure conduction regime. The solution of the problem is
obtained numerically by means of a Galerkin finite element method.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction respect to the investigation of the sensitivity of the nanoparticles

distributions to the heat transfer processes.
In the last few decades an increasing attention has been focused In this contribution, a two dimensional square cavity filled with
on the heat transfer performances of a particular kind of colloids a nanofluid and subjected to side heating is studied. A nanofluid
called nanofluids. A nanofluid is a suspension of metallic nanopar- composed of Water as base fluid, and Alumina as nanoparticles dis-
ticles (or nanotubes) dispersed inside a base fluid. These colloids persed into the base fluid, is investigated. The cavity walls are as-
have been proposed as highly-effective heat transfer media (Choi sumed to be impermeable to the base fluid and to the
and Eastman, 1995; Lee and Choi, 1996; Nguyen et al., 2007). nanoparticles. The lower and upper boundary walls are assumed
Experimentally, great efforts have been spent in measuring the to be adiabatic. The side heating conditions are obtained by impos-
thermophysical properties of the nanofluids. Different kind of base ing two different temperatures at the vertical boundary walls. The
fluids and dispersed nanoparticles have been tested in order to model that is most frequently employed to simulate the nanofluids
measure the thermal conductivity (Eastman et al., 1997; Lee behavior is the homogeneous model. This model considers the
et al., 1999; Wang et al., 1999; Xuan and Li, 2000; Eastman et al., nanofluid as a clear fluid with the only difference that the thermo-
2001), the viscosity (Li et al., 2002; Prasher et al., 2006; Kwak physical properties of the nanofluid itself are modified in their val-
and Kim, 2005) and the convective heat transfer coefficient (Xuan ues as functions of the average volume fraction of nanoparticles
and Li, 2003; Wen and Ding, 2004; Heris et al., 2006). The thermo- dispersed inside the base fluid. Magyari (2011) pointed out that,
physical properties of the nanofluids have also been deeply studied with a little rescaling effort, the homogeneous model produces
from the theoretical point of view. A number of correlations have the same results already obtained with the clear fluids models.
been proposed and employed in order to model the thermophysi- Moreover, the assumption of homogeneity of the nanoparticles
cal properties (Das and Choi, 2006; Wang and Mujumdar, 2007). distribution may not hold when particle migration phenomena oc-
While the heat transfer performances of nanofluids have been cur (Ding and Wen, 2005; Wen et al., 2009; Kang et al., 2007). The
widely studied, relatively few efforts have been undertaken with arguments just presented lead to the choice of employing a non-
homogeneous model for the present analysis.
The non-homogeneous model prescribes a dedicated mass bal-
ance equation for the dispersed nanoparticle. The mathematical
⇑ Tel.: +39 051 2098330. model is thus characterized by four balance equations: the mass
E-mail address: [email protected]

0142-727X/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatfluidflow.2013.07.002
328 M. Celli / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 44 (2013) 327–335

Nomenclature

c specific heat (J/(kg K)) Greek symbols

DB Brownian motion coefficient (m2/s) a thermal diffusivity (m2/s)
dp nanoparticles diameter (m) b thermal expansion coefficient (K1)
DT thermophoresis coefficient (m2/s) bT nondimensional constant
F(U0) nondimensional function DT reference temperature jump (K)
g gravity acceleration (m/s2) l dynamic viscosity (Pa s)
G(U0) nondimensional function q density (kg/m3)
H(U0) nondimensional function / rescaled volume fraction of nanoparticles
I(U0) nondimensional function U local volume fraction of nanoparticles
j nanoparticles mass flux (m/s) U0 average volume fraction of nanoparticles
k thermal conductivity (W/(mK))
kB Boltzmann constant (J/K) Nondimensional numbers
L lenght of the cavity side (m) Le Lewis number
MES nondimensional maximum size of the grid elements NBT nondimensional number
n normal unit vector Nu average Nusselt number
N number of grid elements Pr Prandtl number
P nondimensional pressure Ra Rayleigh number
r radius of the neighborhood of / = 1
S nondimensional cavity surface Subscripts, Superscripts
T nondimensional temperature – dimensional quantity
Tc cold wall temperature (K)  rescaled quantity
Th hot wall temperature (K)
f, p, nf fluid, nanoparticle, nanofluid
T0 reference temperature (K) max maximum value
v nondimensional velocity field (u, v)
x nondimensional position vector (x, y)

balance equation for the base fluid, the momentum balance equa- side heating condition is obtained by imposing two different tem-
tion for the nanofluid, the energy balance equation for the nano- peratures at the walls: the hot wall, Th, is assumed to be on the left
fluid and the mass balance equation for the nanoparticles, vertical boundary and the cold wall, Tc, is assumed to be on the
Buongiorno (2006). Moreover, the thermophysical properties of right vertical boundary. The cavity walls are subjected to the no-
the nanofluid are here expressed by means of phenomenological slip condition. The boundary conditions are shown in their dimen-
correlations as functions of the average volume fraction of the sional form in Table 1.
nanoparticles. The thermophysical properties of the base fluid A nanofluid composed of Water as base fluid, and Alumina
are, in fact, unavoidably modified by the presence of the dispersed (Al2O3, Auerkari, 1996) as nanoparticles dispersed inside the base
nanoparticles. On the other hand, the nondimensional governing fluid, is here studied. In order to analyze the nanoparticles distribu-
parameters (Rayleigh number, Prandtl number and Lewis number) tion, a non-homogeneous model is employed, Buongiorno (2006).
are defined exactly as for clear fluids. This choice allows an easier The following hypotheses are assumed:
comparison between the results obtained by the mathematical
model here employed and the results for clear fluids found in the  Non-homogeneous nanofluid model.
literature. The contribution of the average volume fraction of nano-  Brownian motion and thermophoresis as leading physical trans-
particles, coming from the definitions of the thermophysical prop- port mechanisms for the nanoparticles diffusion.
erties, is thus taken into account by means of a number of ad hoc  Thermophysical properties of the nanofluid are expressed as
nondimensional parameters. functions of the average volume fraction of nanoparticles dis-
The non-homogeneous model is here studied for different range persed inside the base fluid.
of values of the nondimensional parameters involved. The main
goals of this study are looking for possible non-homogeneities of
the nanoparticles distribution and investigating the heat transfer
performances of the nanofluid at the cavity side walls. Particular
attention is focused on the low Rayleigh numbers regimes. The
nanoparticles distribution shows indeed a strong sensitivity to
the heat transfer processes for low Rayleigh numbers. The
non-homogeneous model is here also tested for a particular highly
viscous base fluids (Propylene Glycol) in the limit case of pure
conduction and pure diffusion regime. The numerical solution of
the problem is obtained by Galerkin’s finite element method.

2. Mathematical model

The two dimensional side heated square cavity here investi-

gated is sketched in Fig. 1. The cavity is assumed to be imperme-
able and the horizontal walls are assumed to be adiabatic. The Fig. 1. Sketch of the system.
 M. Celli / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 44 (2013) 327–335 329

Table 1  v
$  ¼ 0; ð3aÞ
Dimensional boundary conditions.
  jp ;
qp v  $ U ¼ $ ð3bÞ
v T U

v ¼ 0 v
qnf v  $ P þ l r
 ¼ $  2v
 þ qnf bnf ðT  T 0 Þg; ð3cÞ
T ¼ Th n  jp ¼ 0 nf

v ¼ 0 T ¼ 0
n$ n  jp ¼ 0 ðqcÞnf v
 $  2 T  cpjp  $
 T ¼ knf r  T; ð3dÞ
v ¼ 0 T ¼ Tc n  jp ¼ 0
where the overlines refer to dimensional quantities, v  is the dimen-
v ¼ 0 T ¼ 0
n$ n  jp ¼ 0 sional velocity field, T is the dimensional temperature field, P is the
dimensional pressure field, g is the gravity acceleration, U is the lo-
cal volume fraction of nanoparticles and jp is the dimensional nano-
 (Th  Tc)/T0  1. particles mass flux. From Buongiorno (2006), the dimensional
 Steady analysis. nanoparticles mass flux is defined by
!
 Oberbeck-Boussinesq approximation. 
 Negligible viscous dissipation.  U þ D T $T ;
jp ¼ q DB $ ð4Þ
p
T
 Local thermal equilibrium between base fluid and
nanoparticles. where DB = (kBT0)/(3 plfdp) is the Brownian motion coefficient and
DT = (bT lfU0)/qf is the thermophoresis coefficient. The symbol dp
Here the reference temperature T0 is defined as T0 = (Th + Tc)/2. is the diameter of the nanoparticles and bT is a proportionality fac-
The thermophysical properties of the nanofluid such as the density tor defined by McNab and Meisen (1973). Eq. (4) introduces the
qnf, the specific heat cnf and the thermal expansion coefficient bnf, leading transport mechanisms for the diffusion of the nanoparticles
are defined by means of analytical expressions inside the cavity: the first term on the right-hand side refers to the
Brownian motion contribution and the second term on the right-
qnf ¼ ð1  U0 Þqf þ U0 qp ;
hand side refers to the thermophoresis contribution. Among the
ðqcÞnf ¼ ð1  U0 ÞðqcÞf þ U0 ðqcÞp ; ð1Þ boundary conditions of Table 1, the fourth column shows the cavity
ðqbÞnf ¼ ð1  U0 ÞðqbÞf þ U0 ðqbÞp ; walls impermeability boundary condition with respect to the nano-
particles. The impermeability is expressed by means of assuming a
where U0 is the average volume fraction of nanoparticles dispersed vanishing orthogonal flux of nanoparticles at the walls. The unit
inside the cavity, f stands for fluid, p stands for nanoparticles and nf vector n is directed outward with respect to the walls.
stands for nanofluid.
The dynamic viscosity lnf and the thermal conductivity knf are 3. Nondimensional formulation
defined by means of empirical correlations, respectively the
Brinkman model and the Maxwell model, namely In order to proceed with the analysis, a nondimensional treat-
lf ment of the governing equations is needed. The following scalings
lnf ¼ ; allow one to rewrite the system of Eqs. (3) in a nondimensional
ð1  U0 Þ2:5 form
  ð2Þ
kp þ 2kf  2U0 ðkf  kp Þ
knf ¼ kf : anf lnf anf
kp þ 2kf þ U0 ðkf  kp Þ  ¼ Lx;
x v ¼ v; P¼ P;
L L2 ð5Þ
The behavior of lnf and knf as a function of U0 is shown in Fig. 2. It is T ¼ T DT þ T 0 ; U ¼ U0 /;
worth noting that an increasing average volume fraction of nano-
particles dispersed inside the cavity, i.e. increasing values of U0, where L is the length of the cavity sides, DT = Th  Tc and anf = knf/
yields, with respect to the clear fluids, higher values of thermal con- (q c)nf is the thermal diffusivity of the nanofluid. The value of U,
ductivity and of dynamic viscosity. that is already nondimensional, is here rescaled by its average value
Since two mass balance equations (one for the base fluid and over the cavity, U0, for a better interpretation of the oncoming
one for the nanoparticles), a momentum balance equation and an results. On assuming the approximation DT/T0  1 the definition
energy balance equation are taken into account, the dimensional of the nanoparticles mass flux Eq. (4) may be simplified as
 
set of governing equations are defined as
 U þ DT DT $
jp ¼ q DB $ T : ð6Þ
p
T0
On using Eqs. (5) and (6), the system of Eqs. (3) becomes
1.30
$  v ¼ 0; ð7aÞ
1.25 !
1 r2 T
v  $/ ¼ r2 / þ ; ð7bÞ
1.20 Lef FðU0 Þ NBT

1.15 v  $v
¼ $P þ r2 v þ Raf HðU0 ÞT; ð7cÞ
Prf GðU0 Þ
1.10  
1 $T  $T
v  $T ¼ r2 T þ $/  $T þ ; ð7dÞ
1.05 Lef IðU0 Þ NBT
where Raf is the Rayleigh number relative to the fluid, Prf is the Pra-
1.00
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10
ndtl number relative to the fluid, Lef is the Lewis number relative to
the fluid and NBT is a nondimensional parameter that measures the
relative strength of the Brownian motion contribution with respect
Fig. 2. Behavior of lnf/lf and knf/kf as functions of U0. to the thermophoresis contribution. The Rayleigh number arises
330 M. Celli / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 44 (2013) 327–335

from the buoyancy term that is present in the momentum balance Table 3
equation under the Oberbeck–Boussinesq approximation. This non- Mesh independence test.
R
dimendional number describes the ratio of energy released by the MES N Nu S j$/j dS
buoyancy forces compared to the energy dissipated by heat conduc-
0.03 2894 1.0362 0.1002
tion and viscous drag. The Prandtl number and the Lewis number 0.025 4040 1.0362 0.0995
are numbers dependent only on the fluid physical characteristics 0.02 6282 1.0362 0.0994
of the system and they do not depend on the geometry or on the 0.015 11,748 1.0362 0.0993
flow variables. As a result, the Prandtl number describes the compe- 0.01 24,910 1.0362 0.0993

tition between two physical mechanisms, the viscous diffusion and

the thermal diffusion. As for the Prandtl number, the Lewis number
describes the competition between two diffusion mechanisms: the Table 4
thermal diffusion and the mass diffusion. The Rayleigh, Prandtl and Benchmark validation of the average Nusselt number ðNuÞ, the maximum horizontal
Lewis numbers are defined exactly in the same way as for clear flu- velocity (umax) at the mid-width (x = 0.5) and the maximum vertical velocity (vmax) at
the mid-height (y = 0.5) for Raf = 103.
ids. This choice allows an easier comparison of the oncoming results
with the literature on clear fluids. The nondimensional numbers Raf = 103 Present Ref. Davis Ref. Ref. Wan Ref. Barletta
just introduced are defined as follows: analysis and cavity Manzari et al. et al. (2006)
(1962) (1999) (2001)
qf bf ðT h  T c ÞL3 g lf Nu 1.118 1.12 1.074 1.117 1.118
Raf ¼ ; Prf ¼ ;
lf af qf af umax 3.653 3.634 3.68 3.489 –
y(umax) 0.813 0.813 0.817 0.813 –
af U0 T 0 DB vmax 3.701 3.679 3.73 3.686 –
Lef ¼ ; NBT ¼ : ð8Þ
DB DT DT x(vmax) 0.177 0.179 0.183 0.188 –

The functions F(U0), G(U0), H(U0) and I(U0) in Eqs. (7) are a conse-
quence of defining the nondimensional parameters of Eq. (8) in the Z 1
@T
same way as for clear fluids. The functions F(U0), G(U0), H(U0) and Nu ¼  dy: ð10Þ
0 @x
I(U0) thus gather the contribution of the average volume fraction of
nanoparticles, U0, coming from the definitions of the thermophysi- The values shown in Table 3 are obtained for Raf = 103, U0 = 10% and
cal properties, Eqs. (1) and (2). NBT = 1. For the following numerical analysis, the value MES = 0.015
is chosen as the best value for the maximum element size.
knf ðqcÞf lnf kf qf ðqcÞnf For a further validation of the code, a comparison of the numer-
FðU0 Þ ¼ ; GðU0 Þ ¼ ;
kf ðqcÞnf lf knf qnf ðqcÞf ical results with the benchmark solutions found in the literature is
lf kf ðqbÞnf ðqcÞnf knf ðqcÞf here performed. The limit U0 ? 0, i.e. the case of a fluid clear of
HðU0 Þ ¼ ; IðU0 Þ ¼ : ð9Þ nanoparticles, is considered. Moreover, the air is chosen as working
lnf knf ðqbÞf ðqcÞf kf ðqcÞp U0
fluid. For a side heated square cavity filled with air, the literature
The nondimensional boundary conditions for the square cavity provides a number of benchmark results. The benchmark values
are described in Table 2. here used are taken from Davis and cavity (1962), Manzari
(1999), Wan et al. (2001) and Barletta et al. (2006) and refer to
4. Code validation the case of Raf = 103. The choice of taking air as working fluid is
due to the fact that it yields more reliable checks since the Prandtl
The system of governing Eqs. (7) together with the relative number of air is less sensitive to the reference temperature with
boundary conditions, Table 2, are here solved numerically by respect to the Prandtl number of water. Table 4 shows the present
means of Galerkin’s finite element method implemented analysis results and the benchmark solutions for the value of Nu,
through the software package Comsol Multiphysics (Ó Comsol, the maximum value of umax and its respective coordinate y(umax),
Inc.). In order to validate the results obtained, a numerical test the maximum value of vmax and its respective coordinates x(umax).
of mesh independence is performed. The cavity is meshed with The results here obtained show a good agreement with the litera-
an unstructured grid of triangular elements with Lagrange qua- ture. The results obtained for other values of the Rayleigh number
dratic basis functions. A key parameter of the grid is the max- display again a good agreement with the literature but they are not
imum size of the elements within the mesh (MES). For a given reported here for the sake of brevity.
geometry, every value of MES corresponds to a fixed number of
grid elements (N). 5. Results
Table 3 shows, as functions of MES, the behavior of two param-
eters: the average Nusselt number over the hot wall and the inte- The system of governing Eqs. (7) is characterized by a relatively
gral over the cavity of the absolute value of the nanoparticles large set of nondimensional parameters: Raf, Prf, Lef, NBT and U0.
distribution gradient. The average Nusselt number is defined as The aim of this paper is investigating the relationship among the
follows: Rayleigh number, the volume fraction of nanoparticles and the
heat transfer performances of the nanofluid. It is thus necessary

Table 2
Nondimensional boundary conditions. Table 5
v T / Maximum values of jvj for different Rayleigh numbers, Raf and two different average
volume fraction of nanoparticles, U0.
v=0 T ¼ 12 @/
¼  @T=@x
@x N BT
U0 = 1% U0 = 10%
v=0 @T
@y ¼0 @/
¼0
@y
Raf = 100 0.004 0.002
v=0 T ¼  12 @/
¼  @T=@x Raf = 101 0.037 0.020
@x N BT
Raf = 102 0.369 0.203
v=0 @T
¼0 @/
¼0
@y @y Raf = 103 3.483 1.988
 M. Celli / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 44 (2013) 327–335 331

Fig. 3. Nanoparticles distributions / for a fixed value of U0 = 1%. The column on the left refers to NBT = 1, the column on the right refers to NBT = 10. The first row from the top
refers to Raf = 0, the second row refers to Raf = 5 and the third row refers to Raf = 10.

to fix the values of Prf, Lef and NBT. Once the basic fluid (Water), the Figs. 5–7 of Timofeevana et al. (2007). The choice to disregard the
nanoparticles material (Alumina), the nanoparticles size (dp = real distribution of the nanoparticle sizes present inside the cavity
108 m) and the reference temperature (T0 = 300 K) are chosen, has been taken in order to simplify the treatment of a problem,
the value of Prf and Lef are already set up. The value of dp refers where several governing parameters are already present. The value
to the effective average size of the nanoparticles dispersed inside of NBT depends now only on DT, Eq. (8). Within the assumptions
the cavity. In fact, particles and agglomerations of particles with just made, the range of variability of NBT is 101 < NBT < 101 for a
different sizes are dispersed in the base fluid as well shown in temperature jump between the vertical walls of 1 K < DT < 10 K.
332 M. Celli / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 44 (2013) 327–335

Fig. 4. Nanoparticles distributions / for a fixed value of U0 = 10%. The column on the left refers to NBT = 1, the column on the right refers to NBT = 10. The first row from the top
refers to Raf = 0, the second row refers to Raf = 5 and the third row refers to Raf = 10.

In the following the cases NBT = 1 and NBT = 10 are studied. Eventu- On focusing the attention on the groups Lef F(U0) and Lef I(U0)
ally, the case of a relatively small value of NBT is investigated. The of Eqs. (7), one may notice that they have an order of magnitude
typical average volume fraction of nanoparticles varies between that varies in the range 103–105. These two groups of parameters
U0 = 1% and U0 = 10%. If a value of U0  10% is assumed, the tend, in most of the cases, to dominate the Brownian motion and
system has to be modeled as a fluid saturated porous medium. In thermophoresis contributions included in Eqs. (7b) and (7d).
the following, both the cases, U0 = 1% and U0 = 10%, are analyzed. When, on the other hand, low velocities are taken into account,
 M. Celli / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 44 (2013) 327–335 333

Fig. 5. Nanoparticles distributions / for fixed value of U0 = 10% and for NBT = 1 (left) and for NBT = 10 (right). Both frames refer to Raf = 100.

the Brownian motion and thermophoresis contributions become NBT = 1, and the gray shaded area occupies a relatively small area
not negligible. If low velocities are involved, the convective terms of the cavity. For positive values of the Rayleigh number, the sec-
of Eqs. (7b) and (7d) become indeed comparable with the ond and third row from the top of Fig. 3, the mixing due to the
Brownian motion and thermophoresis contributions. The cases of thermal convection amplifies the area of the neighborhood of the
low velocity correspond to weak convection phenomena and thus, average value / = 1. Eventually, Fig. 3 highlights the key role of
for the system here analyzed, to low Rayleigh numbers. In the the parameter NBT: a low value of NBT leads to a less homogeneous
following, low Rayleigh numbers are investigated. distribution of nanoparticles.
Table 5 displays the maximum values of jvj as functions of the When the average volume fraction of nanoparticles is in-
Rayleigh number, Raf, and of the average volume fraction of creased to U0 = 10% (Fig. 4) the nanoparticles distributions and
nanoparticles, U0. While the velocity maxima increase with the temperature fields obtained are not dramatically different with
Rayleigh number, they decrease as the average volume fraction respect to the case U0 = 1%. As for Fig. 3 the first row from the
of nanoparticles increases. A reason for the latest behavior has to top refers to Raf = 0, the second row refers to Raf = 5 and the
be sought into the definitions of dynamic viscosity and thermal third row refers to Raf = 10. Again, the left column refers to sim-
conductivity in Eq. (2). Brinkman’s and Maxwell’s models, in fact, ulations performed with NBT = 1 and the right column refers to
prescribe that, when the number of suspended nanoparticles is simulations performed with NBT = 10. It is worth noting that,
increased, the dynamic viscosity and the thermal conductivity of with respect to Fig. 3, the homogeneous area of the frames rel-
the nanofluid increase as well. The increasing dynamic viscosity ative to the same Rayleigh number decreases in size, second and
and thermal conductivity tend indeed to depress the strength of third row of Fig. 4. It has already been pointed out that increas-
the convection phenomena (for fixed temperature jump, DT). ing values of U0 tend to inhibit the convective motion. When the
Fig. 2 shows the enhancement of dynamic viscosity and thermal convection is weaker, the mixing due to this phenomenon is less
conductivity for increasing values of U0. effective and this is the reason why the well mixed and homo-
Fig. 3 shows the distributions of the nanoparticles volume frac- geneous area is reduced in size.
tion inside the square cavity for a fixed value of the average volume Fig. 5 shows the nanoparticles distributions for fixed values of
fraction of nanoparticles, U0 = 1%, and for different values of the the Rayleigh number, Raf = 100, of the average volume fraction of
Rayleigh number and of the parameter NBT. Each row of Fig. 3 refers nanoparticles U0 = 10% and two different values of NBT: the left
to a different Rayleigh number: the first row from the top refers to frame refers to NBT = 1 and the right frame refers to NBT = 10. In
Raf = 0, the second row refers to Raf = 5 and the third row refers to fact, if the Rayleigh number is high enough, the non-homogeneous
Raf = 10. The left column of Fig. 3 refers to simulations performed areas become more and more confined close to the boundaries and
with NBT = 1 and the right column refers to simulations performed the gray shaded area, the homogeneous area, increases in size until
with NBT = 10. The gray shaded areas drawn inside the nanoparti- it occupies most part of the cavity. For values of Raf P 100 the non-
cles distributions frames of Fig. 3 refer to those areas where the homogeneities are then totally confined nearby the boundaries and
nanoparticles volume fraction values belong to the neighborhood the nanoparticles distribution may be considered as homogeneous.
of the value / = 1. This neighborhood is characterized by a radius The nanoparticles distributions relative to the case U0 = 1% is not
r = 0.01. When the gray shaded area occupies a small or a negligible shown here for the sake of brevity and because it does not add
part of the cavity, the distribution of nanoparticles has to be con- any further information.
sidered as non-homogeneous. On the other hand, when the gray Fig. 6 describes the temperature behavior along the diagonal
shaded area occupies most part of the cavity, the distribution of that goes from the upper left corner to the lower right corner of
the nanoparticles can be considered as homogeneous. The case of the square cavity for fixed values of NBT = 10 and U0 = 1%. The dif-
pure conduction (Raf = 0, first row of Fig. 3) shows, as expected, ferent curves are drawn for different values of the Rayleigh num-
distributions of nanoparticles that are symmetric with respect to ber. Only the case (NBT = 10, U0 = 1%) is displayed instead of all
the temperature distribution. The conduction regime enhances the possible permutations of the pair (NBT, U0) shown in Figs. 4
the effect of the thermophoresis phenomenon and one can note and 3 because Fig. 6 is representative of the system behavior.
that the nanoparticles distribution is highly non-homogeneous. One can note that, as expected, low values of the Rayleigh number
The pure conduction regime frame, in fact, displays a deviation lead to a purely horizontal temperature distribution, i.e. the pure
up to 50% from the average value / = 1 relative to the case of conduction regime for Raf = 0.
334 M. Celli / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 44 (2013) 327–335

the momentum balance equation can be solved without any con-

tribution of the temperature field because the buoyancy term is
negligible. The velocity field for the pure conduction regime is con-
stant and equal to zero. Since the fluid is still, Eqs. (7) can be
simplified
 
1 $T  $T
r2 T þ $/  $T þ ¼ 0; ð11aÞ
Lef IðU0 Þ NBT
r2 T
r2 / þ ¼ 0: ð11bÞ
NBT
The temperature field can now be rescaled by the parameter NBT

T
Te ¼ : ð12Þ
NBT
The system of Eqs. (11) can be rewritten as

1  
r2 Te þ $/  $ Te þ $ Te  $ Te ¼ 0; ð13aÞ
Lef IðU0 Þ
r2 / þ r2 Te ¼ 0: ð13bÞ

Now an order of magnitude analysis is performed with the aim of

simplifying Eqs. (13). Once the nanoparticles material and the refer-
Fig. 6. Temperature distribution along the diagonal of the cavity (from the upper
ence temperature T0 are set, the parameter NBT becomes a function
left angle to the lower right angle) for different values of Raf and fixed values of
NBT = 10 and U0 = 1%. of the base fluid properties (qf, l) and a function of the temperature
jump between the vertical walls DT, namely

qf
NBT / : ð14Þ
1.12 DT l 2
Since the possible base fluids are characterized by densities of,
1.10
approximately, the same order of magnitude, the value of NBT is
mainly driven by the term DT l2. Now one can assume that the
1.08
limit Raf ? 0 is obtained by imposing a very small characteristic
length of the system. If, moreover, a highly viscous base fluid is
Nu

1.06
considered, Propylene Glycol, one can obtain, for a given DT, a
NBT significantly small (Eq. (14) and Table 6). Once the character-
1.04
istic length L, the temperature jump DT and the average volume
fraction of nanoparticles U0 are set (Table 6) the order of magni-
1.02
tude of the group Lef I(U0) is evaluated. Since the group Lef
I(U0) has an order of magnitude of 106, one can neglect the second
1.00
0 200 400 600 800 1000 term of the left-hand side of Eq. (13a) and Eqs. (13) can be simpli-
Raf fied again to obtain the pure conduction and pure diffusion re-
gime. The simplified system and the relative boundary
Fig. 7. Nu as a function of Raf for different values of average volume fraction of conditions are
nanoparticles U0.
d Te
2
N1 N1
2
x ¼ 0; Te ð0Þ ¼ BT ; Te ð1Þ ¼  BT ; ð15aÞ
dx 2 2
d Te d Te
2
Fig. 7 shows the behavior of the average Nusselt number over d /
the hot wall, Eq. (10), as a function of the Rayleigh number for dif- ¼ 0; /ð0Þ ¼  ; /ð1Þ ¼  : ð15bÞ
dx2 dx dx
ferent values of the average volume fraction of nanoparticles
The solutions of Eqs. (15) are
U0 = 0%; 1%; 10%. From Table 5, the higher is U0 the more the con-
vection phenomena are inhibited. If the heat transfer processes at x þ 1=2
the walls are more effective when the convection phenomena are
Te ¼ ; ð16aÞ
NBT
stronger, thus high values of U0 mean a less efficient heat transfer d/
at the wall. The reasoning just made agrees with the results shown ¼ N 1
BT : ð16bÞ
dx
in Fig. 7 where the value of the Nusselt number decreases as U0 in-
creases (for a given value of Raf). If NBT  103, a critical large nanoparticle volume fraction gradient
is obtained, Eq. (16b). The latest conclusion highlights a possible
critical behavior of Boungiorno’s model for nanofluids based on
5.1. Limiting case Raf ? 0: pure conduction and pure diffusion regime

The limiting case Raf ? 0 is characterized by the pure conduc- Table 6

tion regime for the temperature field and by the pure diffusion re- Set up for the Propylene Glycol – Alumina nanofluid simulation in the limit of pure
gime for the nanoparticles distribution. This limiting case may be conduction. Order of magnitude of NBT and Lef I(U0).
achieved by means of imposing very small temperature difference L (m) DT (K) U0 NBT Lef I(U0)
between the vertical walls or by means of considering systems of
104 1 10% 103 106
very small characteristic length. In the pure conduction regime
 M. Celli / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 44 (2013) 327–335 335

highly viscous base fluids in the limit of Raf ? 0. A clear example of The author is grateful to one of the anonymous Reviewers for
this critical behavior arises when the case of a nanofluid composed the helpful suggestions that improved the quality of the paper.
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