International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, Vol.40, No.9, 2133-2145, 1997
Transient Conjugate Heat-Transfer on a Naturally Cooled Body of Arbitrary Shape
Transient conjugate heat transfer relating the heat conduction inside a solid body of arbitrary shape and the natural convection around the solid is studied in the present investigation. A single set of governing equations covering both solid and fluid is solved by using the weighting function scheme along with the NAPPLE algorithm and the SIS solver. All of the computations are performed on a Cartesian grid system. Numerical results of velocities and isotherms are presented for Pr = 7 and Gr = 10(7) and 10(8). An interesting observation on formation, growth, merging and decay of several plumes is discussed. The solution shows that there is a dead fluid inside the cavity under the solid body due to an upward temperature gradient. The maximum temperature thus occurs there in a late stage of the heal transfer process. An increase in the Grashof number is found to enhance the heat transfer. Through this study, the present numerical method is shown to have a good performance for conjugate heat transfer on solid body of arbitrary shape without the need of a body-fitted grid system.