NATURAL-CONVECTION HEAT-TRANSFER IN INCLINED ENCLOSURES WITH MULTIPLECONDUCTING SOLID PARTITIONS

Laminar natural convection heat transfer is studied in a tilted fluid system consisting of multiple layers of fluid separated by solid parti tions with finite thickness and conductivity. A closed form solution i s derived in the limit of a thin-layered system subject to a uniform h eat flux from the sides and adiabatic boundary conditions at two ends. Results are obtained in terms of overall Nusselt number Nu as a funct ion of Rayleigh number Ra, angle of inclination of the system PHI, sol id to fluid conductivity ratio K, thickness of the fluid layers Z(i), thickness of the solid partitions t(i), and number of partitions N. Th e critical Rayleigh number for the onset of convection in a bottom-hea ted horizontal system is predicted. The results are compared with limi ting cases of the problem and are in agreement. A numerical study of t he same phenomenon is obtained by solving the complete system of gover ning equations using a finite difference formulation and a volume cont rol method. Good agreement is found between the analytical predictions and the numerical simulation.