DEVELOPING FLOW OF MIXED CONVECTION IN A VERTICAL RECTANGULAR DUCT WITH ONE HEATING WALL

Heat transfer and flow patterns of laminar mixed convection in the dev eloping region of a vertical rectangular duct with one heating wall ha ve been investigated numerically in this study. The parabolic boundary layer model is adopted to predict the three-dimensional buoyancy-assi sted flow field. Governing equations are solved by using the SIMPLEC m ethod coupled with a forward marching, implicit finite difference sche me. The velocity and temperature distributions as well as the streamwi se variations of local heat flux and fluid pressure are calculated und er various geometric parameters. Results show that the flow characteri stics are significantly dependent on the buoyancy effect (Gr / Re), th e aspect ratio of cross section of duct (B), and the Prandtl number (P r). The numerical solutions obtained have been compared and verified w ith existing studies. Meanwhile, the analytical solutions of fully dev eloped flow recently reported [8] are found to exactly portray the beh avior of flow far downstream.