Numerical simulation of the effects of plate separation and inclination onheat transfer in buoyancy driven open channels

Effects of plate separation and inclination on free convection between asym metrically heated vertical and inclined parallel plates have been simulated . The upper isothermally heated plate is facing downwards, the lower plate is passively heated by the upper one. The plate inclinations are chosen to be 0 degrees, 30 degrees, 45 degrees with respect to vertical position. Thr ee-dimensional laminar numerical simulations are obtained by solving the fu ll elliptic governing equations using a commercial finite volume based comp utational fluid dynamics (CFD) code. Comparisons of computational results w ith experiments and data from the literature are made in terms of relevant dimensionless numbers. It was observed that plate spacing and inclination i nfluence the overall heat transfer rate.