C. Shu et al., Numerical study of natural convection in an eccentric annulus between a square outer cylinder and a circular inner cylinder using DQ method, INT J HEAT, 44(17), 2001, pp. 3321-3333
In this paper, natural convective heat transfer in a horizontal eccentric a
nnulus between a square outer cylinder and a heated circular inner cylinder
is numerically studied using the differential quadrature (DQ) method. The
vorticity-stream function formulation is taken in the governing equation. T
o take the global circulation flow into consideration, the pressure single-
value condition is applied, an explicit formulation is derived and the stre
am function value on the inner cylinder wall is updated from the values at
all the interior points. To apply the DQ method, the coordinate transformat
ion is performed. A super elliptic function is introduced in this paper for
approximating the square outer boundary located eccentrically to the inner
boundary. As a result, the coordinate transformation from the physical dom
ain to the computational domain is set up by an analytical expression. It i
s demonstrated in this paper that the DQ method is an efficient approach in
computing the weak global circulation in the domain. The present method is
validated by comparing its numerical results with available data in the li
terature and very good agreement has been achieved. A systematic study is c
onducted for the analysis of flow and thermal fields at different eccentric
ities and angular positions. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights rese
rved.