Experimental study of a natural convection flow in a cubic enclosure with a partially heated inner block

Alexandre Weppe (1, 2) , Florian Moreau (3) , Didier Saury (1)

1 ISAE-ENSMA - École Nationale Supérieure de Mécanique et d’Aérotechnique [Poitiers]
2 PPrime [Poitiers] - Institut Pprime [UPR 3346]
3 COST - Convection, Optimisation, Systèmes Thermiques [Institut Pprime]

In many industrial contexts, buoyancy driven flows are the only cooling strategy in case of breakdown of the forced convection cooling system. In order to study those flows in a simplified configuration, a buoyancy-driven flow is generated inside a cubic enclosure by a partially heated block (Ra = 1.4×10^9 ). The flow is studied experimentally in the vertical median plane, in the part of the enclosure where the flow is generated i.e. close to the heated side of the block. Velocity fields, mean profiles and RMS statistics are analyzed. The results show the presence of boundary layer flows with a central zone nearly at rest and stratified. RMS velocities are intensified with elevation.

Domaines: Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Thermique [physics.class-ph]

Alexandre Weppe, Florian Moreau, Didier Saury. Experimental study of a natural convection flow in a cubic enclosure with a partially heated inner block. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 2021, 8th European Thermal Sciences Conference (EUROTHERM 2021) 20-22 September 2021, VIRTUAL, 2116 (1), pp.012033. ⟨10.1088/1742-6596/2116/1/012033⟩. ⟨hal-03474144⟩