High resolution of 2D natural convection in a cavity by the DQ method

In this paper, the differential quadrature method (DQ) is applied to solve the benchmark problem of 2D natural convection in a cavity by utilizing the velocity–vorticity form of the Navier–Stokes equations, which is governed by the velocity Poisson equation, continuity equation and vorticity transport equation as well as energy equation. The coupled equations are simultaneously solved by imposing the vorticity definition at boundary without any iterative procedure. The present model is properly utilized to obtain results in the range of Rayleigh number ( 10 3 – 10 7 ) and H / L aspect ratios varying from 1 to 3. Nusselt numbers computed for 10 3 ⩽ Ra ⩽ 10 7 in a cavity show excellent agreement with the results available in the literature. Additionally, the detailed features of flow phenomena such as velocity, temperature, vorticity, and streamline plots are also delineated in this work. Thus, it is convinced that the DQ method is capable of solving coupled differential equations efficiently and accurately.