Heat Transfer of CuO-Water Nanofluid in a Porous Square Cavity with Two Source-Sink Pairs

In the present work, natural convection in a two-dimensional square porous cavity saturated by nanofluid is numerically investigated. Two discrete heat source-sink pairs are situated on the vertical walls with three different arrangements while the remaining walls are adiabatic. CuO-Water Nanofluid with more recent empirical correlations for the thermal conductivity and the dynamic viscosity are utilized. The governing equations are discretized following finite volume approach using SIMPLE algorithm. The results are presented over a broad range of Rayleigh numbers (103≤Ra≤106), and volume fraction of nanoparticles for three different Cases. The results indicate that the heat transfer enhancement rate is heavily related to the Ryleigh number as well as the nanoparticles volume fraction. It is demonstrated that the average Nusselt number at the lower Rayleigh numbers enhances as the solid volume fraction increases.