Predictions of Buoyancy-induced Flow in Asymmetrical Heated Rotating Cavity System

This paper presents the finite difference solutions for buoyancy-induced flow in the asymmetrical heated rotating cavity system for the range of rotational Reynolds numbers Re-theta = 6.13x10(5)<= Re-theta=4.4x10(6) and the mass flow rates C-w <= 28000 <= C-w <= 3000. All the simulations have been carried out through the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) commercial code, ANSYS Fluent 12.0, by adopting axisymmetric, Steady-state and elliptic technique. Two well know models namely k-epsilon and the Reynolds stress models have been employed. The simulated results illustrate the important aspects of the heated rotating cavity flow system. The noteworthy influence of buoyancy-induced flow have been observed on the predicted stream lines, static temperature contours and the local Nusselt numbers for the rotating cavity space. A comparison of the predicted local Nusselt numbers for the hot and cold discs showed a good level of agreement with the measurements.