Magnetohydrodynamic Natural Convection of Nanofluids in U-shaped Enclosures

This article presents the results of a numerical study of laminar natural convection in a U-shaped enclosure that is filled with a water-Cu nanofluid and is under the influence of a horizontal magnetic field. A computational domain was defined and a numerical scheme based on the control volume formulation using the SIMPLE algorithm was developed. The convection-diffusion terms were discretized using a power-law scheme. The effects of the Rayleigh number, the solid volume fraction, the Hartmann number, and the enclosure aspect ratio on the heat transfer performance of the enclosure were examined. The thermal performance of the enclosure was found to be a function of the enclosure aspect ratio. The results also showed that the heat transfer rate increased with an increase of the Rayleigh number and the solid volume fraction, but it decreased with an increase of the Hartmann number.