Analysis of the convective heat transfer characteristics in a two-dimensional cavity subjected to an external magnetic field

Natural convection heat transfer in the presence of a magnetic field has received considerable attention in the past few decades because of its various applications in industrial installations. In particular, a large number of numerical studies analyzing the effect of the magnetic field on natural convection in a two-dimensional cavity have been performed. In this work, we propose to study the main characteristics of the convective heat transfer of pure fluids and nanofluids in a two-dimensional cavity differentially heated and subjected to an external magnetic field. The scale analysis method is used first to obtain a correlation giving the heat transfer rate, which is then developed to predict the behavior of the heat transfer rate for pure fluids and nanofluids. To verify the reliability of the theoretical predictions, a numerical study is also carried out. The results show that the proposed correlation predicts well the convective heat transfer characteristics obtained numerically.