Mixed Convection in Lid Driven Square Cavity Using Finite Volume Method

A Finite volume based numerical study on lid driven cavity flow having partially heated bottom wall with constant heat flux is presented. Effect of Rayleigh number varying between 10(3)-10(6), Richardson number ranging between 0.5 to 8 and length of heating zone (0.2, 0.5 and 0.8) has been studied. Rayleigh number represents the extent of thermal input and its rise leads to strengthening of convection effect. Formation of secondary vortices in cavity slows down due to combined effect of thermal heating and top wall movement. Temperature distribution gets increasingly nonlinear with rise in Richardson number and peak shifts towards the centre. Any increase in lid velocity causes drop in Ri and centre of the vortex shifts towards right part of the cavity. The peak velocity is observed in right half of the cavity due to top wall movement in that direction.