Conjugate natural convection around a finned pipe in a square enclosure with internal heat generation

This work is focused on the numerical study of steady, laminar, conjugate natural convection around a finned pipe placed in the center of a square enclosure with uniform internal heat generation. Four perpendicular thin fins of arbitrary and equal dimensions are attached to the pipe whose internal surface is isothermally cooled. The sides of the enclosure are considered to have finite and equal thicknesses and their external sides are isothermally heated. The problem is put into dimensionless formulation and solved numerically by means of the finite-volume method. Representative results illustrating the effects of the finned pipe inclination angle and fins length on the streamlines and temperature contours within the enclosure are reported. In addition, results for the local and average Nusselt numbers are presented and discussed for various parametric conditions. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.