A NUMERICAL STUDY OF 3-DIMENSIONAL NATURAL-CONVECTION IN A DIFFERENTIALLY HEATED CUBICAL ENCLOSURE

A high-resolution, finite difference numerical study is reported on three-dimensional steady-state natural convection of air, for the Rayleigh number range 10(3) less-than-or-equal-to Ra less-than-or-equal-to 10(6), in a cubical enclosure, which is heated differentially at two vertical side walls. The details of the three-dimensional flow and thermal characteristics are described. Extensive use is made of state-of-the-art numerical flow visualizations. The existence of the transverse z-component velocity, although small in magnitude, is clearly shown. Comparison of the present three-dimensional results with the two-dimensional solutions is conducted. The three-dimensional data demonstrate reasonable agreement with the experimental measurements.