NUMERICAL STUDY OF CONJUGATE NATURAL CONVECTION OVER VERTICAL AND INCLINED PLATE WITH PROTRUDING HEAT SOURCES
This work presents a numerical simulation of conjugate natural-convection heat transfer in a plate for vertical and inclined positions containing protruding heat sources. This problem arises as a typical concern in systems design involving buoyance-driven flows, such as in electronics. The plate contains seven elements uniformly distributed at the upper surface and an insulation layer at bottom that guarantees convection mechanism to occur only in one side of plate. This research’s focus is first in validate numerical method and then to investigate the effect of power inputs and inclinations on dynamic and thermal-fields. Using a bi-dimensional, finite-volume method, time averaged Navier-Stokes equations were solved for steady state including a turbulence model and assuming all fluid physical properties constant, except for buoyance terms, obtained from Boussinesq approximation. Heat transfer mechanisms considered were convection, conduction and radiation. Three different power inputs were simulated and compared in their temperature and Nusselt number distributions. Validation showed a coherent result when compared to experiments, but there are still applicable corrections. In addition, future results regarding plate inclination and other investigations to be proposed are expected.