Convecção natural em canais abertos parabólicos convergentes e divergentes

Abstract

Natural convection in open-ended channels has been extensively studied in several applications as in the cooling of electronic equipments, solar collectors, among them. Most works have considered the natural convection in vertical parallel channels. Besides, most ones neglect the diffusion terms in the streamwise direction, so a march procedure may be employed. However if flow reversal occurs it may not possible to neglect the diffusion of momentum and energy equations in any direction. In the present work the natural convection in open-ended parabolic convergent and divergent channels is analyzed retained all diffusion terms in the conservation equations. The equations are solved by the finite-volume method using a co-located variable arrangement. The results are present in terms of streamlines, isotherms and average Nusselt number.