Numerical Modeling of Heat and Mass Transfer Phenomena in Heated Enclosures.

This study has for objective the modeling of three- dimensional combined heat transfer (laminar and turbulent natural convection, conduction and thermal radiation) inside a large enclosure with a located heated source and specific thermal boundary conditions. This situation occurs in numerous engineering applications such as environment inside buildings. Natural convection and surface thermal radiation equations were solved simultaneously using the finite volume method and the net radiation method. Effects of operating parameters such as the temperature gradient and the airflow on the performance of the process are studied. Results show that flow patterns are not symmetric due to the combined effect of the temperature gradient over the radiator and the convective interchange neighboring the hot wall. Flow and temperature patterns inside the parallelepiped enclosure are presented and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]