TY - JOUR A1 - Sánchez Kaiser, Antonio AU - Zamora Parra, Blas AU - Viedma Robles, Antonio T1 - Numerical correlation for natural convective flows in isothermal heated, inclined and convergent channels for high Rayleigh numbers Y1 - 2008 UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10317/604 AB - A numerical study of natural convective flows, mainly for high Rayleigh numbers, in a sloped converging channel, for different inclination and convergence angles has been carried out, taking into account the lacks of the literature on some aspect of this configuration. Two dimensional, laminar, transitional and turbulent simulations were obtained by solving the fully-elliptic governing equations using two different general purpose codes: Fluent and Phoenics. The low-Reynolds K-w turbulence model has been employed. Special amphasis is made on the systematic comparisons of computational results with experimental and numerical data taken from literature for turbulent regime, so as on the transitional conditions, studying the influence of Rayleigh number and channel aspect ratio. A generalized turbulent correlation for the average Nusselt number has been obtained from numerical results in a channel with isithermal hated plates, for symmetric heating conditions. This correlation is valid for wide and not yet covered ranges of Rayleigh number (based on length of the channel)varying from 10 high 10 to 10 high 16, aspect ratio between 0.03 to 0.25, the coverging angle from 1 to 30º and sloping angle from 0 to 60º. Finally, an application of this numerical correlation in two experimental prototypes is presented. KW - Mecánica de Fluidos KW - Corrientes de convección turbulenta KW - Canal inclinado convergente KW - Correlación numérica KW - Número Rayleigh KW - Turbulent convective flows KW - Inclined converging channels KW - Numerical correlation KW - Fluid mechanics LA - eng PB - Elsevier Science ER -