Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, Vol. 12, No.

6, 2012 389

Low Reynolds-number effect on the turbulent natural

convection in an enclosed 3D tall cavity

A. Aksouh*
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics,
Center of Research of Astronomy Astrophysics and Geophysics CRAAG,
Bouzareah 16340, Algeria
Fax: 00 (213) 21 90 44 58
E-mail: m.aksouh@craag.dz
*Corresponding author

A. Mataoui
Theoretical and Applied Laboratory of Fluid Mechanics,
University of Science and Technology of Algiers USTHB,
Bab Ezzouar, Algeria
Fax: 00 (213) 21-24-75-73
E-mail: amina_mataoui@yahoo.fr

N. Seghouani
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics,
Center of Research of Astronomy Astrophysics and Geophysics CRAAG,
Bouzareah 16340, Algeria
Fax: 00 (213) 21 90 44 58
E-mail: nseghouani@yahoo.fr

Abstract: A numerical prediction of the natural convection of air in an enclosed

tall differentially heated rectangular cavity of 0.076 × 2.18 × 0.52 m is detailed in this
present paper. Two differential temperatures between the lateral plates are considered,
of respectively, 19.6◦ C and 39.9◦ C, corresponding to low and high Rayleigh numbers,
i.e., 0.86 × 106 and 1.43 × 106 . The mean equations for a three-dimensional compressible
flow in Cartesian coordinates are deduced from the conservative mass, momentum and
energy equations. The closure of the motion equations is achieved by means of two
statistical turbulence models coupled with the wall functions: the standard k −
model and
its derived RNG one. The second model is used to improve the effect of low-Reynolds
numbers, particularly in the viscous sublayer close to the wall. The numerical solution
of the RANS equations is solved through a finite volume method based on a power-law
discretisation scheme and a pressure–velocity SIMPLE algorithm, using a CFD code. The
three-dimensional study allowed the detection of the toroidal secondary flow.

Keywords: turbulence modelling; numerical simulation; natural convection; rectangular

cavity; 3D.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Aksouh, A., Mataoui, A. and Seghouani,
N. (2012) ‘Low Reynolds-number effect on the turbulent natural convection in an enclosed
3D tall cavity’, Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, Vol. 12, No. 6, pp.389–399.

Biographical notes: Mohamed Aksouh is a Researcher in the Department of Astronomy and

Astrophysics, Centre for Research in Astronomy Astrophysics and Geophysics, CRAAG,
Algiers. He obtained his graduate degree in fluid dynamics from the University of Science
and Technology Houari Boumediene, USTHB. Currently, he is preparing his doctoral thesis
in energetic and fluid dynamics in the laboratory of theoretical and applied fluid mechanics,
faculty of physics, USTHB.

Amina Mataoui is a Professor at the Theoretical and Applied Fluid Mechanics Laboratory
at the Faculty of Physics, USTHB, Algiers. Her research areas include experimental study
and numerical predictions of turbulence flows.

Copyright © 2012 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

390 M. Aksouh et al.
Nassim Seghouani received his PhD in Signal Processing from the University of Toulouse,
France. He is currently a Senior Researcher at Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics,
CRAAG, Algiers. Currently, he deals with inverse problems and spectral estimation,
including helioseismology.
1 Introduction
Natural convection is a process of heat transfer in
which energy is transferred by both random molecular
and bulk fluid motions. Thus, the study of natural
convection within cavities is increasingly attracting
research attention owing to its numerous effective
applications, such as nuclear plants, cooling of electronic
packages (ex: cluster), solar collectors and building
ventilation (ex: window frame and glazing cavity). For
this reason, this mode of heat transfer has been widely
and thoroughly studied experimentally (Cheesewright
et al., 1986; Mergui et al., 1993; Dafa’Alla and Betts,
1996; Tian and Karayiannis, 2000; Betts and Bokhari,
2000; Ampofo and Karayiannis, 2003; Laguerre et al.,
2005) and analytically (Yang et al., 1989; Ouriemi et al.,
2005; Teertsta, 2006) as well as numerically (Ince and
Launder, 1989; Yang et al., 1989; Henkes et al., 1991;
Tieszen et al., 1998; Tian and Karayiannis, 2000; Hsieh
and Lien, 2004; Ouriemi et al., 2005; Xaman et al., 2005;
Aounallah et al., 2007; Gustaven and Thue, 2007; Younis
et al., 2007; Pons, 2008; Yang and Zhu, 2008; Ezzouhri,
2009), for different flow configurations cases.
Depending on the cavity flow conditions, such as
the size (the cavity shape parameter) and the fluid
properties, flows can be either laminar or turbulent.
Yet laminar flows has been substantially examined by
a great number of previous works and are relatively
simple to predict, whereas turbulent ones are far more
difficult to predict. Few experimental data, cited above,
were achieved as a test benchmark for various cavity
aspect ratios AR = W/H. In fact, the experimental
problems relating to natural convection within enclosures
are mainly owing to the difficulties of the low-velocity
measurements and to the achievement of ideal adiabatic
conditions in the walls vicinity.
Tian and Karayiannis (2000) experimentally studied
natural convection in a square cavity filled with air
(AR = 1 for Ra = 109 ), where the flow in the cavity core
was quiescent and thermally stratified. To simulate this
flow, characterised by a very low-turbulence intensity,
Hseih and Lien (2004) used the unsteady RANS
approach combined with a low-Re k −
model of Lien
and Leschnizer (1999). It was established that with a
linear temperature variation profile over the cavity width,
the model under estimates the peak values of Nusselt
number, whilst the velocity components, temperature
and turbulence quantities are in good agreement with
the experiment. In contrast, Betts and Bokhari (2000)
provide a great Benchmark test for low-turbulence
Reynolds number flows, which was used for the purpose
of this paper as a test case. For their experiment
Betts and Bokhari (2000), they adopted a heated tall
cavity with high-aspect ratio AR = 28.6. Two cases
of differential temperature were examinde, i.e., 19.6◦ C
and 39.9◦ C between the lateral cavity plates, which
respectively, correspond to the low- and high-Rayleigh
numbers. In such a tall cavity, the core region flow
becomes more disturbed (ú/U ≈ 0.4) with low-Reynolds
numbers. As a consequence, turbulence models for high
Re number are not suitable for this case. Hence, we
propose to study numerically the same physical problem
(Betts and Bokhari, 2000) of turbulent flows in tall
cavities, making use of two one point closure turbulence
models: the standard k −
model and its derivative the
RNG k −
model.
Otherwise, the closure proposal does not take into
consideration the viscosity effect within the energy
containing motions as well as the influence of the
mean-strain field on the dissipative ones. However, most
of the previous studies regarding natural convection
flows consider low-velocity magnitudes, resulting in a
viscosity effect and its subsequent low-Reynolds number.
The advantages of the RNG theory is that it allows
us to interpolate the eddy viscosity through the low
Reynolds numbers regions and thus obtain generic
expressions, which are valid throughout the full range
of flow conditions, from the lowest to the highest
Reynolds numbers (Gatski et al., 1996). The aim of
this work is to show the effectiveness of the RNG
theory in predicting the behaviour of turbulent flows with
low-Reynolds numbers in comparison with the standard
model. In the same context, the numerical works of Hseih
and Lien (2004) were used for this case study (Betts and
Bokari, 2000) by considering two-dimensional flows. The
results showed that the steady RANS equations can be
used for these flows (Betts and Bokhari, 2000) without
encountering convergence problems.
In recent numerical works, Gustaven and Thue
(2007), Yong and Zhu (2008) and Pons (2008) studied
numerically the three dimensional natural convection in
tall cavity. Gustaven and Thue (2007) considered an
air filled differentially heated tall cavity with different
vertical aspect ratios of 20, 40 and 80 and horizontal
aspect ratios of 5 and 0.2. The Nusselt number was
correlated for different ratios to predict the heat transfer
through equipment or building sections, encompassing
internal cavities. Their CFD simulations showed that
cavities with horizontal aspect ratio greater than five
could be considered as being two-dimensional for
heat transfer rates up to 4%. Except, the velocity
and temperature profiles should be considered as
three-dimensional for better precision. On the other
hand, Yang and Zhu (2008) used the DNS to examine
 Low Reynolds-number effect on the turbulent natural convection in an enclosed 3D tall cavity 391

the high-Rayleigh number unsteady turbulent natural models are generally based on the concept of Prandtl-
convection in a tall cavity with height-depth-width ratio Kolmogorov’s turbulent viscosity and eddy diffusivity
of 16:8:1. For these conditions, the results showed that (equations 4 and 5, respectively):
the flow becomes turbulent and asymmetric. Ezzouhri  
(2009) considered the mixed convection air flow in ∂ui ∂uj 2
Rij = −ρúi u´j = µt + − ρδij k (4)
3D ventilated cavity. The comparison between the ∂xj ∂xi 3
experimental data and numerical values provided by µt ∂T
Large Eddy Simulation confirms that the using of a −ρúi T́ = (5)
Prt ∂xi
classical dynamic model is able to correctly reproduce
the flow bifurcation. Additionally, the other objective of where µt is turbulent eddy viscosity and Prt is the
this work is to study the three-dimensional effect on the turbulent Prandtl number. The eddy diffusivity Γt is
reliability of numerical models along the gradient axis, as assumed proportional to the eddy viscosity by:
well as the use of 3D analysis to visualise various flows µt
behaviour. Previous experimental and numerical studies Γt = .
Prt
showed that buoyancy forces generates a secondary flow
(Piller, 2004), symmetric with respect to the vertical In this paper two one point closure turbulence models
mid-plane hot fluid moving transversally towards the coupled to the wall function have been used to compare
cavity central region. In this study, we have perform the the turbulent flow field for low- and high-Rayleigh
three-dimensional calculations using only the RNG k −
numbers: the standard k −
model and the RNG k −

model. The literature shows (Gatski et al., 1996) that the model.
standard k −
model erroneously do not capture any
secondary flow. 2.1 Standard k −
model
The standard k −
model (Jones and Launder, 1972) is a
semi-empirical model based on two transport equations
2 Methodology (the turbulence kinetic energy k and its dissipation rate

). The kinetic turbulent energy (k) equation is derived
The mass and unsteady RANS (Reynolds Average from the exact (equation 6), while the dissipation rate (
)
Navies Stokes) conservative equations coupled to the equation was obtained on physical analysis (equation 7):
averaged energy equation for the turbulent viscous flows
are considered in the following forms (equations 1–3,
Turbulent kinetic energy
respectively) by using the Boussinesq approximation:
  
Mass conservative equation: ∂k ∂ µT ∂k
ρuj = µ+ − ρ

∂xj ∂xj σk ∂xj
∂ ∂ui
(ui ) = 0 (1) + Rij + Gb (6)
∂xi ∂xj

Momentum conservative equation Dissipation rate equation

  
∂ ∂P ∂
 ∂
∂ µt ∂

ρ (uj ui ) = − + τij − ρúi u´j ρuj = µ+
∂xj ∂xi ∂xj ∂xj ∂xj σ
∂xj
 
+ ρgi β (T − T0 ) (2)
∂ui
2
+ C
1 Rij + Gb − C
2 ρ (7)
κ ∂xj k

Energy conservative equation where (per unit mass):

 
∂ ∂ ∂T 1
ρ (CP uj T ) = κ − ρCP u´j T́ (3) k= úi úi is the turbulent kinetic energy,
∂xj ∂xj ∂xj 2
∂ úi ∂ úi
where
=ν is the dissipation rate
    ∂xk ∂xk
∂ui ∂uj 2 ∂uk
τij = µ + − µ δij
∂xj ∂xi 3 ∂xk and Gb = −ρgi β úi T́ is the turbulent kinetic energy
production owing to the buoyancy.
is the viscous stress tensor. The turbulent viscosity µt is deduced through the
The Reynolds stresses Rij and turbulent heat flux úi T́ Prandtl-Kolmogorov formula (equation 8):
are deduced from the Boussinesq approximation. The
system require a closure, the one point closure turbulence µt = ρCµ k 2 /
(8)
392 M. Aksouh et al.

C
1 , C
2 and Cµ are modelling constants and (σk , σ
)
are respectively, the turbulent Prandtl numbers for k
and
. The values of each modelling constants are fixed
by Jones and Launder (1972): C
1 = 1.44, C
2 = 1.92,
Cµ = 0.09, σk = 1.0, σ
= 1.3.
2.2 RNG k −
model
strain rates (η < η0 ), where the additional term in
equation (10) becomes significant (R). In the limit of
weak strain the supplementary source term tends to zero
and the original form of the standard model is then
recovered. For the near wall treatment, the enhanced
wall function (Kader, 1981) has been used to predict the
viscous sublayer.

Yakhot and Orszag (1986) proposed the RNG k −
2.3 Numerical procedure
model, derived from the standard k −
model, based
on renormalisation group theory. The RNG k −
A finite volume method was used in this study. It
model is similar in form to the standard k −
model requires the integration of the mean and turbulent fields
with some modifications, such as the additional term transport equations over the discretisation cells. The
in its
equation, which significantly improves the numerical solution is obtained with an elliptic solver
accuracy for rapidly strained flows including the effects with sub-iterations. Colocated meshes for the velocity
of streamline curvature and providing an analytically components were used to prevent the development of
derived differential formula for the effective viscosity that checkerboard instabilities throughout the pressure field.
takes into account the conditions for a low-Reynolds The well-known SIMPLE algorithm (Patankar, 1981) was
number. RNG techniques are used in development of the applied for the pressure–velocity coupling. As usual, the
theory for the large scales where the effects of the small source terms of the turbulence equations were linearised to
scales are represented by modified transport coefficients. ensure the solution stability, whilst the nonlinearities were
The form of RNG model is (Dong, 2000): solved through internal iterations. Such a technique is
computationally inexpensive as it requires reduced storage
Turbulent kinetic energy capacities. A power law scheme for interpolation process
was achieved and a three-dimensional structural non
  uniform grid arrangement has been generated.
∂k ∂ ∂k To calculate the heat transfer rate along the wall, we
ρuj = αk µef f − ρ
+ Gb
∂xj ∂xj ∂xj consider the local Nusselt number:
∂ui q L
+ Rij (9) Nu = (12)
∂xj (T − Tref ) κ

Dissipation rate equation where the temperature reference is approximated as:

Tref = (Tc + Th )/2. The average Nusselt number along
the heated vertical wall is deduced by (equation 12):
 
∂
∂ ∂
H
ρuj = α
µef f N u dy
∂xj ∂xj ∂xj Nu = − 0 . (13)
  H

∂ui
+ C
1RN G Gb + Rij
κ ∂xj 2.4 Geometry and grid arrangement

2
− (C
2RN G + R) ρ (10) The experiment of Betts and Bokhari concerns the study of
k
  the natural convection of air in a tall differentially heated
CµRN G η 3 (1−η/η0 ) 2 rectangular cavity: 0.076 × 2.18 × 0.52 m (corresponding
where R = 1+βη 3 and η = 2 D(u) k
. αk
and α
are the inverse Prandtl numbers of k and to the width, height and depth of the cavity, respectively).

, respectively; and the constants are: C
1RN G = More detail and description of this flow configuration
1.42, C
2RN G = 1.68, CµRN G = 0.0845, η0 = 4.38 and can be found in Betts and Bokhari (2000). In this
β = 0.012. work, the same conditions of this experiment have been
D(U ) = 12 (∇U + ∇t U ) is the mean strain rate tensor. considered to validate the prediction of the turbulent
To obtain an accurate description of how the effective natural convection of air in tall cavity. These parameters
turbulent transport varies with the effective Reynolds are summarised by the sketch of the Figure 1 and the
number, allowing the model to better handle low- data of Table 1. The thermal parameters involved in this
Reynolds number and near wall flows, the following paper are the Prandtl number of the flow and the Rayleigh
equation is integrated: number based on the temperature difference between the
  hot and the cold lateral cavity wall througth the following
ρ2 k ν̂ relation
d √ = 1.72 √ dν̂ (11)

µ ν̂ − 1 + C − ν
3
gβ∆T W 3
Ra = ,
where ν̂ = µef f /µ and Cν = 100, and µef f = µ + µt . να
The difference between the RNG model and standard where the density varies according to the Boussinesq
model is important for flows characterised by a large approximation.
 Low Reynolds-number effect on the turbulent natural convection in an enclosed 3D tall cavity
Figure 1 The flow control parameters
Table 1 Thermal parameters (W = 0.076 m, H = 2.18 m,
D = 0.52 m)
Low Ra High Ra
◦ ◦
Wall temperature difference 19.6 C 39.9 C
Rayleigh number 0.86 × 106 1.43 × 106
The aspect ratio AR of the tall cavity fixed to
AR = H/W = 28.68, highlighted the difficulty to mesh
the calculation domain to preserve the uniform shape of
each cell, mainly in the mid-height of cavity. To chose
the available grid size of the configuration, four different
cases of meshes have been tested (Table 2). To predict
the adequate mesh, the values of the mean Nusselt
number N u (Table 3) along the hot wall are determined
by using the RNG k −
model for the low-Rayleigh
number. Depending on the grid size, the better results
are obtained for the grid with mesh refinement along
the y axis and the z axis (N3 and N4), the case N3
(N 3 < N 4) has been chosen to space discretisation to
reduce computational time (Figure 2).
2.5 Boundary conditions
The boundary conditions of this configuration (Figure 1)
are:
• For the two vertical walls:
Table 2 Grid size test
N1
Grid size 25 × 200 × 60 50 × 150 × 100
Nodes number 300.000
393
Table 3 Mean Nusselt number for different grids (for low
Ra number)
Nu
Experimental results (Betts and Bokhari, 2000) 5.85
Mesh N1 4.31
Mesh N2 4.88
Mesh N3 5.19
Mesh N4 5.20
T = Tc and u(u, v, w) = 0 for x = 0.
and
T = Th and u(u, v, w) = 0 for x = W.
• For the front, back, bottom and top walls the
adiabatic condition is imposed with stationary wall
condition; u(u, v, w) = 0.
3 Results and discussions
3.1 Velocity evolution
The mean vertical velocity uy along the x axis is plotted
on Figure 3(a) at different heights. These figures show
that the vertical velocity gradient is more important
near the walls. The extremum of the vertical velocity
near the hot wall reveal that the flow is rising up, while
the flow is going down is indicated by the negatives
values near the cold wall. Nevertheless, in the core region
(X = 0.5) the flow is practically quiescent (vy ≈ 0) for all
heights sections (Betts and Bokhari, 2000). The numerical
results based on the RNG model are in good agreement
with the experimental data, especially near the wall
where the velocity gradient is significant. In the contrast,
the standard model under predict the vertical velocity.
The experiment shows that the RNG model makes a
possibility to improve the turbulent kinetic energy by
the standard model in the vicinity to the wall where
the viscous effects are dominant. These figures show the
importance of the additive term in the RNG model (10),
which considers the effects of dissipation in the flow at
low-Reynolds numbers.
The analysis of the Figure 3(a) shows that when
the flow gets in accelerated along the hot wall at
(y/H = 0.1) while it is decelerated near the cavity top
wall (y/H = 0.9). In contrast, near the cold wall, the
flow is accelerated at the top wall (y/H = 0.9) and
N2 N3 N4
50 × 300 × 50 45 × 300 × 65
750.000 750.000 877.500
394 M. Aksouh et al.

Figure 2 Grid arrangement (45 × 300 × 65) Figure 3 Vertical velocity profile across the cavity width at
various heights, for z = 0 (Ra = 0.86 × 106 )

it is attenuated in the vicinity of the bottom wall

(y/H = 0.1). Also, the profile of the vertical velocity
presents two peaks generated by a reverse flow.
However, the turbulent boundary layers are divided
into a two layers. The inner layer, close to the wall,
is dominated by the viscous shear, whereas the outer
layer is generated by the turbulent shear. For the natural
convection, the separation between these two layers is
indicated by the maximum values of the vertical velocity,
and the dimension of the outer layer is until vertical
velocity vanish (vy ∝ 0) (Ampofo and Karayiannis,
2003). The vertical velocity profiles show the interaction
at the mid-width (X = 0.5) of the outer layer near the
cold wall with the other outer layer near the hot wall,
because the cavity width is very small what produces
significant vertical stratification in the center of the
cavity and that will prevent the development of turbulent observed. In the region 0.1 ≤ X ≤ 0.8, the temperature
boundary layer along the heated wall. is practically constant near the top and the bottom wall.
Similarly than Betts and Bokhari’s values, the numerical
3.2 Temperature results found the same anti-symmetry both across the
cavity at the mid-height region (y/H = 0.5) and between
Figure 4 corresponds to the mean temperature at the top and the bottom (y/H = 0.05 and y/H = 0.95).
the same stations of the vertical velocity evolution. Betts and Bokhari explain this phenomenon by the same
Like the vertical velocity, the RNG model predicts matter on the top and bottom, which produced similar
more accurately exactly the mean temperature for thermal stratifications. To predict the heat transfer along
low-Reynolds number than the standard model. Near the the heated wall, we plot on the Figure 5 the profile
top wall, y/H = 0.9 (Figure 4(c)), where the stratification of local Nusselt number along the heat wall by using
is very high, the discrepancy between the two models the RNG k −
model for the low-Rayleigh number.
is significant. The RNG model takes into account the This figure shows that the evolution of the Nusselt
variation of turbulent viscosity because the flow is very number has no transition along the heated wall, and this
strain. confirms the interaction between the both outer layers,
Near each wall the same linear variation of the which will generate a vertical stratification to prevent a
mean temperature between the plates at all positions is transition to turbulent flow.
 Low Reynolds-number effect on the turbulent natural convection in an enclosed 3D tall cavity 395

Figure 4 Temperature profile across the cavity width at Figure 5 Local Nusselt number along the hot wall obtained
various heights, for z = 0 (Ra = 0.86 × 106 ) by RNG k −
model, Ra = 0.86 × 106

Figure 6 Turbulent kinetic energy profile across the cavity at

various heights, for z = 0 (Ra = 0.86 × 106 )

3.3 Turbulent kinetic energy

On the Figure 6 we examined the evolution of
the turbulent kinetic energy along the x axis for
low-Rayleigh number. For the experimental data, the
kinetic energy is obtained by k = 1/2(úi úi ).
As the vertical velocity and the temperature, the
RNG model predict more correctly than the standard
model. These results can be explained by that the
considered region (near the wall) is characterised by a
viscous sublayer, where the Reynolds number is low, thus
∗
η > η0 ⇒ C
2 > C
2 on equation (10). In comparison
with the standard k −
model, the smaller values of

implies the decrease of k and automatically the effective
viscosity. In the contrast of the RNG model, in high
strain flow, the model generates a smaller turbulent
viscosity than the standard k −
model. However,
396 M. Aksouh et al.

the same anti-symmetry has been observed as the
temperature caused by the similar stratification.
Also, compared with velocity profiles (Figure 3(a));
the mean velocity is zero, the turbulent kinetic energy is
maximum, and the linear variation of velocity across the
centre at mid-height is associated with the maximum of
the turbulent kinetic energy.
All this results are illustrated in the Figure 7 where the
turbulent intensity at several cavity heights by using the
RNG model. This figure shows clearly the anti-symmetry
of k and its maximum at mid-height (y/H = 0.5).
The weak values of k are around the cavity bottom and the
cavity top wall explain the sensible effect of stratification.
Near the cavity hot wall, the kinetic energy k at the top
(y/H = 0.95) is larger than k at the bottom (y/H = 0.05),
inversely near the cold wall the turbulent kinetic energy at
the bottom is larger than that of the top cavity wall. This
can be explained by the acceleration of the flow near the
upwards bottom active region (Figure 7).
Rayleigh numbers, the turbulent intensity evolution
for the two cases is plotted in Figure 9. This figure
highlighted that the turbulent intensity for high Rayleigh
number is larger than for that of the low Rayleigh
number. However, the discrepancy is more important
when the intensity is high. For example; for y/H = 0.05
(near the wall); the difference is more significant near
the cold wall than near the hot wall, inversely to near
the top wall (y/H = 0.95). We can confirm that when
the intensity is high, the deviation is significant, and the
effect of buoyancy is further important.
Figure 8 Profile of different physical parameters across the
cavity for y/H = 0.9, for Ra = 1.43 × 106 : (a) the
mean vertical velocity; (b) the mean temperature
and (c) the turbulent kinetic energy

Figure 7 Turbulent intensity profile across the cavity at

various heights, with RNG model for
Ra = 0.86 × 106

4 Thermal and 3D effects

To check the thermal and 3D effects on the flow, the

same configuration with high-Rayleigh number (Table 2)
has been developed in the second part of this paper.
Only the RNG k −
model has been considered in this
part as discussed previously. As the case of low-Rayleigh
number, a comparison of the numerical results with the
experimental data (Betts and Bokhari, 2000) is made for
mean velocity, mean temperature and turbulent kinetic
energy in the Figure 8. Consequently, the numerical
results of RNG k −
model are in good agreement
for high-Rayleigh number like for the lower Rayleigh
number. However, to perceive the effect of the two
 Low Reynolds-number effect on the turbulent natural convection in an enclosed 3D tall cavity 397

Figure 9 Turbulent intensity profile for low and high Figure 10 Dimensionless time-averaged velocity magnitude
Rayleigh number at various heights, for and streamlines for the two Rayleigh numbers in
Ra = 0.86 × 106 and (Ra = 1.43 × 106 ) the enclosed cavity: (a) low Ra number and (b)
high Ra number (see online version for colours)

To illustrate the path of particles in the cavity 3D,

in Figure 10 the dimensionless time-averaged velocity
magnitude and streamlines contours is discussed for the
two examined cases (low- and high-Rayleigh number).
The aspect ratio scale is not respected for this figure to
have a good view of the flow. As predicted by the theory
and the experiment, the figure shows a primary swirl flow
between the hot and cold wall caused by the temperature
gradient. The velocity magnitude shows that the particle
is more accelerated for the high-Rayleigh number case
than for the lower Rayleigh case. However, an enlarged
zone of the two figures shows the toroidal secondary
flow with extremely low-velocity magnitude, that requires
to be examined in the future work. According to the
space velocity vector evolution, this secondary flow is
generated in the core of cavity and directed towards the
walls (front and back) along the z-axis. The streamlines
contours have a sinusoidal appearance and symmetry
compared with the cavity core. Moreover, we found the
secondary flow is engendered just in the core of the
cavity with small magnitude compared with the main
flow. In fact, having considered the 3D study effect in
the z direction with the high aspect ratio between the
width and depth D/W = 6.84, the mechanism of the
secondary flow in the core cavity is probably caused by the effect of the fully turbulent flow in the cavity
by another local temperature gradient generated between core region by a low-Reynolds number and a high cavity
the cavity centre to the laterals walls. Although the local aspect ratio of AR = 28.6. The results of the simulations
temperature gradient still small compared with the main are compared with the experimental data of Betts and
gradient temperature, however it remains considerable to Bokhari (2000) for two Rayleigh numbers.
produce a secondary airflow in the z direction, which Thus, two one point closure turbulence models were
produces a three-dimensional flow configuration. utilised: the standard k −
model and the RNG k −

one. The comparison between the two models improves
that the numerical predictions of the RNG model are
5 Conclusion in better agreement with experimental data than those
of the standard k −
model. The discrepancies between
In this paper, the RANS turbulence modelling was the two models appears in the regions close to the
investigated numerically to predict the 3D turbulent wall. The thermal effect on the flow is analysed for two
natural convection behaviours of air in an enclosed different Rayleigh numbers of 0.86 × 106 and 1.43 × 106 .
cavity. The main complexity of this configuration occurs Increasing the temperature difference between the hot
398 M. Aksouh et al.
and the cold lateral walls causes the flow turbulence
intensity to rise. This effect is more significant closer to
the wall. Also, the velocity magnitude and streamlines
contours show, in addition to the primary flow, which
moves between the active walls, a transversal secondary
flow with lower velocity amplitude. This secondary flow
is generated from the cavity core region and moves along
the z axis, and thus, would modify the natural convection
heat transfer mechanism.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the polytechnic military School of
Algiers (EMP) for their collaboration to use CFD Fluent
code.
References
Ampofo, F. and Karayiannis, T.G. (2003) ‘Experimental
benchmark data for turbulent natural convection in an air
filled square cavity’, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, Vol. 46,
pp.3551–3572.
Aounallah, M., Addad, Y., Benhamadouche, S., Imine,
O., Adjlout, L. and Laurence, D. (2007) ‘Numerical
investigation of turbulent natural convection in an
inclined square cavity with hot wavy wall’, Int. J. Heat
Mass Transfer, Vol. 50, pp.1683–1693.
Barhaghi, G.D. (2007) A Study of Turbulent Natural
Convection Boundary Layers Using Large-Eddy
Simulation, PhD thesis, Chalmers University of
Technology, Göteborg, Sweden.
Betts, P.L. and Bokhari, I.H. (2000) ‘Experiments on natural
convection in an enclosed tall cavity’, International
Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow, Vol. 21, pp.675–683.
Cheesewright, R., King, K.J. and Ziai, S. (1986) ‘Experimental
data for the validation of computer codes for the
prediction of two-dimensional buoyant cavity flows’,
ASME Winter Annual Meeting, Anaheim, California,
HTD Vol. 60, pp.75–81.
Dafa’Alla, A.A. and Betts, P.L. (1996) ‘Experimental study
of turbulent natural convection in a tall air cavity’,
Exp. Heat Transfer, Vol. 9, pp.165–194.
Dong, W. (2000) Design of Advanced Industrial Furnaces
Using Numerical Modeling Method, Doctoral thesis,
TRITA-MET-062, Royal Institute of Technology,
Stockholm.
Ezzouhri, R. (2009) ‘Large eddy simulation of turbulent
mixed convection in a 3D ventilated cavity: Comparison
with existing data’, Inter. J. Thermal Sciences, Vol. 48,
pp.2017–2024.
Fluent Incorporated. 2006. Fluent 6.3 User’s Guide, Lebanon.
Gatski, T.B., Hussaini, M.Y. and Lumley, J.L. (1996)
‘Simulation and modeling of turbulent flows’,
ICASE/LaRC Series in Computational Science and
Engineering, Book, Oxford University Press, New York,
p.314.
Gustaven, A. and Thue, J.V. (2007) ‘Numerical simulation of
natural convection in three-dimensional cavities with a
high vertical aspect ratio and low horizontal aspect ratio’,
Journal of Building Physics, Vol. 30, pp.217–240.
Henkes, R.A.W.M., Vander Flugt, F.F. and Hoogendoorn,
C.J. (1991) ‘Natural convection flow in a square cavity
calculated with low-reynolds-number turbulence models’,
Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, Vol. 34, pp.1543–1557.
Hseih, K.J. and Lien, F.S. (2004) ‘Numerical modeling
of buoyancy-driven turbulent flows in enclosures’,
International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow, Vol. 25,
pp.659–670.
Ince, N.Z. and Launder, B.E. (1989) ‘On the computation
of buoyancy-driven turbulent flows in rectangular
enclosures’, Int. J. Heat and FLuid Flow, Vol. 10, No. 2,
pp.110–117.
Jones, W.P. and Launder, B.E. (1972) ‘The prediction of
laminarization with a two-equation model of turbulence’,
International Journal of Heat Transfer, Vol. 15,
pp.301–315.
Kader, B. (1981) ‘Temperature and concentration profiles in
fully turbulent boundary layers’, International Journal of
Heat and Mass Transfer, Vol. 24, No. 9, pp.1541–1544.
Laguerre, O., Ben Amara, S. and Flick, D. (2005)
‘Experimental study of heat transfer by natural convection
in a closed cavity: application in a domestic refrigerator’,
Journal of Food Engineering, Vol. 70, pp.523–537.
Lien, F.S. and Leschziner, M.A. (1999) ‘Computational
modeling of a transitional 3D turbine-cascade flow using a
modified low-Re k −
model and a multi-block scheme’,
International Journal of Computational Fluid Dynamics,
Vol. 12, pp.1–15.
Matsusaki, K., Ohba, H. and Munekata, M. (2003) ‘Numerical
analysis of thermal convections in a three dimensional
cavity: influence of difference in approximation models on
numerical solutions’, J. Thermal Science, Vol. 13, No. 3,
pp.283–288.
Mergui, S., Penot, F. and Tuhault, J.L. (1993) ‘Experimental
natural convection in an air-filled square cavity at
Ra = 1.7x109 ’, Proceedings of the Eurotherm Seminar
22 Editions Europeenées Thermiques et Industrie, Paris,
pp.97–108.
Ouriemi, M., Vasseur, P. and Bahloul, A. (2005) ‘Natural
convection of a binary mixture confined in a slightly
inclined tall enclosure’, Int. C. Heat Mass Transfer,
Vol. 32, pp.770–778.
Patankar, S.V. (1980) ‘Numerical heat transfer and fluid
flow’, Series in Computational Methods in Mechanics and
Thermal Sciences, Book, Francis & Taylor, USA.
Piller, M. (2004) ‘Direct numerical simulation of mixed
convection in horizontal pipe flow’, Computational Fluid
Dynamics 2004, Proceedings of the Third International
Conference on Computational Fluid Dynamics, ICCFD3,
Toronto, 12-–16 July.
Pons, M. (2008) ‘Transition from single to multi-cell natural
convection of air in cavities with aspect ratio of 20:
a thermodynamic approach’, Int. J. Thermodynamics,
Vol. 11, No. 2, June, pp.71–79.
Shih, T.H., Zhu, J. and Lumely, J.L. (1993) ‘A realizable
Reynolds stress algebraic equation model’, NASA
Technical Memorandum, 105993.
 Low Reynolds-number effect on the turbulent natural convection in an enclosed 3D tall cavity 399

Skodras, A.N., Christopoulos, C.A. and Ebrahimi, T. Nomenclature

(2000) ‘JPEG2000: the upcoming still image compression
standard’, Proceeding of the 11th Portuguese Conf. on
AR [-] Aspect ratio of the tall cavity
Pattern Recognition (RECPA00D 20: Invited paper),
Cp [J/kgK] Specific heat capacity
11–12th May, Prto, Portugal, pp.359–366.
D [m] Depth of the cavity
Teertstra, P.M., Yovanovich, M.M. and Culham, J.R. (2006) D [1/s] The mean strain rate tensor
‘Modeling of natural convection in electronics enclosures’, g [m/s2 ] Gravitational acceleration
Journal of Electronic Packaging, Vol. 128, pp.157–165. H [m] Height of the cavity
Tian, Y.S. and Karayiannis, T.G. (2000) ‘Low turbulence k [m2 /s2 ] Turbulent kinetic energy
natural convection in an air filled square cavity. Part I: κ[W/mk] Thermal conductivity
the thermal and fluid flow fields’, International Journal L[m] Characteristic length
of Heat and Mass Transfer, Vol. 43, pp.849–866. N u [−] Nusselt number
Tieszen, S., Ooi, A., Durbin, P. and Behnia, M. (1998) N u [−] Average Nusselt number
‘Modeling of natural convection heat transfer’, P r [−] Prandtl number
Proceedings for the Summer Program, Center for P rt [−] Turbulent Prandtl number
Turbulence Research, Stanford University, California, q [W/m2 ] Total surface heat flux
pp.287–302. Ra [−] Rayleigh number
Versteeg, H.K. and Malalasekera, W. (1995) An Introduction Re [−] Reynolds number
to Computational Fluid Dynamics The Finite Volume T [◦ C] Temperature
Method, Longman Group Ltd, Essex, England. T0 [◦ C] Operating temperature
Vieser, W., Esch, T. and Menter, F. (xxxx) Heat Transfer Tref [◦ C] Reference temperature
Predictions Using Advanced Two-Equation Turbulence U [m/s] Mean vertical velocity
Models, CFX Validation Report, CFX-VAL10/0902. W [m] Width of the cavity
α [m2 /s] Thermal diffusivity
Wilcox, D.C. (1994) Turbulence Modeling for CFD, DCW
αk [−] Inverse Prandtl number fo k
Industries Inc., La Canada, CA.
α
[−] Inverse Prandtl number for

Xaman, J., Alvarez, G., Lira, L. and Estrada, C. (2005) β [1/K] Thermal expansion coefficient
‘Numerical study of heat transfer by laminar and Γt [m2 /s] Eddy diffusivity
turbulent natural convection in tall cavities of façade µ [Kg/ms] Dynamic viscosity
elements’, Energy and Buildings, Vol. 37, pp.787–794. µt [Kg/ms] Eddy viscosity
Yakhot, V. and Orszag, S.A. (1986) ‘Renormalization group µef f [Kg/ms] Effective viscosity
analysis of turbulence’, Journal of Scientific Computing, ν [m2 /s] Kinematic viscosity
Vol. 1, pp.3–51. σk [−] Turbulent Prandtl number fo k
Yang, H. and Zhu, Z. (2008) ‘Numerical study of σ
[−] Turbulent Prandtl number for

three-dimensional turbulent natural convection in a
[m2 /s3 ] Turbulent energy dissipation rate
differentially heated air-filled tall cavity’, Int. C. Heat and τij [m2 /s2 ] Turbulent stress tensor
Mass Transfer, Vol. 35, pp.606–612. Subscripts and and Superscripts
Yang, H.Q., Yang, K.T. and Xia, Q. (1989) ‘Periodic laminar c, h Cold, hot wall
convection in a tall vertical cavity’, Int. J. Heat Mass i The ith direction
Transfer, Vol. 32, No. 11, pp.2199–2207. (),i The derivative in the ith direction
Younis, O., Pallares, J. and Grau, F.X. (2007) ‘Numerical RN G Constants for the RNG k −
model
study of transient laminar natural convection cooling of t Turbulent
high Prandtl number fluids in cubical cavity: influence of . Average values
the Prandtl number’, IJSET, Vol. 4, No. 4, ISSN 1307-
4318.