Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2018) 133: 423
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2018-12217-5

Regular Article

Natural convection through spherical particles of a micropolar fluid enclosed in a trapezoidal porous container

Department of Mathematics and Statistics, International Islamic University, 44000, Islamabad, Pakistan

^* e-mail: mubbashariiui@gmail.com

Received: 17 April 2018
Accepted: 30 July 2018
Published online: 18 October 2018

Abstract

The present study discovers the numerical simulations of MHD non-isothermal flow of a micropolar fluid in a porous trapezoidal container under the impact of a constantly heated bottom wall. The top wall of the container is insulated while inclined boundaries have low temperature as compared to the lower boundary. The eminent numerical scheme (FEM) is employed to simulate the nonlinear field equations of the present study. The results are presented in term of streamlines, temperature contours, local and average Nusselt number for diverse values of involved physical parameters. The numerical algorithm is verified against the previously published numerical results. It is observed that the average Nusselt number diminishes with increasing the strength of the applied magnetic field. In contrast, the average Nusselt number increases slightly with enhancing the micro-gyration parameter. The analysis of the present study can be useful in solar engineering for the construction of trapezoidal solar collectors, porous heat exchangers, construction of thermal insulation structures, and geophysical fluid mechanics. The strength of stream function decreases and heat transfer phenomenon inside the cavity becomes conduction dominated with increasing the micropolar parameter.