Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2022) 137: 400
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-022-02557-2

Regular Article

Natural convection of alumina-water nanofluid in a partially heated square cavity with isothermal blockage inside with uniform magnetic field and heat generation/absorption

¹ Department of Mathematics, Bharathiar University, 641046, Coimbatore, India
² Department of Applied Mathematics, Bharathiar University, 641046, Coimbatore, India
³ Faculty of Engineering, Kuwait College of Science and Technology, 35004, Doha District, Kuwait

^b nithyadevin@buc.edu.in

Received: 3 September 2021
Accepted: 2 March 2022
Published online: 29 March 2022

Abstract

Natural convection of ${\mathrm{Al}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_3$-water nanofluid in a square cavity with an isothermally heated square blockage and partially heated on the bottom wall is investigated numerically. The effect of uniform magnetic field and heat generation/absorption is also studied. The governing equations are discretized by the finite volume method using power law scheme and solved by semi-implicit method for pressure-linked equation algorithm. The study was first validated with published works and satisfactory agreement was obtained. The effect of thermophysical parameters such as Rayleigh number, Hartmann number, heat generation/absorption and solid volume fraction of nanoparticles on the flow and temperature fields is demonstrated. The results are presented graphically in the form of isotherms, streamlines, velocity and Nusselt number.