MPS simulation of natural convection with internal heating in a cavity

Abstract

For the stable melting of the high temperature molten glass beyond 1200 degree Celsius, fluid motion and thermal energy balance due to the natural convection are the most important phenomena to control the state of the molten materials and blending process of the particulate materials. In the present study, the numerical simulation of natural convection flow by the conductive heat transfer in a rectangular cavity was investigated. Moreover the effect of the internal heating such as Joule heating was considered and compared, which was used in the engineering field of the development of the glass melting method for vitrified high-level radioactive waste. For the numerical analysis of the aforementioned flow field, the moving particle semi-implicit method was employed to predict the velocity distribution of the fluid flows as well as the temperature distribution. Mass, momentum and energy equation was used. Boussinesq approximation was applied to estimate the buoyancy force. Since the particle method we used is the meshless method, it is easy to compute the flow with free surface as well as the throwing of the additional fluid particles into the cavity. In the numerical analysis, Rayleigh number with internal heating was varied to compare the fluid behaviour, spatial distribution of temperature and the velocity magnitude of the downward plume.