Effect of radiative heat transfer on the three-dimensional Boyancy flow in cubic enclosure heated from the side

This article presents a numerical study of the effect of the radiative heat transfer on the three-dimensional convection in a cubic differentially heated cavity for different optical parameters of the medium, Pr = 13.6 and Ra = 105. The natural convection equations, using the Boussinesq approximation for the treatment of buoyancy term in the momentum equation, are expressed using the vorticity-stream function formulation. These equations and the radiative transfer equation are discretized, respectively, with the control volume finite difference method and the FTn finite volume method. The successive relaxation-iterating scheme is used to solve the resultant algebraic system equations. Results show that the structure of the main flow is considerably altered by of the conduction–radiation parameter. The inner spiraling flows are found very sensible in location and direction to the radiative heat transfer. However, the peripheral spiraling motion is qualitatively insensitive to these parameters. It is also found that radiation favorites the merging of the vortices near the front and back walls.