Numerical Study of Natural Convection and Entropy Generation of Al2O3-Water Nanofluid within a Cavity Equipped with a Conductive Baffle

Heat transfer, fluid flow and entropy generation due to buoyancy forces in a 2-D enclosure equipped with a conductive baffle and containing Al2O3nanofluid is carried out using different conductivities of baffle and different concentrations of nanoparticles. The bottom wall is subjected to constant hot temperature. The right and left vertical walls are maintained at lower temperature and the top wall is insulated. The finite volume method is used to solve the governing equations and calculations were performed for Rayleigh number from 103 to 106, thermal conductivity ratio from 0.01 to 100 and volume fraction of nanoparticles from 0 to 0.2. An increase in mean Nusselt number and a decrease of the total entropy generation were found with the increase of volume fraction of nanoparticles for the whole range of Rayleigh number.