Effects of Inclination and Magnetic Field on Natural Convection Flow Induced by a Vertical Temperature

A numerical program is been developed to simulate the natural convection in a rectangular cavity in presence of a magnetic field. The cavity in filled with mercury with a Prandtl number equal to 0.024. The flow is induced by a vertical temperature gradient. This type of configuration concerns the crystal growth using the Bridgman vertical method. The mass, momentum and energy equations, adopting the Boussinesq approximation, are solved numerically using the finite-volume method in conjunction with the SIMPLER algorithm the flow under consideration is steady, laminar and two-dimensional. The temperature gradients are assumed to be weak. The results show that the dynamic and temperature fields are strongly affected by variations of the magnetic field intensity and the angle of inclination. Numerical simulations have been carried out considering different combinations of Grashof and Hartmann numbers to study their effects on the streamlines, the isotherms and the Nusselt number.