Affiliations: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Masoud Afrand, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran. E-mail:[email protected]
Abstract: In this article, the effect of a radial magnetic field on the steady,
laminar and natural convection flow of molten potassium in a long horizontal
annulus between two horizontal cylinders is investigated numerically. The
inner and outer cylinders are at TH and TC temperatures,
respectively, with TH >TC. A finite volume code based on
SIMPLER-algorithm is used to solve the governing equations of the model.
Simulations are carried out for a wide range of the Rayleigh number (Ra),
Hartmann number (Ha) and radii ratio (λ). It is shown that for a
given radii ratio as the strength of magnetic field increases, the
convection heat transfer reduces. For narrow annulus, the effect of Hartmann
number on the maximum absolute value of the stream function is not eminent
compared to the case of high radii ratio. Furthermore it is found that for a
given Ha and Ra, the average Nusselt number increases up to about
λ = 5 and then reduces gently as λ enhances. Moreover, for
all Hartmann numbers the effect of radii ratio on the average Nusselt number
has almost the same trend.
