A NUMERICAL STUDY ON NATURAL-CONVECTION IN AN INCLINED SQUARE ENCLOSURE CONTAINING INTERNAL HEAT-SOURCES

The two-dimensional conservation equations are solved numerically for natural convection in an inclined square box bounded by four rigid plates of constant temperature containing uniformly distributed internal energy sources. Two different numerical schemes are applied, the first is an ADI technique where vorticity and streamfunction are used, and the second is a hybrid method using primitive variables. Inclination angles from the horizontal of 0, 15, 30 and 45 deg and Rayleigh numbers from 10(4) to 1.5 x 10(5) are studied, the Prandtl number is 7 throughout. For theta = 0 deg and Ra greater-than-or-equal-to 5 x 10(4) an oscillating solution is achieved. The numerical results are compared in detail with an experimental study of Lee and Goldstein (J. Heat Transfer 110, 345-349 (1988)).