MIXED LAMINAR CONVECTION IN TROMBE WALL CHANNELS

The two-dimensional, steady, combined forced and natural convection in a vertical channel is investigated for the laminar regime. To simulate the Trombe wall channel geometry properly, horizontal inlet and exit segments have been added to the vertical channel. The vertical walls of the channel are maintained at constant but different temperatures while the horizontal walls are insulated. A finite difference method using up-wind differencing for the nonlinear convective terms, and central differencing for the second order derivatives, is employed to solve the governing differential equations for the mass, momentum, and energy balances. The solution is obtained for stream function, vorticity, and temperature as the dependent variables by an iterative technique known as successive substitution with overrelaxation.