Analysis of distributed thermal management policy for energy-efficient processing of materials by natural convection

Natural convection is the governing phenomena in many material processing applications. The conventional method of uniform heating at the bottom wall of an enclosure may result in inadequate thermal mixing and poor temperature distribution leading energy wastage. In this work, an alternative, energy-efficient method of distributed heating of the cavity is studied and compared with the isothermal bottom wall heating case in enhancing the thermal mixing and improving the temperature distribution in the cavity. Steady laminar natural convection of various fluids of industrial importance (Pr=0.015, 07, 10, 1000) in the range of Ra=103–105 is studied in a differentially heated cavity and in two cases of discretely heated square cavities. Detailed analysis is carried out by visualizing the heat flow by heatlines. The thermal mixing and temperature uniformity in each case are quantified in terms of cup-mixing temperature and root-mean square deviation (RMSD), respectively. It is found that thermal management policy of distributed heating significantly influences the thermal mixing and temperature uniformity in the enclosures. In a case with multiple discrete heat sources, a remarkable uniformity in temperature across the cavity is achieved with moderate thermal mixing.