Abstract
The present study addresses theoretically and computationally the performance of electrically conducting water-Fe3O4/CNT hybrid nanofluid in three-dimensional free convection and entropy generation in a wavy-walled trapezoidal enclosure. The enclosure has two layers-a hybrid nanoliquid layer and a permeable medium layer. A transverse magnetic field is acting in the upward direction. Newtonian flow is considered, and the modified Navier-Stokes equations are employed with Lorentz hydromagnetic body force, Darcian and Forchheimer drag force terms. The wavy side walls are heated while the top and vertical walls are adiabatic. An elliptic cylindrical cooled fin is positioned at the center of the cavity, and several different tilting angles of the fin are considered. The transformed, non-dimensional systems of coupled nonlinear partial differential equations with their corresponding boundary conditions are solved numerically with the Galerkin Finite Element Method (FEM) using the COMSOL Multiphysics software platform. The impact of Darcy number, Hartmann number, volume fraction, undulation number of the wavy wall and Rayleigh number (thermal buoyancy parameter) on the streamlines, isotherms and Bejan number contours are investigated. Extensive visualization of the thermal flow characteristics is included. With increasing Hartmann and Rayleigh numbers, the average Bejan number is reduced strongly whereas the average Nusselt number is only depleted significantly at very high values of Rayleigh and high Hartmann numbers. With increasing undulation number, a slight elevation in average Bejan number at intermediate Rayleigh numbers is noticed, whereas the average Nusselt number is substantially boosted, and the effect is maximized at a very high Rayleigh number where the average Nusselt number was increased by 35%. An increment in Darcy number (i.e., reduction in permeability of the porous medium layer) is observed to considerably elevate the average Nusselt number at high values of the Rayleigh number up to 20%, whereas the contrary response is computed in average Bejan number, where it showed a reduction by 10 times. The simulations apply to hybrid magnetic nanofluid fuel cells and electromagnetic nanomaterials processing in cavities.