Abstract
•The nanofluids flow within E-enclosures filled by solid particles are studied.•The numerical treatments are based on ISPH method.•Activity of the nanofluid flow is enhanced in case of hot solid particles.•Case of horizontal heterogeneousporous media gives high rate of heat transfer.•A decrease in the Darcy number slows down the nanofluids flow.
In this paper, the unsteady convective nanofluid flow in a novel geometry (E-enclosure) partially filled by a homogeneous/heterogeneous porous medium is numerically investigated using incompressible smoothed particle hydrodynamics (ISPH) method. The major contribution of the work is the introduction of multi-phase flows including solid-fluid particles through different porous media in natural convection of a nanofluid using stable scheme of ISPH method. The E-enclosure is partially saturated by a homogeneous/heterogeneous porous medium in the right area. The solid particles are settled in the left area of the E-enclosure. The inner solid particles are carrying three different thermal conditions including conducting solid particles, hot solid particles and cold solid particles. The current geometry of E-enclosure can be applied in analysis the thermophysical behaviors of the isothermal building. ISPH method is used to solve the dimensionless governing equations. Six cases based on the homogeneous/ heterogeneous properties were investigated and the other controlling parameters are the nanoparticles volume fraction ϕ (1% ≤ ϕ ≤ 5%), the Rayliegh number Ra (103 ≤ Ra ≤ 105) and the Darcy number Da(10−2≤Da≤10−5). The obtained results revealed that the case of the hot solid particles gives a high intensity of the fluid flow and temperature distributions inside E-enclosure. Moreover, the average Nusselt number reaches the maximum value at the case of a horizontal heterogeneous porous medium. Regardless the different cases of the porous media, an increase on the Rayleigh number enhances the rate of heat transfer. Further, case 6 (horizontal heterogeneous porous media for all of the right-area) increases the thermal boundary layers near to the isothermal walls and consequently, the average Nusselt number is supported.