Coupled Heat and Mass Transfer Processes in Enclosed Environments

J.L.Wilson[1], and R. Dwivedi[1]

[1]New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, New Mexico, USA
Published in 2009

Geothermally driven natural convection in enclosures is a ubiquitous process occurring in many physical environments such as caves, mines, etc. We have numerically simulated laminar and turbulent natural convection in isolated air-filled cavities, buried in a more conductive rock mass. We have modeled heat transfer using COMSOL's Convection and Conduction mode. To better understand the convective heat transfer process in isolated cavities, we varied the parameters of aspect ratio, slope, and the geometry of a cavity.

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