Numerical predictions of thermal convection in a rectangular enclosure with oscillating wall

Effects of wall vibration on natural convection in a rectangular enclosure containing air are investigated in this report. In practical applications, the wall vibration driven by an external force leads to periodic variations in the flow and thermal fields within the rectangular enclosure, and hence results in different features from those in a stationary enclosure. Two types of thermal boundary condition are considered, involving a heated-vertical-walls and a heated-horizontal-walls situations. The solution method is based on a two-stage pressure-correction scheme, which is applied to determine the absolute pressure, density, temperature, and velocity components of the compressible flow in enclosures. The vibration frequency of the wall is varied from 1 to 50 Hz and the vibration amplitude is ranged between 1.4% and 5.6% of enclosure length. In this study, Rayleigh number is fixed at 10⁵. For the parameter ranges considered, results show that a maximum amplitude of 36.73 in Nusselt number oscillation is attained due to the wall vibration.