[BobE]

Hello, i'm new to the forums and i'm struggling with some issues .

I've tasked my self in investigating the stability of free convection within cylindrical enclosures. The cylinder i will be looking at will have two end temperatures and adiabatic lateral walls.

As i understand, inclination change of the cylinder and a transition to the turbulent region causes instability.

I have tried using a 3D model (aspect ratio 1) on fluent for initial laminar simulations. I was wondering if i can simplify a 3D cylinder to a geometry that is easier to compute (2D?), whilst also studying instability in natural convection?

I thought of using a 2D square but it didn't really sound right to me.

Thanks

[LuckyTran]

If you want to study free convection inside an enclosure, then you need to model the entire enclosure. The only case that has a symmetry you can exploit and reduce to a 2D domain is the vertically oriented cylinder, which is not very promising.

If you want to do 2D, then you are talking about free convection on inclined (either flat of curved planes). But this is no longer free convection inside an enclosure.

[BobE]

Originally Posted by LuckyTran

If you want to study free convection inside an enclosure, then you need to model the entire enclosure. The only case that has a symmetry you can exploit and reduce to a 2D domain is the vertically oriented cylinder, which is not very promising.

If you want to do 2D, then you are talking about free convection on inclined (either flat of curved planes). But this is no longer free convection inside an enclosure.

Thanks for the reply.

I'll have to keep the 3D model then, though its a struggle to find any data online to verify my results.