Numerical Analysis of Laminar Natural Convection Between Concentric and Eccentric Cylinders

A numerical analysis is carried out to investigate the local and overall heat transfer between concentric and eccentric horizontal cylinders. The numerical procedure, based on Stone's strongly Implicit method, is extended to the 3 × 3 coupled system of the governing partial differential equations describing the conservation of mass, momentum, and energy. This method allows finite-difference solutions of the governing equations without artificial viscosity, and conserves its great stability even for arbitrarily large time steps. The algorithm is written for a numerically generated, body-fitted coordinate system. This procedure allows the solution of the governing equations in arbitrarily shaped physical domains Numerical solutions were obtained for a Raylelgh number In the range 102-103, a Prandtl number of 0.7, and three different eccentric positions of the inner cylinder. The results are discussed in detail and are compared with previous experimental and theoretical results