Free convection in a porous cavity with a finite wall heat source

Numerical studies are reported for steady, two-dimensional natural convection in a rectangular cavity with a finite, isothermal heat source centrally located on one vertical wall. The unheated portion of this wall, and the top and bottom surfaces are considered to be adiabatic whereas the other side wall is isothermally cooled. The effects of changing the cavity height on temperature and flow fields, and the heat transfer rates are studied for various size of heat source and Rayleigh number up to 1000. Owing to the buoyant upward flow, the thermal activities are, generally, more intense in the upper layers of the cavity than in the bottom region