2-D laminar natural convective heat transfer analysis for non-partitioned and fully partitioned rectangular cavities

This paper introduces a model to predict numerically natural convective heat transfer in a fully partitioned cavity by solving the conservation equations for the cold fluid cell only, and by introducing appropriate thermal boundary conditions at the surface of the partition wall instead of solving the full conjugate problem. This problem occurs when attempting to couple a multi-dimensional model with a lumped-parameter model. The objective is to obtain velocity and temperature fields within the cold cell which are in close agreement with those obtained from a full simulation of the partitioned cavity. Validations of the model and characterizations of the thermal boundary layer along the partition wall are discussed. (authors)