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Numerical study of unsteady mixed convection in an open partially porous horizontal channel with a heatgenerating source was performed. The outer surfaces of horizontal walls of finite thickness were adiabatic. In the channel there was a Newtonian heat-conducting fluid with a temperature-dependent viscosity. The discrete heatconducting and heat-generating source is located inside the bottom wall. The temperature of the fluid phase was equal to the temperature of the porous medium, and calculations were performed using the local thermal equilibrium model. The porous insertion is isotropic, homogeneous and permeable to fluid. The Darcy–Brinkman model was used to simulate the transport process within the porous medium. Governing equations formulated in dimensionless variables “stream function – vorticity – temperature” using the Boussinesq approximation were solved numerically by the finite difference method. The vorticity dispersion equation and energy equation were solved using locally one-dimensional Samarskii scheme. The diffusive terms were approximated by central differences, while the convective terms were approximated using monotonic Samarskii scheme. The difference equations were solved by the Thomas algorithm. The approximated Poisson equation for the stream function was solved separately by successive over-relaxation method. Optimal value of the relaxation parameter was found on the basis of computational experiments. The developed computational code was tested using a set of uniform grids and verified by comparing the results obtained of other authors.

Numerical analysis of unsteady mixed convection of variable viscosity fluid in the horizontal channel with a heat-generating source was performed for the following parameters: $\mathrm{Pr} = 7.0$, $\varepsilon = 0.8$, $\mathrm{Gr} = 10^5$, $C = 0-1$, $10^{-5} < \mathrm{Da} < 10^{-1}$, $50 < \mathrm{Re} < 500$, $\delta = l/H = 0.6-3$. Distributions of the isolines of the stream function, temperature and the dependences of the average Nusselt number and the average temperature inside the heater were obtained in a steady-state regime, when the stationary picture of the flow and heat transfer is observed. As a result we showed that an addition of a porous insertion leads to an intensification of heat removal from the surface of the energy source. The increase in the porous insertion sizes and the use of working fluid with different thermal characteristics, lead to a decrease in temperature inside the source.

The paper considers the problem of stationary mixed convection and heat transfer of a viscous heatconducting fluid in a plane square lid-driven cavity. The hot top cover of the cavity has any temperature $T_\mathrm{H}$ and cold bottom wall has temperature $T_\mathrm{0} (T_\mathrm{H} > T_\mathrm{0})$, whereas in contrast the side walls are insulated. The fact that the fluid density can take arbitrary values depending on the amount of overheating of the cavity cover is a feature of the problem. The mathematical formulation includes the Navier–Stokes equations in the ’velocity–pressure’ variables and the heat balance equation which take into account the incompressibility of the fluid flow and the influence of volumetric buoyancy force. The difference approximation of the original differential equations has been performed by the control volume method. Numerical solutions of the problem have been obtained on the $501 \times 501$ grid for the following values of similarity parameters: Prandtl number Pr = 0.70; Reynolds number Re = 100 and 1000; Richardson number Ri = 0.1, 1, and 10; and the relative cover overheating $(T_\mathrm{H}-T_\mathrm{0})/T_\mathrm{0} = 0, 1, 2, 3$. Detailed flow patterns in the form of streamlines and isotherms of relative overheating of the fluid flow are given in the work. It is shown that the increase in the value of the Richardson number (the increase in the influence of buoyancy force) leads to a fundamental change in the structure of the liquid stream. It is also found out that taking into account the variability of the liquid density leads to weakening of the influence of Ri growth on the transformation of the flow structure. The change in density in a closed volume is the cause of this weakening, since it always leads to the existence of zones with negative buoyancy in the presence of a volumetric force. As a consequence, the competition of positive and negative volumetric forces leads in general to weakening of the buoyancy effect. The behaviors of heat exchange coefficient (Nusselt number) and coefficient of friction along the bottom wall of the cavity depending on the parameters of the problem are also analyzed. It is revealed that the greater the values of the Richardson number are, the greater, ceteris paribus, the influence of density variation on these coefficients is.