Transient natural convection cooling of a high Prandtl number fluid in a cubical cavity

This work presents a numerical analysis of the effects of thermal boundary conditions, fluid variable viscosity and wall conduction on transient laminar natural convection of a high Prandtl number (Pr=4×104) fluid (Golden Syrup) in a cubical cavity. The simulations consider physical situations realizable at laboratory scale using a cavity with Plexiglas walls of 1 cm of thickness, and inside dimension of L=20 cm. The initial Rayleigh (Ra) number is 106. The cavity is initially full of fluid at rest and at constant temperature (T i =45°C) higher than the temperature of the walls (T w =25°C). The time evolution of the flow patterns, the temperature contours, the mean temperature of the fluid and the Nusselt number (Nu) of eight different cases of cooling are presented and analyzed.