Natural convection heat transfer in a cubic cavity submitted to time-periodic sidewall temperature

The laminar unsteady natural convection in a cubic cavity is comprehensively studied here using a high accuracy temporal-spatial pseudospectral method. In this study, the cavity is filled with air and one of its sidewalls is submitted to sinusoidally varying temperature, while constant lower temperature is imposed on the opposing sidewall and other sidewalls are adiabatic. Computations are performed to explore the effects of several influential factors on the fluid flow patterns and heat transfer performances within the cavity, including Rayleigh number and the amplitude and period of pulsating sidewall temperature. Numerical results reveal that the heat transfer enhancement is complexly determined by the above influential factors, and the heat transfer resonance is observed in the case of a large Rayleigh number and amplitude of pulsating sidewall temperature. The three-dimensional effects on fluid flow patterns and heat transfer are discussed. Finally, the backward heat transfer is quantitatively studied.