Numerical simulation of convective airflow in an empty room

Abstract

Numerical simulation of airflow inside an empty room has been carried out for a forced convection, a natural convection and a mixed convection respectively, by using a computational fluid dynamics approach of solving the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes fluid equations. Two-dimensional model was studied at first; focusing on the grid refinement, the mesh topology effect, and turbulence model influences. It was found that structured mesh results are in better agreement with available experimental measurements for all three scenarios. Further study using a three-dimensional model has shown very good agreements with test data at measuring points. Furthermore, present studies have revealed low-frequency flow unsteadiness by monitoring the time history of flow variables at measuring positions. This phenomenon has not yet reported and discussed in previous studies