A Study on Mixed Convection Flow in a Lid-Driven Cavity Filled With Micropolar Nanofluid by Considering Brownian Motion

The mixed convective heat transfer of a micropolar nanofluid in a square lid-driven cavity has been numerically studied. The lid is thermally insulated, the side walls are kept cold, and the bottom wall is kept hot with sinusoidally thermal boundary condition. The governing equations were solved by finite volume method using the SIMPLE algorithm. The effect of Grashof number (10²–10⁵), the volume fraction of nanoparticles (0.0–0.1), and micropolarity (0.0–2.0) has been investigated on the heat transfer of Al₂O₃–water nanofluid. Also, the variable model was used to calculate fluid viscosity and thermal conductivity coefficient of the nanofluid. The results showed that an increase in Grashof amplifies the buoyancy force and enhances the Nusselt number. Also, an increase in vortex viscosity at low Grashof numbers strengthens the forced convection and increases the Nusselt number over the bottom wall. However, at Gr = 10⁵, the increase in vortex viscosity up to K = 1.0 leads to a decrease in the amount of heat transfer, but its further increase entails the increase in heat transfer. Although the addition of nanoparticles to the fluid improves heat transfer rate, the extent of improvement at nonzero K values is lower than that in the Newtonian fluid. The comparison of the average Nusselt number computed on the hot wall under two different states of temperature-depended thermo-physical properties and constant thermo-physical properties reveals that their difference is more significant for the Newtonian fluid especially at higher volume fraction.