Abstract

The modelling of steady-state natural and mixed convection in obstructed channels is presented. The two-dimensional numerical analysis is carried out with a finite element thermally coupled incompressible flow formulation written in terms of the primitive variables of the problem and solved via a generalized streamline operator technique. Natural convection is studied in several vertical channel configurations for a wide range of Rayleigh numbers while mixed convection is analysed in a horizontal channel with a built-in rectangular cylinder for different Reynolds and Grashof numbers. The results obtained in this work are validated with available experiments and other existing numerical solutions.