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Shamse knot
Investigation of shaped cavity
magnetohydrodynamics in
Ag-TiO2/water hybrid nanofluid in
a Shamse knot shaped cavity
Yuan Ma and Mohammad Mehdi Rashidi Received 20 December 2019
Revised 16 March 2020
Shanghai Automotive Wind Tunnel Center, 17 April 2020
Shanghai Key Lab of Vehicle Aerodynamics and Accepted 17 April 2020

Vehicle Thermal Management Systems, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

Rasul Mohebbi
School of Engineering, Damghan University, Damghan, Iran, and
Zhigang Yang
Shanghai Automotive Wind Tunnel Center,
Shanghai Key Lab of Vehicle Aerodynamics and
Vehicle Thermal Management Systems, Tongji University,
Shanghai, China and Beijing Aeronautical Science and
Technology Research Institute, Beijing, China

Abstract
Purpose – The nanofluid natural convection heat transfer in a hollow complex enclosure, which is named as
Shamse knot shape, is studied numerically. This paper aims to present how the Rayleigh number,
nanoparticle volume fraction, Hartmann number and hollow side length affect the fluid flow and heat transfer
characteristics.
Design/methodology/approach – The continuity, momentum and energy equations have been
solved using lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). Numerical simulation has been obtained for a
wide range of Rayleigh number (10 3 # Ra # 10 6 ), nanoparticle volume fraction (0 # f 0.05) and
Hartmann number (0 # Ha # 60) to analyze the fluid flow pattern and heat transfer
characteristics. Moreover, the effect of hollow side length (D) on flow field and thermal performance
is studied.
Findings – The results showed that the magnetic field has a negative effect on the thermal
performance and the average Nusselt number decreases by increasing the Hartmann number. Because
of the high conduction heat transfer coefficient of nanoparticles, the average Nusselt number increases
by rising the nanoparticle volume fraction. The effect of adding nanoparticles on heat transfer is more
effective at low nanoparticle volume fraction (0 # f # 0.01). It was also found that at Ra = 106, when
the hollow side length increases to 3, the flow pattern becomes different due to the small gap. The
averaged Nu is an increasing function of D at low Ra and an opposite trend occurs at high Rayleigh
number.
Originality/value – For the first time, the effects of magnetic field, Rayleigh number, nanoparticle volume
fraction and hollow side length on natural convection heat transfer of hybrid nanofluid (Ag-TiO2/water) is
investigated in a complicated cavity.
Keywords Shamse knot shaped cavity, Natural convection, LBM, Ag-TiO2/water hybrid nanofluid, International Journal of Numerical
Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow
Magnetohydrodynamics © Emerald Publishing Limited
0961-5539
Paper type Research paper DOI 10.1108/HFF-12-2019-0909
HFF Nomenclature
W = width of the enclosure;
a = width of the hollow;
ei = discrete lattice velocity in direction;
f = density distribution function;
feq = equilibrium density distribution function;
Ha = Hartmann number;
ht = heat transfer coefficient;
Nu = Nusselt number;
U, V = non-dimensional velocity components;
Pr = Prandtl number;
H = height of the enclosure;
b = height of the hollow;
cs = sound speed in Lattice scale;
g = energy distribution function;
geq = equilibrium energy distribution function;
kB = Boltzmann constant;
F = force;
T = fluid temperature;
k = thermal conductivity; and
Ra = Rayleigh number.

Greek symbols
vi = weight function in i direction;
f = volume fraction;
tc = relaxation time for temperature;
a = thermal diffusivity;
r = density;
tv = relaxation time for fluid flow;
b = thermal expansion coefficient; and
m = dynamic viscosity.

Subscripts
loc = local;
s = solid particles;
nf = nanofluid;
c = cold;
ave = average;
f = fluid;
h = hot; and
i = moving direction of single-particle.

1. Introduction
Natural convection has many applications in science and engineering such as heat
exchangers, solar collectors, thermal equipment and food industries (Oztop and Al-Salem,
2012; Baïri et al., 2014; Ma et al., 2018). Lam and Prakash (2014) numerically studied the
natural convection in a porous cavity mounted by hot obstacles on top and bottom walls.
The authors found that the arrangement of heat source affects rate of heat transfer. Park Shamse knot
et al. (2014) used finite volume method to simulate the natural convection in a square shaped cavity
enclosure with two hot inner circular cylinders.
Joo and Kim (2015) experimentally studied the natural convection heat transfer
enhancement of perforated rectangular fins array. They found that the perforated fin has
better heat transfer performance comparing with the non-perforated fin. Li et al. (2016)
numerically and experimentally studied high-performance natural convection in a chimney-
based radial heat sink. Hosseini et al. (2018) numerically studied the natural convection in a
solar panel with different configurations for fins. It was found that the solar panels with
rectangular fins have better thermal performance compared to the other shapes.
Due to the low thermal performance of normal fluids such as ethanol, oil and water, the
new fluids called nanofluids with higher heat transfer coefficient have been developed in
recent years (Ghadikolaei et al., 2018; Ellahi et al., 2019; Sarafraz et al., 2020; Zangooee et al.,
2019; Sheikholeslami et al., 2019; Zeeshan et al., 2019; Shirvan et al., 2017a, 2017b). Esfe et al.
(2016) numerically investigated carbon nanotube-EG/water natural convection in a cavity
with trapezoidal shape. Mohebbi and Rashidi (2017) used Al2O3/water to enhance the
thermal performance of an L-shaped enclosure with a hot obstacle. The average Nusselt
number increases with increasing the nanoparticle volume fraction. Dogonchi et al. (2018)
numerically studied Cu/water nanofluid natural convection in a triangular cavity with
semicircular bottom wall. Moraveji and Hejazian (2013) studied ferrofluid heat transfer in a
rectangular enclosure with an oval-shaped heat source for a range of Rayleigh number
(103 # Ra # 105). However, their results showed that the addition of nanoparticles into pure
fluid cannot cause a significant increase in the amount of Nusselt numbers.
Khanlari et al. (2018) experimentally and numerically investigated heat transfer in a
simple heat exchanger by using TiO2/water nanofluid. They found that the use of TiO2/
water nanofluid is effective on thermal performance in the plate type heat exchanger. ZnO/
water was used by Minea and Lorenzini (2017) to study the nanofluid heat transfer in a
square enclosure. The results showed that heat transfer rate of nanofluid is higher than pure
water. Al-Rashed et al. (2017) numerically studied carbon nanotube/water heat transfer in a
cavity with incorporated Ahmed body. It was observed that the energy destruction will be
increased when the nanofluid concentration increases.
The pivotal roles of magnetic field on convection has also attracted many attentions
because of its application in engineering such as electronic cooling systems, reactors, cooling
power converters and material manufacturing (Ahmed et al., 2019). CuO/water nanofluid
was applied by Ma et al. (2019a, 2019b, 20109c) to increase heat transfer rate in a baffled U-
shaped enclosure under the influence of magnetic field. They found that the natural
convection heat transfer is restrained by the magnetic field. Ganji and Malvandi (2014)
numerically studied the effect of a uniform magnetic field on the nanofluid convection in a
vertical enclosure. Bondareva et al. (2016) also investigated the magnetohydrodynamics
(MHD) nanofluid natural convection. Their results showed that the raise in the Hartmann
number causes an attenuation of the convection and the rate of heat transfer will be
decreased.
Lam and Prakash (2017) studied the effects of magnetic field on Al2O3/water nanofluid
heat transfer in an enclosure with two heat sources. They concluded that the average Nu
number increases by increasing the nanofluid concentration, depend on both Ha and Ra.
Javed et al. (2017) numerically investigated the Cu/water nanofluid flow and heat transfer in
a triangular cavity in presence of magnetic field. They found that as the Hartmann number
increases, the average Nusselt number decreases to a certain value and afterward it becomes
constant. Al Kalbani et al. (2018) performed a numerical simulation to study the natural
HFF convection in a titled square enclosure filled with different types if nanofluid in present of
magnetic field. They found that the blade shape nanoparticles have better thermal
performance that other shapes of nanoparticles.
Many researchers have used LBM to solve fluid mechanics problems because of its
simplicity of application compared to conventional numerical methods (Ma et al., 2019a,
2019b, 2019c). Kefayati (2013) used LBM to study the influence of the magnetic field on
convection in an enclosure with sinusoidal temperature distribution. The obtained results
showed that the LBM is a suitable method for solving that problem. LBM was also used by
Javaherdeh and Najjarnezami (2018) to study MHD natural convection in a porous enclosure,
which showed the temperature distribution on the sidewalls of the cavity affects the heat
transfer significantly. Wang et al. (2018) implemented LBM to study the nanofluid heat
transfer in a partially heated cubic enclosure. They found that when the nanoparticle
volume fraction is fixed, the enhancement of heat transfer increases with increasing the
temperature and decreasing the diameter of nanoparticles.
Although, there are many studies on the heat transfer inside the cavities, there is not any
information on the fluid flow and heat transfer for the Shamse knot shaped cavity. So, the
main aim of the present study is investigation of the natural convection Ag-TiO2/water
hybrid nanofluid flow and heat transfer in a hollow Shamse knot shaped enclosure by LBM.
In addition, the effects of Rayleigh number, nanoparticle volume fraction, Hartmann number
and hollow side length on flow pattern and thermal performance are investigated.

2. Computational details
2.1 Problem statement
In this study, the natural convection heat transfer of nanofluid in a hollow complex shaped
enclosure is considered in Figure 1. The width (W) and height (H) of the enclosure are
uniform (W = H = 6 L), which L is the side length. A square hollow is located inside
the enclosure with a/L = b/L = D. The walls of square hollow are fixed at a high
temperature (Th). The left and right walls of the enclosure are cold (Tc) and the horizontal
walls of the enclosure are adiabatic. The enclosure is filled with Ag-TiO2/water nanofluid.
The thermophysical properties of pure water and two different types of nanoparticles are
shown in Table 1. ! qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
The magnetic field of B can be obtained by B ¼ Bx ! ex þ By !
ey and B ¼ B2x þ B2y . ! ex
represents unit vector in the x direction. The angle of the magnetic field with horizontal axis
is u = tan1 By/Bx. The electric
! flux J and the electromagnetic force F are defined by
! ! ! !
J ¼ s V  B and F ¼ s V  B  B , respectively. In present study, the orientation
of the magnetic field is set to be horizontal (u = 0).

2.2 Nanofluid thermophysical properties

The density ( r ), specific heat capacity (cp) and thermal expansion coefficient ( b ) of the
hybrid nanofluid are calculated:

r nf ¼ f 1 r s1 þ f 2 r s2 þ ð1  f Þ r f ; (1)

ð r cp Þnf ¼ f 1 ð r cp Þs1 þ f 2 ð r cp Þs2 þ ð1  f Þð r cp Þf ; (2)

 Shamse knot
shaped cavity

Figure 1.
Geometry and
boundary conditions
of the considered
problem

Property Pure water Ag TiO2 Table 1.

Thermophysical
Specific heat capacity at constant pressure (J/kg K) 4,179 235 686.2
Density (kg/m3) 997.1 10,500 4,250 properties of based
Conduction heat transfer coefficient (W/m k) 0.623 429 8.9538 fluid and
Thermal expansion coefficient (K1) 21  105 1.89  105 0.9  105 nanoparticles at 25°C
Dynamic viscosity (kg/m s) 8.55  104   (Bergman et al., 2011)

ð r b Þnf ¼ f 1 ð r b Þs1 þ f 2 ð r b Þs2 þ ð1  f Þð r b Þf ; (3)

Also, f is the overall volume fraction of nanoparticles in hybrid nanofluid and is calculated
as follow:
f ¼ f 1 þ f 2: (4)
The overall conduction heat transfer coefficient and the dynamic viscosity of hybrid fluid
can be obtained by:
   
khs þ 2kf  2 f kf  khs
knf ¼     kf ; (5)
khs þ 2kf þ f kf  khs

with

f 1 ks1 þ f 2 ks2
khs ¼ ; (6)
f

The viscosity of nanofluid can be calculated as:

 mf
HFF m nf ¼ ; (7)
ð1  f Þ2:5

The nanofluid thermal diffusivity and Prandtl number are defined as:

knf
anf ¼ ; (8)
ð r cp Þnf

ð m cp Þnf
Prnf ¼ ; (9)
knf

The Nusselt number is (Kefayati, 2014):

hH
Nul ¼ ; (10)
kf

where h is the heat transfer coefficient that could be calculated as follows (Ma et al., 2019a,
2019b, 2019c):
qw
h¼ ; (11)
uh  uc

The thermal conductivity of the nanofluid for horizontal walls are defined by (Kefayati,
2013):
qw
knf ¼  ; (12)
@ u =@y

So, the Nusselt number of the horizontal boundary can be found by (Ma and Yang, 2020):
! 
knf @T
Nuloc ¼  ; (13)
kf @y

3. Numerical method
3.1 Governing equations
The continuity, momentum and energy equations are as follows.

@U @V
þ ¼0 (14)
@X @Y
 
@U @U @P m nf @ 2 U @ 2 U
U þV ¼ þ þ (15)
@X @Y @X r nf af @X 2 @Y 2
  
@V @V @P m nf @ 2 V @ 2 V ð r b Þnf Shamse knot
U þV ¼ þ þ þ RaPru  Ha2 PrV (16)
@X @Y @Y r nf af @X 2 @Y 2 r nf b f shaped cavity
 
@u @u anf @ 2 u @ 2 u
U þV ¼ þ (17)
@X @Y af @X 2 @Y 2

In this research, the thermal LBM is used for simulating the Ag-TiO2/water nanofluid flow.
D2Q9 model with the grid size d x = d y is implemented. The discrete particle velocity vectors
ei is defined as (Nazari et al., 2014; Mohebbi et al., 2016):
8
>
> ð0; 0Þ; i¼0
<


ei cos ði  1Þ p =2 ; sin ði  1Þp =2 c; i ¼ 1; . . . ; 4
>
: pffiffiffi cos ði  5Þp =2 þ p =4
; sin ði  5Þp =2 þ p =4
c; i ¼ 5; . . . ; 8;
>
2
(18)

where the lattice speed c equals to 1 in the simulation. The general form of the lattice
Boltzmann equation for the external force Fi in the i direction for flow field can be written as
(Bhatnagar et al., 1954; Wei et al., 2016):

Dt eq

fi ðx þ ei Dt; t þ DtÞ ¼ fi ðx; tÞ þ fi ðx; tÞ  fi ðx; tÞ þ Dtei Fi ; (19)

tv

where f is the distribution function and Dt = 1 is the lattice time. The t v is the lattice
relaxation time:
1
t v ¼ 0:5 þ v ; (20)
Dtc2s
pffiffiffi
where v is the kinetic viscosity and cs ¼ c= 3 is the sound speed. The equilibrium
distribution functions for the flow fields fi is (Qian et al., 1992; Yan and Zu, 2008):
eq

" #
eq ei u 1 ðei uÞ2 1 u2
fi ¼ wi r 1 þ 2 þ  2 ; (21)
cs 2 c4s 2 cs

where r is the lattice fluid density and the weight function wi takes the following values
w0 = 4/9, w14 = 1/9 and w58 = 1/36. To introduce the force into the model, we calculate the
force term in equation (2) can be considered as follows:

F ¼ Fx þ Fy ; (22a)
with

Fx ¼ 3wi r Av sinu cosu  u sin2 ðu Þ ;

h  i (22b)
Fy ¼ 3wi r gy b ðT  Tm Þ þ A u sinu cosu  v cos2 ðu Þ ;
HFF where gy, is the gravitational acceleration vector, Tm is the average temperature and r A =
Ha2 m /L2.
For the temperature field, the distribution is defined as:

Dt eq

gi ðx þ ei Dt; t þ DtÞ ¼ gi ðx; tÞ þ gi ðx; tÞ  gi ðx; tÞ ; (23)

tc

The quantities gieq is the equilibrium distribution functions and t c denotes the lattice
relaxation time for temperature fields. The thermal diffusivity a is defined in terms of the
particular relaxation time.

1
t c ¼ 0:5 þ a ; (24)
Dtc2s

The equilibrium distribution functions gieq for the flow and temperature fields is:
 
ei u
gieq ¼ wi T 1 þ 2 ; (25)
cs

where T is the lattice fluid temperature.

The macroscopic variables are as follows:
X
Fluid density : r ¼ f;
i i
X
Momentum : r u ¼ ef;
i i i
(26)
X
Temperature : T ¼ i
gi ;

In the present LBM simulations, the Mach number fixed at 0.1 (Krüger et al., 2017; Mliki
et al., 2015) and thermal diffusivity calculated from the:
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Ma2 M 2 Prc2s
v¼ ; (27)
Ra
b gy H 3 ðTh Tc Þ
where M is number of lattice in y-direction. The Ra ¼ va .

3.2 Boundary condition

As we know, the boundary conditions are very important in the computational process.
The boundary conditions in LBM are different from those in convectional methods and
the boundary conditions also need to be aimed to the distribution functions. In the
present work, we assumed all the walls as no slip walls and applied the bounce-back
boundary condition on the walls. For instance, on the top wall of the square hollow, the
distribution function f2, f5 and f6 are unknown and they can be obtained by f2 = f4, f5 =
f7 and f6 = f8. As for the temperature boundary conditions, the Mohamad’s (2007)
method was used. For the top wall of the square hollow, the cold (Tc = 0) temperature
boundary conditions are g2 = Tc(w4 þ w2)  g4, g5 = Tc(w5 þ w7)  g7 and g6 = Tc(w6 þ
w8 )  g8 .
3.3 Grid independence and code validation Shamse knot
Table 2 shows the numerical results for different mesh sizes at D = 3, f = 0.04, Ra = 106 shaped cavity
and Ha = 20 to test the grid independency. The homemade FORTRAN code for the present
study is tested by calculating the average Nusselt number on the hot walls. It can be found
that the grid size of 120  120 is a grid independent solution for the present study.
To valid the present homemade Fortran code, we studied and compared three different
previous works (Calcagni et al., 2005; Bararnia et al., 2011; Ghasemi et al., 2011). First, the
present numerical results are compared with the numerical and experimental results of
Calcagni et al. (2005). They studied nanofluid in a square cavity with partially heated bottom
wall was compared. According to Figure 2, a very good agreement can be found between the
present and previous results. Secondly, the nanofluid natural convection inside a square
cavity with a heated obstacle were also computed to compare with the work of Bararnia
et al. (2011). Comparing the streamlines and isotherms (Figure 3) with the previous work, the
two results have good similarity. At last, the average Nu for different Hartmann numbers
(Ha = 0, 20, 40 and 60) at Ra = 105 compared with the results of Ghasemi et al. (2011) using
SIMPLE algorithm in Table 3. All the compatible comparisons indicate that the present code
is accurate and practicable.

4. Results and discussion

The effects of different parameters, which range of the parameters is similar to that of
Ghasemiet al. (2011) such as Rayleigh number (103 # Ra # 106), nanoparticle volume
fraction (0 # f # 0.05), Hartmann number (0 # Ha # 60) and hollow side length (1 # D #
3) on natural convection in a hollow Shamse knot shaped cavity are numerically
investigated using LBM. Ag-TiO2/water hybrid nanofluid is used in the present work.
The effect of adding nanoparticles into pure water on flow pattern and isotherms inside
the enclosure are shown in Figure 4 for Ra = 106, Ha = 0 and D = 1. As can be seen in the
figure, adding nanoparticles slightly changes the flow pattern. However, the strength of the
vortices in the streamlines increases by adding nanoparticles because of the high viscosity
Table 2.
Effect of the mesh
size on average
Nusselt number for
Mesh size 48  48 72  72 96  96 120  120 144  144 D = 3, f = 0.04,
6
Average Nu 14.3102 15.8910 17.3348 17.7318 17.7463 Ra = 10 and Ha = 20

Figure 2.
The isotherms from
the present code
under the Calcagni
et al. (2005) conditions
at (a) Ra = 103 and (b)
Ra = 105
HFF

Figure 3.
The streamlines and
isotherms at f = 0.05
and different
Rayleigh number
under the conditions
of Bararnia et al.
(2011) conditions

Table 3.
Comparison of the
average Nusselt Ha Nu (present work) Nu (Ghasemi et al., 2011)
number at different
0 4.744 4.738
Hartmann numbers 15 4.140 4.143
for Ra = 105 with the 30 3.144 3.150
results obtained by 45 2.374 2.369
Ghasemi et al. (2011) 60 1.870 1.851

Figure 4.
Comparison of the
streamlines (a) and
isotherms (b) between
nanofluid ( f = 0.05,
dashed) and pure
fluid ( f = 0, solid) at
Ra = 106, Ha = 0 and
D=1
of nanofluid. The increase of nanoparticle volume fraction leads to the enhancement of Shamse knot
energy transport in the fluid. As a result, the strength of flow increases and the heat transfer shaped cavity
is enhanced. Moreover, as the volume fraction of nanoparticles increase from 0 to 0.05, the
isotherms become slightly looser. The related temperature distribution is featured by:
 a plume occurring about the top wall of the obstacle;
 the thermal boundary layers around the walls A1F1 and A5C1; and
 the layered isothermal lines on the right and left of the obstacle.

After analyzing the effect of nanoparticles on the flow and temperature fields, the effect of
Rayleigh number on the flow pattern is considered. Figure 5 illustrates the effect of Rayleigh
number on the streamlines and velocity for different hollow side lengths at Ha = 20 and f =
0.03. Compared the streamlines in Figure 5 with that in Figure 3, one can found that both the
shapes of heated obstacle and cavity have a significant effect on the streamlines. The
common point of two different studies is the symmetry about the vertical axis. At Ra = 103
and D = 1, two vortices can be observed inside the enclosure. The flow around the hot
hollow is warmed and moves upward owing to the buoyancy force, which is produced by
the temperature gradient. As a result, the clockwise vortex is located on the right of the
counter clockwise vortex. As the hollow side length increase from 1 to 2, the fluid velocity
increases because the enclosure becomes narrow and the nanofluid movement restrains. As
for D = 3, the gap between the hollow and the cavity walls becomes much narrower.
Subsequently, the fluid above or below hollow is almost static. At Ra = 104, the fluid
velocity increases significantly and the streamlines extend into the whole cavity and occupy
more space. The increase of Rayleigh number causes to increase the natural convection.
Actually, when the Rayleigh number increases, the buoyancy force caused by the
temperature difference increases and the buoyancy force grows into domination over the
viscous force. At Ra = 105, the flow pattern does not change significantly for D = 1 or D = 2
but for D = 3, four secondary vortices newly formed above and below the square hollow. In
fact, at D = 3, the gaps between horizontal top walls of hollow and enclosure (A1A2 and
A4A5) is small and the movement of fluid is suppressed. However, the gaps between top wall
of hollow and A2A3A4 is large. As a result, two secondary vortices are generated above the
square hollow. Another two secondary vortices appear below the square hollow for the same
reason. At Ra = 106, the natural convection become more predominant. Moreover, it can
be seen that the distribution of streamlines in the cavity is symmetrical with respect to the
vertical centerline for all Rayleigh numbers. However, the distribution of streamlines is
symmetrical only at Ra = 103 and it is obvious that the streamlines distribution is
asymmetrical at Ra = 106. This is due to the fact that the convection is very weak at Ra =
103 and the dominant heat transfer mechanism is conduction. For high Rayleigh numbers,
the convection heat transfer mechanism becomes dominant.
Figure 6 shows the comparison of velocity vectors between the cases of D = 1 and 3 at
Ra = 106, f = 0.05 and Ha = 0. It can be seen clearly that the formation of vortices in the
enclosure. Further, the direction and magnitude of velocity vectors indicate the information
of the eddy motion. When the hollow side length increases from 1 to 3, the effect of gap
between the horizontal wall of the hollow and the enclosure is the main factor in determining
the fluid flow pattern above and below the hollow.
The effects of Rayleigh number and hollow side length on the temperature distribution
are shown in Figure 7. It is obvious that the isotherms in the cavity is symmetrical with
respect to the vertical centerline at all Rayleigh numbers. The increase of the hollow side
length leads to the fluid temperature inside the enclosure rises. At Ra = 103, the isothermal
HFF

Figure 5.
Streamlines and
velocity profiles for
different Rayleigh
numbers and D at
Ha = 20 and f = 0.03

lines are even and the isotherms distribution are symmetrical respect to the horizontal
centerline, which is because that the conduction heat transfer is dominant heat transfer
mode. In addition, at D = 1 or 2, the isotherms adjacent to the square hollow basically follow
the geometry profile of square hollow. At D = 3, the isothermal lines do not surround the
square hollow due to the static fluid above and below the hollow. Also, at this Rayleigh
number, the temperature gradient increases mainly because of the gap between the hollow
and cavity wall decreases. As the Rayleigh number increases from 103 to 104, the isothermal
 Shamse knot
shaped cavity

Figure 6.
The comparison of
velocity vectors
between the cases of
D = 1 (left) and D = 3
(right) at Ra = 106,
f = 0.05 and Ha = 0

lines become asymmetrical respect to the horizontal centerline due to the effect of
convection. The isotherms around the hot hollow move far away from the hollow. As for
Ra = 105, the isotherms change to be bent because of the primary heat convection. At D = 1
or 2, two plumes can be found on the left and right sides of the square hollow, respectively.
However, at D = 3, the plums are not obvious. This is due to the fact that the narrow gap
between hollow and the cavity impedes the movement of nanofluid. When Raleigh number
is 106, the plumes is very obvious and the plumes can be observed at D = 3 significantly.
Moreover, the increment of the Rayleigh number leads to the temperature inside the upper
enclosure increases and the temperature inside the lower enclosure decreases. This is
because of the fact that the increase of the Rayleigh number strengthens the convection heat
transfer and the fluid around the hollow is heated and move upward. Thus, the temperature
of upper fluid increases. Meanwhile, the fluid around the side cold walls is cooled and move
to downward, leading to the decreasing temperature of lower fluid.
Figure 8 shows the effect of magnetic field on streamlines and velocity for different
hollow side length at f = 0.01 and Ra = 106. At D = 1, two strong primary vortices form
inside the enclosure and occupy almost the whole enclosure, this explains the curving
isothermal lines on two sides of the hollow as seen in Figure 9. Two small vortices can be
found on the lower corner (E3) of the enclosure. The shape of core of two primary vortices is
anomalous quadrilateral. The increase of Hartmann number leads to the strength of flow
decreases and the velocity decreases. As for D = 2, there are also four vortices in the
enclosure but the shape of core of two primary vortices change to be triangle. When D
HFF

Figure 7.
Presentation of
temperature
distribution for
different Rayleigh
numbers and D at
Ha = 20 and f = 0.03
 Shamse knot
shaped cavity

Figure 8.
Streamlines and
velocity for different
Hartmann numbers
and D at f = 0.01
and Ra = 106

increases to 3, the flow pattern significantly changes. Two pairs of secondary vortices form
above and below the square hollow, respectively, as a result of the effects of the small gap
between the hollow top wall and enclosure top wall (A1A2, A4A5) and the gap between the
hollow bottom wall and enclosure bottom wall (E1E2, E4E5). At Ha = 0 for D = 3, although
the gap hinders the fluid movement, the second vortices are also generated because of the
high Rayleigh number (Ra = 106). When Ha increases, the heat convection is suppressed.
When the Hartmann number arrives at 60, the secondary vortices above and below the
hollow disappear.
HFF

Figure 9.
Isotherms for
different Hartmann
numbers and D at
f = 0.01 and Ra =
106
The effect of magnetic field on isotherms for different hollow side lengths at f = 0.01 and Shamse knot
Ra = 106 is shown at Figure 9. It can be found that the isotherms are curved because of the shaped cavity
strong vortices. The increase of Hartmann number brings about the reduction of the
strength of convection. Consequently, the isotherms become flatter. Moreover, the thermal
plume inside the enclosure weakens as increasing the Hartmann number. Further, it is seen
that the effect of Hartmann number on the isotherms at D = 3 is much weaker than those for
D = 1 and 2. This is due to the fact that the gap between the hot walls and cold walls is small
at D = 3 and fluid motion is impeded, leading to decrease in the proportion of convection
heat transfer. As a result, the effect of magnetic field on the natural convection receded.
Figure 10 displays the effect of Hartmann number on local Nusselt number for different
hollow side lengths. The local Nusselt number decreases by increasing the Hartmann
number. Depending on the distribution of temperature, the profiles of local Nusselt number
at D = 1 are similar with those at D = 2. There are two peak values on the profiles, which at
the Corner B and C. The local Nusselt number around the Corner C is higher than that
adjacent to the Corner B because of the higher temperature gradient at Corner C. The local
Nusselt number increases by moving the local Nusselt number from Corner A to Corner B
and from Corner B to Corner C, but decreases from Corner C to Corner D. Moreover, there are
two valley values of local Nusselt number around the Corner B and C on the right wall (BC)
because of the presence of the primary vortex on the right of the square hollow. The profile

Figure 10.
Effect of Hartmann
number on local
Nusselt number for
(a) D = 1, (b) D = 2
and (c) D = 3
HFF of local Nusselt number is different for D = 3. One valley value and one peak value of local
Nusselt number appear on the right wall of the hollow due to the effect of the vortex with
triangular core acting on the right wall of the hollow. In addition, a thermal plume toward
right side is established at the upper part of the hollow right wall (BC), as a result of the
valley value of local Nusselt number. Then, the hollow right wall is impinged by the fluid
from the vortex and a thermal plume toward left are generated at the lower part of the
hollow part wall. As a result, the local Nusselt number has a peak value at this position.
Figure 11 shows the influences of nanofluid concentration, Ha and Ra on the Nuave. The
average Nu increases by increasing the volume fraction of nanoparticles [Figure 11(a)]. It is
obvious that the enhancement of heat transfer by increasing the nanoparticle volume
fraction from 0 to 0.01 is more significant than that by increasing f from 0.01 to 0.05. Hence,
the effect of adding nanoparticles on heat transfer is more effective at low nanoparticle
volume fraction (0 # f # 0.01). In Figure 11(b), the average Nusselt number also
increases by increasing the Rayleigh number. The effect of Rayleigh number on
average Nusselt number at low Rayleigh number (103 # Ra # 105) is less effective than
that at high Rayleigh number (Ra = 106). Besides, it can be seen from this figure that the
effect of Hartmann number increases by increasing the Rayleigh number due to the

Figure 11.
Effects of
nanoparticle volume
fraction, Rayleigh
number, Hartmann
number and D on
average Nusselt
number
negative effect of magnetic field on convection. As seen in Figure 11(c), the average Shamse knot
Nusselt number is a decreasing function of Hartmann number. Figure 11(d) shows the shaped cavity
effect of D on the average Nusselt number for different Rayleigh numbers. At low
Rayleigh numbers (103 and 104), the average Nusselt number increases by increasing
the size of the square hollow. Actually, the increase of hollow side length leads to the
diminution of gap between the hot hollow and the cold enclosure walls. As a result, the
conduction heat transfer, which is the primary heat transfer mechanism, is enhanced,
causing the increase of the average Nusselt number. However, at Ra = 106, the
convection heat transfer is the dominant heat transfer mode. The small gap would
restrain the fluid motion, which impeding the convection heat transfer. Thus, the
average Nusselt number decreases as enlarging D at Ra = 106.

5. Conclusion
The present study investigates Ag-TiO2/water hybrid nanofluid heat transfer in a complex
enclosure with a square hollow at different Rayleigh numbers (103 # Ra # 106). The LBM is
applied for simulation in the work. The effects of Ha, Ra, f and D on the flow pattern and
heat transfer characteristics are studied. The following results can be obtained:
 The average Nusselt number increases by increasing f and Ra.
 The effect of adding nanoparticles on heat transfer is more effective at low
nanoparticle volume fraction (0 # f # 0.01).
 The effect of Rayleigh number on average Nusselt number at low Rayleigh number
(103 # Ra # 105) is less effective than that at high Rayleigh number (Ra = 106).
 At Ra = 106, when the hollow side length increases to 3, the flow pattern becomes
different due to the small gap between the hot walls and cold walls. Also, at D = 3,
the small gap limits the fluid motion, leading to decrease in the effect of Hartmann
number on the isotherms.
 At D = 3 and Ra = 106, the effect of vortices on the local Nusselt number of hollow
side wall is more significant than that for small hollow side length.
 The average Nusselt number increases by increasing D at low Rayleigh numbers,
but an opposite trend occurs at high Rayleigh number.
 The rate of heat transfer decreases by increasing the Hartmann number due to the
suppression of magnetic field on convection and the effect of Hartmann number
increases by increasing the Rayleigh number.

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Corresponding author
Rasul Mohebbi can be contacted at: rasul_mohebbi@du.ac.ir

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