Heat transfer by natural convection in a shallow rectangular cavity with two opposing vertical walls at different temperatures

An upwind finite difference method is used in the numerical computation of natural convective heat transfer, for the case of a confined rectangular cavity having different vertical wall temperatures, a height/cavity width ratio in the range of 0.03-1, Prandtl number values of 1-1000, and Rayleigh number values varying from 100 to one million. Calculation results indicate that the height/cavity width ratio significantly affects the rate of heat transfer through the fluid layer. Predictively useful correlations of heat transfer through the fluid layer are derived from the results, for the cases of the asymptotic flow and laminar flow regions.