Scaling of the Turbulent Natural Convection Flow in a Heated Square Cavity

By numerically solving the Reynolds equations for air and water in a square cavity, with differentially heated vertical walls, at Rayleigh numbers up to 10²⁰ the scalings of the turbulent natural convection flow are derived. Turbulence is modeled by the standard k–ε model and by the low-Reynolds-number k–ε models of Chien and of Jones and Launder. Both the scalings with respect to the Rayleigh number (based on the cavity size H) and with respect to the local height (y/H) are considered. The scalings are derived for the inner layer, outer layer, and core region. The Rayleigh number scalings are almost the same as the scalings for the natural convection boundary layer along a hot vertical plate. The scalings found are almost independent of the k–ε model used.