A numerical study on the conjugate natural convection in a circular pipe containing water

In this paper, the effect of material property of pipe on the conjugate natural convection in a circular pipe containing water was investigated by solving the unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations coupled with energy equations of the water and pipe. Natural convection and conduction of water inside the pipe was coupled with the conduction of the pipe whose bottom was subject to uniform heat source. From the present grid resolution and time-step independent solutions, it has been confirmed that the water temperature inside a PVC pipe was higher than that inside a steel pipe due to the smaller heat capacity of PVC and that the streamline patterns of the two cases were found to be opposite because the thermal diffusivity of steel (PVC) is larger (smaller) than that of water such that steel (PVC) pipe is heated faster (slower) than water. Furthermore, a quantitative comparison of heat flux to water was performed by examining the distributions of the heat flux along the inside walls of steel/PVC. The average temperature of water inside steel was found to be higher than that inside PVC at the initial stage of heating. On the other hand, PVC provided a larger heat flux to water when it reached a steady value.