Motion of circular cylinders during natural convection flow in X-shaped cavity filled with a nanofluid using ISPH method

Purpose: This study aims to illustrate the impacts of the motion of circular cylinders on the natural convection flow from variable heated partitions inside the X-shaped cavity filled with Al₂O₃-water nanofluid. A partial layer of a homogeneous/heterogeneous porous medium is located in the top area of the X-shaped cavity. Design/methodology/approach: Three different cases of the porous media including homogeneous, horizontal heterogeneous and vertical heterogeneous porous media were considered. Three different thermal conditions of the embedded circular cylinders including hot, cold and adiabatic conditions are investigated. An incompressible scheme of smoothed particle hydrodynamics (ISPH) method is modified to compute the non-linear partial differential equations of the current problem. Two variable lengths of the left and right sides of the X-shaped cavity have a high-temperature T_h and a low-temperature T_c, respectively. The other wall parts are adiabatic. The numerical simulations are elucidating the dependence of the heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics on lengths of hot/cold source L_h, porous cases, Darcy parameter, thermal conditions of the embedded circular cylinders and solid volume fraction. Findings: Overall, an increment in length of hot/cold source leads to augmentation on the temperature distributions and flow intensity inside the X-shaped cavity. The hot thermal condition of the circular cylinder augments the temperature distributions. The homogeneous porous medium slows down the flow speed in the top porous layer of the X-shaped cavity. The average Nusselt number decreases as L_h increases. Originality/value: ISPH method simulated the motion of circular cylinders in the X-shaped cavity. The X-shaped cavity is saturated with a partial layer porous medium. It is found that an increase in hot source length augments the temperature and fluid flow. ISPH method can easily handle the motion of cylinders in the X-shaped cavity. Different thermal conditions of cylinders can change the temperature distributions in X-cavity.