Magneto-turbulent natural convection and entropy generation analyses in liquid sodium-filled cavity partially heated and cooled from sidewalls with circular blocks

Liquid sodium is a promising candidate working fluid in the new solar system and high-density heat sources in industrial applications. In this study free convective flow, heat transfer, and entropy generation of liquid sodium in a hot square enclosure with 16 and 64 cylindrical solid blocks are studied. The cavity is partially heated and cooled from sidewalls with three different locations of heater and cooler named CONF1–3. The effects of the magnetic field in the form of Hartmann number (Ha = 0 and 100), and flow condition in the form of the Rayleigh number (Ra = 106, and 107) are investigated. For tuning the CFD code primitive parameter, the dimensionless forms of the governing equations are used. The ANSYS Fluent equations solver conjugated with a nondimesionlization scheme are used in the turbulent region due to the behavior of liquid metal. The grid verification and validation tests are carried out to ensure the accuracy of the data. Two correlations for average Nusselt number and entropy generation are proposed to simplify calculations. The results discovered that the average Nusselt number and entropy generation increase with increasing the Rayleigh number for each value of the Hartmann number.