A three-dimensional numerical study has been performed to investigate double-diffusive, natural convection in a cubic enclosure subject to opposing and horizontal gradients of heat and solute. The flow is driven by buoyancy forces due to temperature and solutal gradients. Constant temperature and concentration are imposed along the two vertical side walls of the cubic enclosure, while the remaining walls are impermeable and adiabatic. The numerical simulations presented here span a wide range of thermal Rayleigh number (10.0<Ra<2×105), buoyancy ratio (−2.0<N<0) and Lewis number (0.1<Le<150) to identify the different flow patterns and bifurcations. Nusselt and Sherwood numbers are presented as functions of the governing parameters. Most of the published results approximate the problem as two dimensional. In the present results we indicate that the double diffusive flow in enclosures with opposing buoyancy forces is strictly three dimensional for a certain range of parameters.

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A three-dimensional mathematical model based on the Brinkman extended Darcy equation has been used to study double-diffusive natural convection in a fluid-saturated porous cubic enclosure subject to opposing and horizontal gradients of temperature and concentration. The flow is driven by conditions of constant temperature and concentration imposed along the two vertical sidewalls of the cubic enclosure, while the remaining walls are impermeable and adiabatic. The numerical simulations presented here span a wide range of porous thermal Rayleigh number, buoyancy ratio and Lewis number to identify the different steady-state flow patterns and bifurcations. The effect of the governing parameters on the domain of existence of the three-dimensional flow patterns is studied for opposing flows (N < 0). Comprehensive Nusselt and Sherwood number data are presented as functions of the governing parameters. The present results indicate that the double-diffusive flow in enclosures with opposing buoyancy forces is strictly three-dimensional for a certain range of parameters. At high Lewis numbers multiple dipole vortices form in the transverse planes near the horizontal top and bottom surfaces, which the two-dimensional models fail to detect. The dipolar vortex structures obtained are similar to those created in laboratory experiments by the injection of fluid into a stratified medium.

The flow and heat transfer characteristics of impinging laminar jets issuing from rectangular slots of different aspect ratios have been investigated numerically through the solution of three-dimensional Navier-Stokes and energy equations in steady state. The three-dimensional simulation reveals the existence of pronounced streamwise velocity off-center peaks near the impingement plate. Furthermore, the effect of these off-center velocity peaks on the Nusselt number distribution is also investigated. Interesting three-dimensional flow structures are detected which cannot be predicted by two-dimensional simulations.

Natural convection in a cube of fluid-saturated porous medium heated from below and cooled from the top is studied numerically using a non-Darcy flow model. All vertical sidewalls are considered to be impermeable and adiabatic. The evolution of the various flow patterns is investigated from onset up to a Rayleigh number of 1000 where irregularly fluctuating convection prevails. New flow patterns have been found to exist in addition to those mentioned in the previous studies. In the present study, a total of ten steady flow patterns have been identified, of which five show oscillatory behaviour in some Rayleigh-number range. The results are presented in terms of average Nusselt number curves consisting of the solution branches of the convective patterns. The convective patterns are classified in terms of their symmetry properties, and the symmetries broken or gained during bifurcations from one flow structure to the other are identified.