Abstract
It is necessary to analyze and predict the room air distribution to estimate the themal comfort or the efficiency of ventilation. Numerical analysis is an appropriate method. There are lots of cases which compare the numerical results with flow visualization experiments. In this paper, the authors describe the numerical analyses and the flow visualization experiments for the three-dimensional thermal convection in an enclosure. The numerical analysis methods, which are adopted here, are the MAC method and the vorticity method. The numerical analysis model is similar to the experiment model, of which the shape is cubical with no openings. The sources for thermal convection are hot and cold parts set on the inside surface of the model. The experiment fluid is 95 % glycerin and the aluminum particles are used as the tracer which visualyze the flow. There are six sections in the model of which photos are taken. Numerical results are expressed as the distribution of a component of vector potential of which the direction is normal to the section, two-dimensional stream function which is integrated from the velocities in the section and the velocity vector. There is little difference between the results of the two methods, and there is a close resemblance between the two-dimensional stream line and the visualized flow in the section which has two dimensionality.
