- 1Department of Mathematics, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan
- 2Mathematics Department, Faculty of Sciences, Northern Border University, Arar, Saudi Arabia
- 3Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Jazan University, Jazan, Saudia Arabia
- 4Mechanical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Future University in Egypt, New Cairo, Egypt
This article studies fluid dynamics and convection of the geothermal system. Earthquakes cause faults. Fault zones come up with the pathways for fluid convection. These paths have different characteristics and space distribution, causing the challenge to investigate the geothermal system. The cavity considered in the study is normally found in energy reservoirs. An unsteady, incompressible, and laminar flow along with convection is studied. The finite element method (FEM) is operated to study the flow and heat transfer governed by continuity equations, Navier-Stokes equations, and temperature equations. These equations are tackled with the finite element method. The streamlines and isothermal contours for the problem under discussion are displayed in the Results section. It is observed that the Nusselt number and velocity of the fluid increase with the increased Grashof number.
Introduction
According to geophysics, earthquakes cause faults. Faults can be considered as planar or curved fractures in rock due to which the rock displaces from its place to the other side of the fracture. Their length starts from centimeters and varies up to kilometers. They move either slowly or rapidly. Faults moving rapidly release more energy. The conglomeration of parallel faults forms a fault zone. Faults can be classified into three types: (I) tensional faults, in which the block of rock moves vertically upwards to the fault; (II) compressional faults, in which the block of rock moves vertically downwards to the fault; and (III) strike-slip faults, in which the block of rock moves along the fault horizontally [1–3].
The energy accumulation of radioactive material disintegration results in the expansion of material in the earth’s interior with the increase of temperature. The expansion may produce tensional fault zones. Faults without magma are filled with mantle gas and supercritical fluid. Fluids in their supercritical states have very high molar volume, and very low density and conductivity. These fluids exhibit strong fluidity and low viscosity. According to hydrothermal ore-forming theory, hydrothermal fluid in the middle-lower crust can move to the upper crust where it changes to its normal state. Also
Energy that transfers from system to system as a consequence of temperature difference is called heat. Heat transfer is a process to determine such energy transfers. It is very significant for physicists, mathematicians, engineers, and researchers. It effects the fluid flow and due to its remarkable applications in different engineering fields, biological processes, industrial mechanisms, and geothermal studies, its study is of great significance [6–17].
Conduction, convection, and radiation are three different ways in which heat transfer is classified. Heat transfer through molecular collision is called conduction, heat transportation between a fluid adjacent to a surface and that surface is called convection, and heat transfer through electromagnetic waves is called radiation. Convection is either natural convection or forced convection. Forced convection is driven by external body forces, and natural convection is simply a result of buoyancy force [18–30].
Fluid flow is an analysis to study the behavior of fluids and their interaction with their surroundings. The flow of a fluid may be turbulent or laminar. In laminar flow, parallel layers form during the flow such that these layers do not disturb each other, while flows are more chaotic in the case of turbulent flows. On the other hand, flow is steady if fluid properties do not depend on time; otherwise they are unsteady. Fluid flow is visualized using streamlines, streaklines, and pathlines. Most problems in fluid dynamics are too complex to solve analytically. To solve such complex problems, numerical methods are implemented with the help of computer simulation. This field of study is called computational fluid dynamics (CFD). In this paper, the subsurface hydrothermal fluid flow has been studied using computational techniques [31–43].
A cavity having an inlet and an outlet is considered to be in the fault zone. A viscous and incompressible fluid enters through the inlet on one side and leaves the cavity on the other side. A metal piece in a rectangular shape is considered inside the cavity. The article studies unsteady and laminar fluid flow through the cavity and heat transfer during natural convection between the metal piece and the fluid.
The prevailing equations are worked out followed by Boussinesq assumption. Numerical results are acquired by the use of the Galerkin finite element method (FEM) [44–54]. The influences of changing the involved parameters in the study on velocity and isothermal contours are presented. The physical properties of heat transfer and flow are exhibited using isotherms, temperature distribution, and streamlines. Further, the average Nusselt number is evaluated which analyzes heat transfer rate from the rod.
Mathematical modeling
A 2D unsteady, incompressible, laminar, and natural convective flow inside a cavity is carried out in the study. A metal piece is placed at the middle of the considered cavity. The walls of the cavity are thermally active and are at a higher temperature
The fluid’s thermophysical characteristics are defined to be fixed. For natural convection, the density can be defined according to the Boussinesq approximation; this variation is expressed in the momentum equation (Eq. 4 below). The density can be related to temperature linearly by the relation defined in Eq. 1:
In the energy equation, the radiation heat transfer and joule heating are disregarded. The governing equations [55, 56] depending on the above assumptions taken are as follows:
Initial conditions for the under-discussion problem are as follows:
For
Boundary conditions are as follows:
For
where n is normal to the surface.
Reduction to dimensionless form
The system of governing equations given by Eqs. 2–10 is reduced to dimensionless form by the use of dimensionless variables given as follows:
After this parametrization, Eqs. 2–5 become the following:
with initial conditions as the following:
For
and boundary conditions as the following:
For
where
Solution method
Since analytical methods to solve the system of equations given by Eqs. 11–19 fail for complicated cases, numerical techniques are used to obtain the solution. As discussed before, the Galerkin finite element method is applied to solve the system of Eqs. 11–19. The pressure term is penalized by the virtue of the penalty parameter
Using Eq. 20 in Eqs. 12 and 13, wegetthe following:
Weak formulation
Weight functions are used to give the weak formulation of Eqs. 14, 21, and 22. The weak formulations of these equations for a triangular element
where the subscript
Finite element method
Using FEM, we approximate the functions U (X, Y,
where
The above integrals are evaluated by numerical integration.
Newton method
Thus, we get a linear system of equations and is tackled using Newton-Raphson form:
The above system of equations is solved for every iteration. Here d represents the iterative index, R (
Computation of the Nusselt number
The Nusselt number measures the rate of heat transfer from the heated rod. It is calculated as follows:
where n is normal to the plane.
At the vertical wall of the rod, it is defined as follows:
And at the horizontal wall, it is defined as follows:
The expressions that calculate the average Nusselt number over vertical and horizontal sides of the rod will be given by the following:
respectively.
Meshing
A triangular mesh of 3,930 elements was used to study the problem numerically as shown in the Figure 2.
Algorithm validation and grid independent test
The grid independent test is necessary to ensure the accuracy of the results. For this, the Nusselt number is calculated for a different number of triangular mesh elements. It is noted that the percentage error in the Nusselt number for mesh elements 3,001 is about 0.01% as compared with the refined mesh of 3,930 triangular elements. Therefore, the refined mesh of 3,930 triangular elements is used to explore the present problem. Table 1 shows different values of the Nusselt number for different mesh elements at Re = 700 and Gr = 5×103.
Results and discussion
In this portion, the flow and heat transfer through the cavity formed due to the fault have been shown graphically for various parameters using COMSOL Multiphysics. In Figure 3, the Reynolds number is kept constant at 700 and the Grashof number is varied, and in Figure 4, the Reynolds number is kept fixed at 1,000 and the Grashof number is varied. It can be seen that the flow pattern is varied slightly for greater Grashof numbers, but velocity increases remarkably for Gr
Moreover, from Figures 7–10, significant variation can be observed in the convection dominant region. Figures 7 and 8 represent temperature distributions and isotherms, respectively at different Grashof numbers and fixed Reynolds number 700, and Figures 9 and 10 show temperature distributions and isotherms, respectively for different Grashof numbers and fixed Reynolds number 1,000. The temperature distribution becomes more uniform, and isotherms spread more within the cavity for Gr
Conclusion
In this paper, heat transfer has been investigated in laminar flow due to natural convection through the cavity formed by faults. The finite element method discretizes the prevailing equations. The discretized equations are dealt with through COMSOL Multiphysics. The computed results are displayed in the Discussion section. From the simulation of the flow, it is analyzed that the velocity of the fluid increases as the Grashof number increases, and it is greater below the metal piece due to the effect of the buoyancy force. Moreover, the Nusselt number also increases with the increased Grashof number. It is also concluded that the tensional fault zones formed by the energy accumulation of radioactive material disintegration cause the cavities which are responsible for the transportation of energy in the form of heat. There are many applications of the analysis of heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics of hydrothermal fluid through such cavities.
Data availability statement
The raw data supporting the conclusion of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
Author contributions
All authors have contributed to solve and write the paper under the supervision of SN.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s note
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Nomenclature
Keywords: hydrothermal flow, heat transfer, finite element method, cavity access, Nusselt number (Nu)
Citation: Nadeem S, Akber R, Almutairi S, Ghazwani HA and Mahmoud O (2022) Numerical analysis of hydrothermal flow and heat transfer inside a cavity formed due to faults causing earthquakes. Front. Phys. 10:959168. doi: 10.3389/fphy.2022.959168
Received: 01 June 2022; Accepted: 27 June 2022;
Published: 22 August 2022.
Edited by:
Muhammad Mubashir Bhatti, Shandong University of Science and Technology, ChinaReviewed by:
Ali Chamkha, Kuwait College of Science and Technology, KuwaitUsman, National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan
Copyright © 2022 Nadeem, Akber, Almutairi, Ghazwani and Mahmoud. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Sohail Nadeem, sohail@qau.edu.pk