Combined Heat and Mass Transfer by Natural Convection in a Vertical Enclosure

The phenomenon of natural convection caused by combined temperature and concentration buoyancy effects is studied analytically and numerically in a rectangular slot with uniform heat and mass fluxes along the vertical sides. The analytical part is devoted to the boundary layer regime where the heat and mass transfer rates are ruled by convection. An Oseen-linearized solution is reported for tall spaces filled with mixtures characterized by Le = 1 and arbitrary buoyancy ratios. The effect of varying the Lewis number is documented by a similarity solution valid for Le >1 in heat-transfer-driven flows, and for Le <1 in mass-transfer-driven flows. The analytical results are validated by numerical experiments conducted in the range 1≤H/L≤4, 3.5×10⁵≤Ra≤7×10⁶, −11≤n≤9, 1≤Le≤40, and Pr=0.7, 7. “Massline” patterns are used to visualize the convective mass transfer path and the flow reversal observed when the buoyancy ratio n passes through the value −1.