A Comprehensive Review of Natural Convection in Triangular Enclosures

Natural convection in triangular enclosures is an important problem. It displays well the generic attributes of this class of convection, with its dependence on enclosure geometry, orientation and thermal boundary conditions. It is particularly rich in its variety of flow regimes and thermal fields as well as having significant practical application. In this paper, a comprehensive view of the research area is sought by critically examining the experimental and numerical approaches adopted in studies of this problem in the literature. Different thermal boundary conditions for the evolution of the flow regimes and thermal fields are considered. Effects of changes in pitch angle and the Rayleigh number on the flow and thermal fields are examined in detail. Although most of the past studies are in the laminar regime, the review extends up to the recent studies of the low turbulent regime. Finally, areas of further research are highlighted.