JFET_V11_N4_RP3 A. Jasmin Sudha B.K. Nashine P. Selvaraj Journal on Future Engineering and Technology 2230 – 7184 11 4 24 31 Natural Convection, Cylindrical Cavity, Distributed Heat Source, Liquid Metal Heat Transfer, CFD Analysis Natural convection in enclosures has numerous industrial applications, such as cooling of electronic equipment, emergency core cooling in nuclear reactors, and energy storage systems. A cylindrical cavity with aspect ratio (H/D) of 0.5, filled with liquid metal sodium is analyzed numerically for the natural convection setting inside the cavity due to the heated bottom side. The top of the cavity is cooled. Apart from the bottom wall heat source, there are two more plates which serve as either partitions or as additional internal heat sources in the cavity. The effect of their presence and their temperature on steady state thermal and velocity fields is evaluated in this analysis. The analysis has been carried out using the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) code, PHOENICS (Parabolic Hyperbolic Or Elliptic Numerical Integration Code Series). The peak natural convective velocity is compared for different cases when the internal plates act as heat sources or as simple partial partitions inside the cylindrical enclosure. It is evident from the analysis that, natural convection is reduced inside the cavity when partial partitions are present in the cavity either in the form of heated plates or unheated plates. May - July 2016 Copyright © 2016 i-manager publications. All rights reserved. i-manager Publications http://www.imanagerpublications.com/Article.aspx?ArticleId=8112