Natural convection in a squared cavity via a numerical coupling between a FEM code and OpenFOAM

Numerical code coupling is a procedure that allows the solution of multiphysics and multiscale problems. In the present paper we perform a numerical code coupling between the in-house FEM code FEMuS and OpenFOAM. The MED format that come with the SALOME platform is used to exchange data between the two different codes. The test case consists of a squared cavity where the fluid flow is driven by a buoyant force. The momentum and energy equations are solved by both numerical codes. In the coupled case, the temperature field obtained from the FEM solution is used to calculate the buoyancy term of the OpenFOAM momentum balance equation. We investigate the case with low Rayleigh number and report results for both the coupled and uncoupled cases, examining the influences of different domain discretizations.