Natural Convection of Non-Newtonian Fluids in a Differentially Heated Closed Cavity

Fluids in computational hydrodynamics are often considered Newtonian, meaning a constant viscosity, but that is just a crude approximation for many real-world examples. Accounting for Non-Newtonian behaviour can provide a significant improvement in simulation accuracy. We present a meshless solution for the natural convection of a power-law non-Newtonian fluid driven by differentially heated cavity walls. The Navier-Stokes and heat transport equations are coupled using the Boussinesq approximation and numerically solved with the generalized finite differences, explicit Euler stepping and Chorin's projection method.