An Experimental Study of Natural Convection in a Vertical Cavity With Discrete Heat Sources

1988 ◽  
Vol 110 (3) ◽  
pp. 616-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Keyhani ◽  
V. Prasad ◽  
R. Cox

Natural convection heat transfer in a tall vertical cavity (aspect ratio = 16.5), with one isothermal vertical cold wall, and eleven alternately unheated and flush-heated sections of equal height on the opposing vertical wall, is experimentally investigated. The flow visualization pictures for the ethylene glycol–filled cavity reveal a flow pattern consisting of primary, secondary, and tertiary flows. The heat transfer data and the flow visualization photographs indicate that the stratification is the primary factor influencing the temperature of the heated sections. This behavior persists for all the runs where the secondary flow cells cover a large vertical extend of the cavity. Based on the analysis of the photographs it is suggested that the turbulent flow should be expected when the local modified Rayleigh number is in the range of 9.3×1011 to 1.9×1012. It is found that discrete flush-mounted heating in the enclosure results in local Nusselt numbers that are nearly the same as those reported for a wide flush-mounted heater on a vertical plate. This is believed to be due to the fact that the present problem is inherently unstable, and the smallest temperature difference between a heated section and the cold wall results in the onset of convection motion.

1995 ◽  
Vol 117 (4) ◽  
pp. 910-917 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. J. Heindel ◽  
F. P. Incropera ◽  
S. Ramadhyani

Three-dimensional numerical predictions and experimental data have been obtained for natural convection from a 3 × 3 array of discrete heat sources flush-mounted on one vertical wall of a rectangular cavity and cooled by the opposing wall. Predictions performed in a companion paper (Heindel et al., 1995a) revealed that three-dimensional edge effects are significant and that, with increasing Rayleigh number, flow and heat transfer become more uniform across each heater face. The three-dimensional predictions are in excellent agreement with the data of this study, whereas a two-dimensional model of the experimental geometry underpredicts average heat transfer by as much as 20 percent. Experimental row-averaged Nusselt numbers are well correlated with a Rayleigh number exponent of 0.25 for RaLz ≲ 1.2 × 108.


Author(s):  
K. Venkatadri ◽  
S. Abdul Gaffar ◽  
Ramachandra Prasad V. ◽  
B. Md. Hidayathulla Khan ◽  
O. Anwar Beg

Natural convection within trapezoidal enclosures finds significant practical applications. The natural convection flows play a prominent role in the transport of energy in energyrelated applications, in case of proper design of enclosures to achieve higher heat transfer rates. In the present study, a two-dimensional cavity with adiabatic right side wall is studied. The left side vertical wall is maintained at the constant hot temperature and the top slat wall is maintained at cold temperature. The dimensionless governing partial differential equations for vorticity-stream function are solved using the finite difference method with incremental time steps. The parametric study involves a wide range of Rayleigh number, Ra, 103 ≤ Ra ≤ 105 and Prandtl number (Pr = 0.025, 0.71 and 10). The fluid flow within the enclosure is formed with different shapes for different Pr values. The flow rate is increased by enhancing the Rayleigh number (Ra = 104 ). The numerical results are validated with previous results. The governing parameters in the present article, namely Rayleigh number and Prandtl number on flow patterns, isotherms as well as local Nusselt number are reported. 


1994 ◽  
Vol 116 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Joshi ◽  
M. D. Kelleher ◽  
M. Powell ◽  
E. I. Torres

An experimental investigation of natural convection liquid immersion cooling of a three by three array of rectangular protrusions in an enclosure is presented. The heated elements geometrically simulated 20 pin dual-inline electronic packages and were mounted on a plexiglass substrate, which formed one vertical wall of a dielectric liquid filled rectangular enclosure. The remaining vertical boundaries of the enclosure were insulated, while the top and bottom were maintained at prescribed temperatures using individual heat exchanger plates. Protrusion surface temperatures in steady state are reported for a range of power dissipation levels for three fluorinert liquids spanning a Prandtl number range from about 20 to 1400. The influence of enclosure top and bottom surface boundary conditions and its width on element temperatures is investigated. Non-dimensional heat transfer results are empirically correlated. Changes in component temperatures due to partial powering of the array are also measured.


2013 ◽  
Vol 135 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerod C. Day ◽  
Matthew K. Zemler ◽  
Matthew J. Traum ◽  
Sandra K. S. Boetcher

Although an extensively studied classical subject, laminar natural convection heat transfer from the vertical surface of a cylinder has generated some recent interest in the literature. In this investigation, numerical experiments are performed to determine average Nusselt numbers for isothermal vertical cylinders (102<RaL<109,0.1<L/D<10, and Pr = 0.7) situated on an adiabatic surface in a quiescent ambient environment. Average Nusselt numbers for various cases will be presented and compared with commonly used correlations. Using Nusselt numbers for isothermal tops to approximate Nusselt numbers for heated tops will also be examined. Furthermore, the limit for which the heat transfer results for a vertical flat plate may be used as an approximation for the heat transfer from a vertical cylinder will be investigated.


2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Bianco ◽  
Oronzio Manca ◽  
Sergio Nardini ◽  
Vincenzo Naso

Nowadays trends in natural convection heat transfer are oriented toward either the seeking of new configurations to enhance the heat transfer parameters or the optimization of standard configurations. An experimental investigation on air natural convection in divergent channels with uniform heat flux at both the principal walls is presented in this paper to analyze the effect of radiative heat transfer. Results in terms of wall temperature profiles as a function of the walls diverging angle, the interwall spacing, the heat flux are given for two value of the wall emissivity. Flow visualization is carried out in order to show the peculiar pattern of the flow between the plates in several configurations. Nusselt numbers are then evaluated and correlated to the Rayleigh number. The investigated Rayleigh number ranges from 7.0 × 102 to 4.5 × 108. The maximum wall temperature decreases at increasing divergence angles. This effect is more evident when the minimum channel spacing decrease. A significant decrease in the maximum wall temperature occurs passing from ε = 0.10 to ε = 0.90, except in the inlet region. Flow visualization shows a separation of the fluid flow for bmin = 40 mm and θ = 10°. Correlations between Nusselt and Rayleigh numbers show that data are better correlated when the maximum channel spacing is chosen as the characteristic length.


2006 ◽  
Vol 129 (9) ◽  
pp. 1195-1202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed E. Ali

Experimental investigations have been reported on steady state natural convection from the outer surface of horizontal ducts in air. Five ducts have been used with aspect ratios (Γ=duct height/duct width) of 2, 1, and 0.5. The ducts are heated using internal constant heat flux heating elements. The temperatures along the surface and peripheral directions of the duct wall are measured. Longitudinal (circumference averaged) heat transfer coefficients along the side of each duct are obtained for laminar and transition regimes of natural convection heat transfer. Total overall averaged heat transfer coefficients are also obtained. Longitudinal (circumference averaged) Nusselt numbers are evaluated and correlated using the modified Rayleigh numbers for transition regime using the axial distance as a characteristic length. Furthermore, total overall averaged Nusselt numbers are correlated with the modified Rayleigh numbers, the aspect ratio, and area ratio for the laminar and transition regimes. The longitudinal or total averaged heat transfer coefficients are observed to decrease in the laminar region and to increase in the transition region. Laminar regimes are obtained only at very small heat fluxes, otherwise, transitions are observed.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document