EXTENDED SURFACE HEAT TRANSFER

By Sreeraj varma, Sreerag, Nabi, Tanmy singal, zahid syed, Hemanth

ABSTRACT

Since H,P,K,A for brass are constant for fixed power

This paper describes the fabrication, operation, and

analysis of an experiment in which a extended
surface(cooling fin) is subjected to natural air
convection and radiation. The fin is a cylindrical metal
rod with a heating unit on one end. The temperature
towards the insulated end of the fin is monitored to
establish the fin base temperature and the presence of a
steady state. Once steady state has occurred the on and
off cycling of the heating unit is observed to determine
the power input to the fin. The temperature, along with
the fin geometry, material and ambient temperature are
used to predict
the heat loss through the fin. The predicted heat loss is
then compared to the determined power input. And m
value is calculated based on Ta and Ts it is around 4.26
for 9v,4.497 for 12v,4.96 for 16v
Keywords: natural air convection, radiation, fin.

INTRODUCTION
Convection is a phenomenon of heat transfer in
which heat is transformed from surface of solid or
from one region of fluid to other due to its motion.
It always takes place from a region of higher
temperature to a region of lower temperature. A
solid is chosen because both liquids and gases
exhibit excessive convection in the volume of
analysis due to density difference which often
requires extensive computation to analyze.
By considering the steady-state energy balance for
an extended surface of uniform material and cross
sectional area the following equation has been
derived:

d d ( x )
2
m ( x )=0
dx dx

Where

AK

HP
2
m=

input ,

must be constant so m must be

constant.
Assuming diameter of pin is small compared to its
length and assuming heat loss from the tip is
negligible we arrived at the equation below

coshmL

( x) T x T a coshm(Lx)
=
=

0
T 1 T a

EXPERIMENT
The stetup consists of control module, test unit. The
control unit we will be using in this experiment is
the HT10XC Heat Conduction Unit, which consists
of three items. The first item is a transformer
equipped with a circuit breaker. The transformer
has two cords which connect it to an AC outlet and
to the second item, the calibration unit. The
calibration unit has two basic functions. It delivers
power to the heater element within the test unit and
it calibrates and displays the temperatures at eight
locations along with ambient temperature. The
amount of power delivered to the test unit is
controlled by the power control knob on the right
side of the control module unit; to its left is the
temperature selector knob which is used to select
one of the nine thermocouple temperatures for
display on the digital readout.
The third item is the test unit, which consists of a
cylindrical bar made of brass for which is D to L
ratio is comparitively less and insulated at one end
which allows a sample to be placed between the
two ends and other end is heated with the help of
heat source supplied heated with constant variable
input power. And the heat is lost from the rod due to
radiation and convection from the surface of the rod
to the surroundings. Once the rate at which heat is
generated is equal to the rate at which heat is
removed, steady state conditions (temperatures will

be fairly constant and readings can be taken) will

exist.

problem to be analysed.

PROCEDURE
At first we have to attach nine thermostat cables to
the connectors on the back of the control module
and to the temperature measuring points on the
sample. Now there are two possibilities to show the
convection phenomenon either by changing the
voltage or by changing the flow rate of air on the
surface of rod. But it is difficult to calibrate and we
only check the dependency of the convection based
on change in voltage. Now the metal specimen
brass is kept sandwiched between one end insulated
and other end attached to source. Now the input
voltage is changed in the upper end. A steady state
temperature is obtained after sometime and these
are noted for intervals of time. Here we change the
input voltage and repeat the experiment for
different voltages like 9V,12V,16V and note the
temperatures from T1 to T8 at steady state. The
control module is turned on and the heater power
control is set. The temperature is noted down at all
sensor locations and volta Materi
I
T1
al
the
input
power ge
readings. Repeat this 9V
.17
49
step at two minute
59.
brass
.29
intervals temperature 12V
4
changes
become 16V
.34
80
insignificant. And the
values obtained are used for analysis.

The steady state temperatures at each point were

calculated by taking temperature at definite interval
of time and then by plotting a graph of temperature
Ti (i=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8) versus time to get an equation
of temperature dependence on time and then
extrapolating the graph to meet an asymptote at
time tending to infinity. And the distance between
the
two
T4
T5
T2
T3
T6
T7
T8
thermocouples
42.
34 32 31
31
is constant and
37
31.4
1
.6
.6
.9
.2
equals to .05m.
46.
8
61.
2

39.
6
47.
7

36
41
.2

33
.3
36
.3

31
.4
31
.7

31.4
32.7

Table represents
the current and temperature at different points and
T9 equals to 30.4 ambient temperature.temperature
is in centigrade and current is in amps

ANALYSIS
Below is a schematic of the fixed parameters and
experimentally determined quantities labeled to
give an indicative perception of the experimental

32
.2
34
.2

RESULT
The value of thermal convective coefficient(h)
according to the experiment conducted for the brass
specimens are obtained as 12.68W/
13.37W/

m2 k for 9V,

k for 12V and 14.75W/

k for

16V. and calculated and m values are shown in the

appendix below
CONCLUSION

The measured values of temperature are precise

upto +/-1 degree based on the thermocouple but we
cannt say the experiment is precise because we
assumed that the thermocouples are exactly located
at a distance of 0.05m and we assumed a constant
temperatyre across cross section, and the source is
not exactly located at x=0 but there exists some
metal in between source and x=0 which causes
some heat loss and there exists some heat losses
from the source generally. We observed that surface
temperature of rod fallen with increasing distance
with decreasing temperature gradient more rapidly
at the heated end and almost constant temperature
at the insulated end . As we are unable to calculate
the minor difference in temperature at the insulated
end due to the least count of the thermocouple we
used. The variation of Qtot from Qinput is also due
to the equations that we had used may not be actual
as we had took a lot of assumptions which doesnot
resemble the practical conditions that we had
assumed.

REFERENCES
1

Heat Transfer J.P.Holman, McGraw Hill Book Company

Fundamentals

of

Heat

and

Mass

Transfer,

C.P.

Kothandaraman, New Age Publishers

Temp vs dist for 12V

temp vs dist for12V

12
10
8

tem

6
4
2
0
0

10

12