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Natural Convection Heat Transfer

Introduction
• Occurs when a solid surface is in contact with a gas
or liquid which is at a different temp from the surface
• Density differences in the fluid arising from the
heating process provide buoyancy force to move the
fluid
• An important HT system in process engineering is
heat is being transferred from a hot vertical plate to
a gas or liquid adjacent to it by natural convection
– velocity profile is different from
forced convection
– A boundary layer is formed
– Velocity at the wall is zero and at
the edge of the boundary layer
– Flow in the boundary layer is laminar initially
– But at some distance from the edge it starts to
become turbulent
– For two-dimensional flow for a control volume:
– Density difference can be expressed in terms of
volumetric coefficient of expansion, 𝛽:

– For gases 𝛽 = 1/𝑇


– Similarly for energy heat balance:
Natural Convection from vertical
planes and cylinders
• For an isothermal surface of vertical planes
and cylinder with height L<1 m:

• a and m are constants and 𝑁𝐺𝑟 is Grashof


number (ratio of buoyancy forces to the
viscous forces in free convection)
• a and m are found in Table 4.7-1
Problem
Simplified Equations for Natural
Convection from Various Geometries
• For 𝑁𝐺𝑟 𝑁𝑃𝑟 = 104 𝑡𝑜 109 and 𝐿3 ∆𝑇 < 4.7 𝑚3 ∙ 𝐾,
𝑇𝑓 = 255 − 533𝐾 and 𝑃 = 1 am abs
Other geometries
• From horizontal cylinders
– Same equation with vertical cylinders but different
a and m values given in the table
– Simplified equation is also given in the table
• For horizontal plates
– Same equation with vertical cylinders but different
a and m values given in the table
– The dimension L is the length of a square plate,
the linear mean of two dimension for a rectangle
and 0.9D for circular disk
Natural Convection in enclosed spaces
• Free convection in enclosed spaces occurs in a
number of applications
– Ex.is an enclosed double window in two layers of
glass separated by layer of air for energy
conservation
• Flow phenomena are complex due to different
types of flow pattern can occur
– At low NGr the HT is mainly by conduction across
the fluid layer
– As NGr is increased, different flow regimes are
encountered
• For two vertical plates of height L and the fluid
lies b/n the gap of width with surface temps
T1 and T2
– NGr and NNu are

– Heat flux is

– Fluid properties is evaluated at the mean


temperatures between the two plates

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