Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
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:
– Heat flux is