Natural convection heat transfer from vertical parallel plates to air
Abstract
Two-dimensional Navier-Stokes and energy equations are numerically solved for laminar natural convection of air between vertical parallel plane plates with uniform heat flux. Calculations are carried out under the conditions of the modified Grashof number (2.3 x 10(exp 3) less than or equals to Gr(sup *) less than or equals to 8.8 x 10(exp 5)) and height to plate spacing ratio (8 less than or equals to l/h less than or equals to 30), which covers the practical range encountered with the air cooling system of electronic equipment. The numerical solutions are compared with present experimental results. The local Nusselt numbers and induced flow rates obtained numerically agree well with those measured. A correlation expression for the local Nusselt number is proposed which can predict the local plate temperature within 5 percent error. When the value of dimensionless variable Phi = ((h/x)Gr(sup *)Pr)/((h/l)Gr(sup *)Pr) is greater than approximately 10(exp 2). The existing results based on the boundary layer approximation are found to be not applicable for predicting the maximum plate temperature.
- Publication:
-
In its Reports of Institute of Advanced Material Study
- Pub Date:
- September 1993
- Bibcode:
- 1993iams....7...21F
- Keywords:
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- Convective Flow;
- Convective Heat Transfer;
- Grashof Number;
- Navier-Stokes Equation;
- Numerical Flow Visualization;
- Nusselt Number;
- Parallel Plates;
- Pressure Distribution;
- Computerized Simulation;
- Flow Distribution;
- Flow Velocity;
- Heat Flux;
- Mathematical Models;
- Numerical Analysis;
- Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer