NUMERICAL STUDY OF NATURAL CONVECTIVE HEAT TRANSFER FROM A HORIZONTAL TWO-DIMENSIONAL TWO-SIDED PLATE HAVING EITHER A CENTRAL GAP OR AN ADIABATIC CENTER SECTION

Oliveira, Santiago del Rio [UNESP]; Oosthuizen, Patrick H.; Begell House Inc

NUMERICAL STUDY OF NATURAL CONVECTIVE HEAT TRANSFER FROM A HORIZONTAL TWO-DIMENSIONAL TWO-SIDED PLATE HAVING EITHER A CENTRAL GAP OR AN ADIABATIC CENTER SECTION

Date

2021-01-01

Authors

Oliveira, Santiago del Rio

Oosthuizen, Patrick H.

Begell House Inc

Publisher

Begell House, Inc

Type

Work presented at event

Abstract

A numerical study of natural convective heat transfer from a plane horizontal, two-dimensional, two-sided isothermal plate, i.e., there is heat transfer from both the upper and lower sides of the plate, has been undertaken. The plate either has a central adiabatic section or a central gap (hole) and the main purpose of the study was to determine the effect of the size of this adiabatic section or of the central gap on the heat transfer rate from the plate. The mean flow has been assumed steady and symmetrical about the center plane through the plate. The range of conditions considered include those under which turbulent flow could develop and the k-epsilon turbulent model with buoyancy force effects accounted for has been used in obtaining the solution. The numerical results have been obtained using the commercial CFD code Ansys-Fluent((c)). The mean heat transfer rates from the plate for the two cases, i.e., adiabatic central section, or central hole, have been expressed in terms of mean Nusselt numbers which depend on the value of the Rayleigh number, on the dimensionless distance between the heated portions of the plate, and on the Prandtl number. Attention has been restricted to the case where the heat transfer is to air and the Prandtl number has therefore been assumed to be constant. Extensive investigations of the effect of the dimensionless gap between the heated sections of the plate on the variation of the Nusselt number with Rayleigh number has been undertaken for the two cases considered.