Experimental study of convective heat transfer in a ventilated rectangular cavity

Abstract

This work presents the design, construction, and evaluation of a rectangular ventilated cavity. The cavity has a heated wall, a fixed air inlet port, and an air outlet port that can change in four different configurations: C-1, the outlet gap is on the upper side of the left wall; C-2, the outlet is on left of the top wall; C-3, the outlet is in the middle of the top wall; and C-4, the outlet is on right of the top wall of the cavity. The experimental tests were carried out with a heating power of 200 and 400 W. The measured indoor air temperatures in nine points, the wall surface temperatures, and heat flows are reported for validation of computer codes. Then, the numerical modeling for the ventilated cavity was done with an in-house code based on the finite volume method to show the relevance of the experimental data. From experimental result for a heating power of 400 W, the configuration C-4 presented the smallest air temperature increment of 3.3°C and the lower average indoor air temperature. In addition, configuration C-4 was more efficient to remove heat than the other configurations, with a maximum percentage of heat removed being 4.75%, 4.32%, and 2.11% more than configurations C-1, C-2, and C-3, respectively. From the validation, the maximum error was 9.9% and 11.5% for the test of 400 and 200 W, respectively. In general, most comparison points had an error smaller than 5%. From both comparisons, it can be concluded that numerical results have an acceptable quantitative approximation.