Experiments on buoyancy driven convection in non-Newtonian fluid

Abstract

Buoyancy-driven convection in horizontal layers of dilute water solutions of ionic and nonionic polyacrylamides confined between rigid, parallel, conducting surfaces was studied experimentally. By determining the temperature difference at the point where convection first sets in, values of the zero shear rate viscosity were calculated in good agreement with those obtained from rheogoniometer data. Beyond this point, the heat transfer characteristics of the solutions and the associated convective flow patterns were found to be rather similar to those of a viscous Newtonian fluid forRayleigh numbers up to 5 × 104, the range covered by the present experiments. However, theNusselt numbers at any givenRayleigh number were slightly but consistently higher than those of a Newtonian fluid of comparable viscosity. Also, the regularity of the flow patterns was more pronounced.