Natural Convective Heat Transfer from Narrow Vertical Plates

Abstract

Numerically determined natural convective heat transfer rates from narrow vertical plates for a relatively wide range of dimensionless plate widths are discussed. Attention has been given both to the case of plates having a uniform surface temperature and to the case of plates having a uniform surface heat flux. Results are presented for a Prandtl number of 0.7, this being approximately the value for air at ambient conditions. A brief review of the solution procedure used in obtaining the numerical results is given. The dimensionless plate width is shown to have a significant influence on the mean Nusselt number for natural convective heat transfer from a vertical flat plate. Empirical equations for the mean heat transfer rate from narrow plates have been derived from the numerical results both for the case of an isothermal plate and for the case of a plate with a uniform surface heat flux.