The development of laminar natural-convective flow in a vertical uniform heat flux duct

Abstract

An account of a theoretical and experimental study of laminar natural-convective flow in heated vertical ducts is presented. The ducts are open-ended and circular in cross-section and their internal surfaces dissipate heat uniformly. Temperature and velocity fields and the relationship between Nusselt and Rayleigh numbers were obtained by solving the governing equations by a step-by-step numerical technique. Two Rayleigh numbers are introduced, one expressed in terms of the uniform heat flux and the other in terms of the mean wall temperature. The influence that the Prandtl number has on the relationship between the Nusselt and Rayleigh numbers is discussed. Three inlet conditions were examined; they all gave the same Nusselt relationship at small Rayleigh numbers and the differences between the Nusselt relationships obtained at large Rayleigh numbers were only small. Experimentally determined Nusselt numbers, with air as the convected fluid, agreed satisfactorily with the theoretical relationship.