Transient natural convection from a horizontal cylinder confined between vertical walls—a finite element solution

Abstract

AbstractA general finite element computer code is developed for transient two dimensional natural convection heat transfer in a laminar regime. This code is used to study heat transfer from a horizontal isothermal cylinder confined between two vertical adiabatic walls. Results are presented for Ra = 1000, Pr = 0.7, and for different wall spacing to cylinder diameter ratios. The time variations of the local and average Nusselt numbers along with some transient and steady state velocity and temperature fields are demonstrated. The steady state results predict the existence of an optimum wall distance for the maximum average Nusselt number. The steady state and the transient Nusselt numbers are compared with the available experimental or theoretical results for a few cases. Their agreement is very good.