Laminar natural convection heat transfer from an isothermal vertical ribbed plate

Abstract

Paper presented to the 10th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Florida, 14-16 July 2014.A finite-volume-based computational study of steady laminar natural convection from an isothermal vertical plate with roughness elements has been presented. Computational simulations of the flow and heat transfer have been performed in a two-dimensional array of rectangular elements. Heat transfer characteristics with roughness elements have been analysed by examining variations of the local and average Nusselt numbers in two-dimensional flow. It is found that significant heat transfer augmentation is obtained. A general correlation has been developed to predict the average Nusselt number as a function of different rib configurations. This general correlation will be very useful for industries who manufacture plate heat exchangers.