Numerical Study of Laminar Natural Convection From a Plate to its Cylindrical Enclosure

Abstract

The steady-state laminar natural convection for air bounded by a hot plate and a cold cylindrical enclosure has been studied numerically for the case of cold isothermal cylinder and hot isothermal plate. A correlation is presented for the average Nusselt number over the range of Rayleigh number from 105 to 106 for different values of the width-aspect ratio Sw and thickness aspect-ratio St of the plate. It is found that the average Nusselt number increases with increasing Sw and Rayleigh number. A two-cell pattern is observed for Sw =1.5 and less. The effect of Sw on the average Nusselt number is found to be stronger than that of St .