Natural convection heat transfer along a vertical flat plate with a projection in the turbulent region

2001 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 222-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katsuo Komori ◽  
Shunsuke Kito ◽  
Terumi Inagaki ◽  
Norio Mizoguchi
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Natural Convection ◽  
Flat Plate ◽  
Convection Heat Transfer ◽  
Natural Convection Heat Transfer ◽  
Convection Heat ◽  
Turbulent Region ◽  
Vertical Flat Plate

scholarly journals Higher Order Accurate Transient Numerical Model to Evaluate the Natural Convection Heat Transfer in Flat Plate Solar Collector

Processes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 1508
Author(s):  
Nagesh Babu Balam ◽  
Tabish Alam ◽  
Akhilesh Gupta ◽  
Paolo Blecich
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Natural Convection ◽  
Flat Plate ◽  
Solar Collector ◽  
Convection Heat Transfer ◽  
Air Gap ◽  
Convection Flow ◽  
Natural Convection Heat Transfer ◽  
Convection Heat ◽  
Flat Plate Solar Collector

The natural convection flow in the air gap between the absorber plate and glass cover of the flat plate solar collectors is predominantly evaluated based on the lumped capacitance method, which does not consider the spatial temperature gradients. With the recent advancements in the field of computational fluid dynamics, it became possible to study the natural convection heat transfer in the air gap of solar collectors with spatially resolved temperature gradients in the laminar regime. However, due to the relatively large temperature gradient in this air gap, the natural convection heat transfer lies in either the transitional regime or in the turbulent regime. This requires a very high grid density and a large convergence time for existing CFD methods. Higher order numerical methods are found to be effective for resolving turbulent flow phenomenon. Here we develop a non-dimensional transient numerical model for resolving the turbulent natural convection heat transfer in the air gap of a flat plate solar collector, which is fourth order accurate in both spatial and temporal domains. The developed model is validated against benchmark results available in the literature. An error of less than 5% is observed for the top heat loss coefficient parameter of the flat plate solar collector. Transient flow characteristics and various stages of natural convection flow development have been discussed. In addition, it was observed that the occurrence of flow mode transitions have a significant effect on the overall natural convection heat transfer.

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