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INTRODUCTION TO CONVECTIVE HEAT TRANSFER

Prabal Talukdar
Associate Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering IIT Delhi E-mail: prabal@mech.iitd.ac.in p

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Introduction to Convection
Heat transfer through a fluid is by convection in the p presence of bulk fluid motion and by conduction in the absence of it. Therefore, conduction in a fluid can be viewed as the limiting case of convection, corresponding to the case of quiescent fluid

& conv = h (Ts T ) q

W / m2

& Q conv = hA s (Ts T )


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An implication of the no-slip and the no-temperature jump conditions is that heat transfer from the solid surface to the fluid layer adjacent to the surface is by pure conduction, since the fluid layer is motionless, and can be expressed as

& conv = q & cond = k fluid q


Convectionheattransferfroma solidsurfacetoafluid

T y

(W / m 2 )
y =0

conductionheattransferfromthe solidsurfacetothefluidlayer adjacenttothesurface

k fluid h=

T y

Heat is then convected away from the surface as a result of fluid motion motion.
y =0

Ts T

( W / m 2 .C)

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Nusselt Number
& conv = hT q
& cond = k q T L

Nusselt number represents p the enhancement of heat transfer through a fluid layer as a result of convection relative to conduction across the same fluid layer. The larger the Nusselt number, the more effective the convection. Nu = 1 for a fluid layer represents heat transfer across the layer by pure conduction
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& conv hT hL q = = = Nu T & cond q k d k L


Nu = hL c k

Nusselt Number
Wilhelm Nusselt, a German engineer, was born November 25, 1882, at Nurnberg, Germany. Nusselt studied mechanical engineering at the Munich Technical University University, where he got his doctorate in 1907 1907. He taught in Dresden from 1913 to 1917. He completed his doctoral thesis on the "Conductivity of Insulating Materials" in 1907, using the "Nusselt Sphere" for his experiments. In 1915, Nusselt published his pioneering paper: The Basic Laws of Heat Transfer, in which he first proposed the dimensionless groups now known as the principal parameters in the similarity theory of heat transfer.

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Different types of flow

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Velocity Boundary Layer

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Surface shear stress


s = u y (N / m2 )
y =0

where the constant of proportionality is called the dynamic y viscosity y of the fluid, whose unit is kg/m . s (or equivalently, N .s/m2, or Pa.s, or poise = 0.1 Pa.s). The ratio of dynamic viscosity to density appears frequently. For convenience, i thi this ratio ti i is given i th the name kinematic ki ti viscosity i it and d is i expressed as /. Two common units of kinematic viscosity are m2/s and stoke (1 stoke = 1 cm2/s = 0.0001 m2/s). ) The viscosity of a fluid is a measure of its resistance to 2 V flow, and it is a strong s = C f (N / m2 ) function of temperature 2 Experimentallydetermined
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Thermal Boundary Layer

The thickness of the thermal boundary layer t at any location along the surface is defined as the distance from the surface at which the temperature difference T -T Ts equals 0.99(T -Ts). p case of Ts = 0, we have T = 0.99T at the outer edge g of the Note that for the special thermal boundary layer, which is analogous to u = 0.99u for the velocity boundary layer.
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The thickness of the thermal boundary layer increases in the flow direction

The convection heat transfer rate anywhere along the surface is directly related to the temperature gradient at that location. T Therefore, the shape of the temperature profile in the thermal boundary layer dictates the convection heat transfer Noting that the fluid velocity have a strong influence on the temperature profile, the development of the velocity boundary layer relative to the thermal boundary layer will have a strong effect on the convection heat transfer.
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Prandtl number
It is named after Ludwig Prandtl, who introduced the concept of boundary layer in 1904 and made significant contributions to boundary layer theory. The Prandtl numbers of gases are about 1, which indicates that both momentum and heat dissipate through the fluid at about the same rate. Heat diffuses very quickly in liquid metals (Pr <<1) and very slowly in oils (Pr >> 1) relative to momentum

Consequently the thermal boundary layer is much thicker for liquid metals and much thinner for oils relative to the velocity boundary layer.
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Ludwig Prandtl
(1875-1953) Prandtl was born in Freising, g, near Munich, , in 1875. He entered the Technische Hochschule Munich in 1894 and graduated with a Ph.D. under guidance of Professor August Foeppl in six years In 1901 Prandtl became a professor of fluid mechanics at the Technical school in Hannover, now the Technical University Hannover Doctoral students: Ackeret, Heinrich Blasius, Busemann, Nikuradse, Pohlhausen, Schlichting, Tietjens, Tollmien, von Krmn, and many others (85 in total)
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Laminar / Turbulent Flow

The intense mixing of the fluid in turbulent flow as a result of rapid fluctuations enhances e a ces heat ea a and d momentum o e u transfer a se between fluid particles, which increases the friction force on the surface and the convection heat transfer rate rate.
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Reynolds number
BritishscientistOsbornReynolds(1842 1912)

The transition from laminar to turbulent flow depends on the surface geometry, surface roughness, free-stream velocity, p and type yp of fluid, surface temperature, among other things. After exhaustive experiments in the 1880s, Osborn Reynolds discovered that the flow regime depends mainly on the ratio of the inertia forces to viscous forces in the fluid

Note that kinematic viscosity has the unit m2/s, which is identical to the unit of thermal diffusivity, and can be viewed as viscous diffusivity or diffusivity for momentum.
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At large Reynolds numbers, the inertia forces, which are proportional to the density and the velocity of the fluid, are large relative to the viscous forces, and thus the viscous forces cannot prevent the random and rapid fluctuations of the fluid. At small Reynolds numbers, however, the viscous forces are large eno enough gh to o overcome ercome the inertia forces and to keep the fluid in line. Thus the flow is turbulent in the first case and laminar in the second.

The Reynolds number at which the flow becomes turbulent is called the critical Reynolds number

For flow over a flat plate, the generally accepted value of the critical Reynolds number is Recr = Vxcr/ = uxcr/ = 5 x 105, where xcr is the distance from the leading edge of the plate at which transition from laminar to turbulent flow occurs
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