Natural convection from free standing tandem planar heat sources in a vertical channel

This paper reports the results of combined experimental and numerical study of laminar conjugate natural convection heat transfer from four planar heat generating elements arranged in tandem and placed symmetrically in a vertical channel. The heat transfer characteristics of the downstream heat generating elements affected by the natural convection plume arising from the upstream heat generating elements are explored. The dependence of modified Rayleigh number, channel aspect ratio and stream-wise height ratio on heat transfer characteristics of the heat generating elements is analysed and discussed. The mathematical model governing the problem is numerically solved in a three-dimensional computational domain using a commercial computational fluid dynamic package FLUENT 6.3. Numerical simulations have been carried out for modified Rayleigh number in the range 2.0 × 106–8.1 × 107. The comparison of experimental and numerical results is reasonably in good agreement. Correlations for average convective Nusselt number of individual heat sources as a function of modified Rayleigh number, channel aspect ratio and stream-wise height ratio are reported.