Mixed Convection Heat Transfer Experiments in Smooth and Rough Verticla Tubes

Abstract

The mixed convection regime is a transitional heat transfer regime between forced convection and natural convection, where both the forced component of flow, and the buoyancy induced component are important. Aiding flow is when buoyancy forces act in the same direction as the forced flow (heated upflow or cooled downflow), while opposing flow is when the buoyancy force is in the opposite direction of the forced flow (cooled upflow or heated downflow). For opposing flow the buoyancy always increases the rate of heat transfer over the forced convection value. For aiding flow, as the heat flux increased, a reduction in heat transfer is encountered until a condition known as laminarization occurs, where the heat transfer is at a minimum value. Further increases in the wall heat flux causes re-transition to turbulence, and increased heat transfer. In this paper, for the first time, experiments were performed to characterize the effect of surface roughness on heat transfer in mixed convection, for the case of aiding flow. A correlation was developed to allow calculation of mixed convection heat transfer coefficients for rough or smooth tubes.