Natural Convection

Dr. B.V.S.Praveen
Assistant Professor
 Natural Convection

• Natural convection is a mechanism, or type of heat transport, in which the fluid

motion is not generated by any external source but only by density differences in
the fluid occurring due to temperature gradients.

• As an example of natural convection, consider a hot, vertical plate in contact with

the air in a room. The temperature of the air in contact with the plate will be that
of the surface of the plate, and a temperature gradient will exist from the plate
out into the room.

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 Natural Convection (Contd…)

• Free convection refers to fluid motion induced by buoyancy forces. Buoyancy forces may arise in a
fluid for which there are density gradients.

• The density of the heated air immediately adjacent to the plate is less than that of the unheated
air at a distance from the plate, and the buoyancy of the hot air causes an unbalance between the
vertical layers of air of differing density.

• The unbalanced forces generate a circulation by which hot air near the plate rises and cold air
flows toward the plate from the room to replenish the rising airstream. A velocity gradient near
the plate is formed.

• The temperature difference between the surface of the plate and the air in the room at a distance
from the plate causes a transfer of heat by conduction into the current of gas next to the wall, &
the stream carries the heat away by convection in a direction parallel to plate.
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 Natural Convection (Contd…)

• On the assumption that h depends upon pipe diameter, specific heat, thermal
conductivity, viscosity, coefficient of thermal expansion, the acceleration of gravity, and
temperature difference, dimensional analysis gives

ℎ
= , , Δ

The last two groups combined is called as ℎ , Gr

Δ
=

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 Natural Convection (Contd…)

• For single horizontal cylinders, the relation is given as

ℎ Δ
=Φ ,

The parameters above are evaluated at mean film temperature.

1
= +
2
is the mean bulk temperature of the fluid.

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 Natural Convection (Contd…)

• The coefficient of thermal expansion is the property of the fluid.

• It is defined as the fractional increase in the volume at constant pressure of the
fluid per degree of temperature change

/
=

Where is the specific volume of fluid

/ is the rate of change of specific volume with temperature at constant

pressure.

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 Natural Convection (Contd…)

• For liquids, the coefficient of thermal expansion of an ideal gas equals the
reciprocal of the absolute temperature.

1
=

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 Natural convection to air from vertical shapes and horizontal
planes
• Heat Transfer between fluids and solids of definite geometric shape in natural convection
is

ℎ Δ
=

or
=

Where , are constants

is height of vertical surface or length of horizontal square surface

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Natural convection to air from vertical shapes and horizontal
planes (Contd…)

System Range of Gr Pr b n
Vertical Plates, vertical cylinders 104-109 0.59 0.25
109-1012 0.13 0.333

Horizontal plates:
Heated, facing upward 105-2x107 0.54 0.25
cooled, facing down 2x107-3x1010 0.14 0.333

cooled, facing upward or

3x105-3x1010 0.27 0.25
heated, facing down
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Natural Convection 10