Natural convection velocity

The natural convection velocity is given by Eq. (68b). The order-of-magnitude analysis provides the following algebraic equation ... 

In the forced convection heat transfer, the heat-transfer coefficient, mainly depends on the fluid velocity because the contribution from natural convection is negligibly small. The dependence of the heat-transfer coefficient, on fluid velocity, which has been observed empirically (1—3), for laminar flow inside tubes, is h for turbulent flow inside tubes, h and for flow outside tubes, h. Flow may be classified as laminar or... 

Convection is the transfer of heat from one point to another within a fluid, gas, or liquid by the mixing of one portion of the fluid with another. In natural convection, the motion of the flmd is entirely the result of differences in density resiilting from temperature differences in forced convection, the motion is produced by mechanical means. When the forced velocity is relatively low, it should be reahzed that Tree-convection factors, such as density and temperature difference, may have an important influence. 

Natural convection occurs when a solid surface is in contact with a fluid of different temperature from the surface. Density differences provide the body force required to move the flmd. Theoretical analyses of natural convection require the simultaneous solution of the coupled equations of motion and energy. Details of theoretical studies are available in several general references (Brown and Marco, Introduction to Heat Transfer, 3d ed., McGraw-HiU, New York, 1958 and Jakob, Heat Transfer, Wiley, New York, vol. 1, 1949 vol. 2, 1957) but have generally been applied successfully to the simple case of a vertical plate. Solution of the motion and energy equations gives temperature and velocity fields from which heat-transfer coefficients may be derived. The general type of equation obtained is the so-called Nusselt equation hL I L p gp At cjl... 

For various reasons, this type of anemometer is not a suitable instrument for practical measurements in the industrial environment. The thin wire probe is fragile and sensitive to contamination and is unsuited to rough industrial environments. The wire temperature is often too high for low-velocity measurements because a strong natural convection from the wire causes errors. Temperature compensation, to correct for ambient air temperature fluctuations may not be available or may not cover the desired operating range. 

For conditions in which only natural convection occurs, the velocity is dependent on the buoyancy effects alone, represented by the Grashof number, and the Reynolds group may be omitted. Again, when forced convection occurs the effects of natural convection are usually negligible and the Grashof number may be omitted. Thus ... 

The wall boundary condition applies to a solid tube without transpiration. The centerline boundary condition assumes S5anmetry in the radial direction. It is consistent with the assumption of an axis5Tnmetric velocity profile without concentration or temperature gradients in the 0-direction. This boundary condition is by no means inevitable since gradients in the 0-direction can arise from natural convection. However, it is desirable to avoid 0-dependency since appropriate design methods are generally lacking. 

This section derives a simple version of the convective diffusion equation, applicable to tubular reactors with a one-dimensional velocity profile V (r). The starting point is Equation (1.4) applied to the differential volume element shown in Figure 8.9. The volume element is located at point (r, z) and is in the shape of a ring. Note that 0-dependence is ignored so that the results will not be applicable to systems with significant natural convection. Also, convection due to is neglected. Component A is transported by radial and axial diffusion and by axial convection. The diffusive flux is governed by Pick s law. 

In forced convection, the velocity of the liquid must be characterized by a suitable characteristic value Vih e.g. the mean velocity of the liquid flow through a tube or the velocity of the edge of a disk rotating in the liquid, etc. For natural convection, this characteristic velocity can be set equal to zero. The dimension of the system in which liquid flow occurs has a certain characteristic value /, e.g. the length of a tube or the longitudinal dimension of the plate along which the liquid flows or the radius of a disk rotating in the liquid, etc. Solution of the differential equations (2.7.5), (2.7.7) and (2.7.8) should yield the value of the material flux at the phase boundary of the liquid with another phase, where the concentration equals c. ... 

This need not be the only choice, but it is very proper for natural convection and represents an ideal maximum velocity due to buoyancy. 

Since all properties have been assumed constant in Eqs. (1-1), (1-38), and (1-47), and the solute concentration has been assumed small, the Navier-Stokes equation may be solved independently of the species continuity and energy equations. We treat only one exception where the velocity field is considered to be affected by heat or mass transfer. This exception, natural convection, is covered in Chapter 10. 

In Fig. 10.4 the sphere diameter, terminal velocity, and temperature difference each appear in only one dimensionless group. The effect of natural convection on is smaller at Pr = 10 because the region over which the buoyancy force acts is much thinner than for Pr = 1. As Pr oo the effect should disappear altogether. For Pr = 0, numerical solutions (W7) show effects about 50% larger than for Pr = 1. 

The relationships developed from field measurements have been made dimensionless with the assumptions that v = 1.33 x 10 m /s and AijO = 2.6 x 10 m /s to facilitate comparisons between relations and avoid dimensional problems. They are given in Table 9.2. The early measurements were to investigate the loss of water from the reservoirs of the Colorado River in the United States, and the later measurements were designed to investigate heat loss from heated water bodies. A revelation occurred in 1969, when Shulyakovskyi brought in buoyancy forces as related to natural convection to explain the heat loss from heated water at low wind velocities. This was picked up by Ryan and Harleman (1973), who realized that natural convection could explain the need for a constant term in front of the relationship for gas film coefficient, as had been found by Brady et al. (1969), Kohler (1954), Rymsha and Dochenko (1958), and Shulyakovskyi (1969). Finally, Adams et al. (1990) rectified... 

In electrochemical reactors, the externally imposed velocity is often low. Therefore, natural convection can exert a substantial influence. As an example, let us consider a vertical parallel plate reactor in which the electrodes are separated by a distance d and let us assume that the electrodes are sufficiently distant from the reactor inlet for the forced laminar flow to be fully developed. Since the reaction occurs only at the electrodes, the concentration profile begins to develop at the leading edges of the electrodes. The thickness of the concentration boundary layer along the length of the electrode is assumed to be much smaller than the distance d between the plates, a condition that is usually satisfied in practice. 

The slip-velocity theories are based on the correlations of steady state transfer to particles fixed in space, with the average slip velocity used to calculate the Reynolds number. When natural convection effects are absent and when the Reynolds number is greater than 1, the transfer rate for single spheres is given by the semitheoretical equation (Harriot, 1962)... 

The complexities of turbulent flow are outside the province of this book. However, there are two further properties of laminar convective flow that are relevant to understanding the electrochemical situation. The first is easily understood by considering an excellent illustration of it—river flow. It is a matter of common observation that rivers (which flow convectively as a result of being pushed by gravity) move at maximum rale in the middle. At the river bank there is hardly any flow at all. This observation can be transferred to the flow of liquid through a pipe. The flow reaches a maximum velocity in the center. The liquid actually in contact with the walls of the pipe does not flow at all. The stationary layer is a few micrometers in thickness, about 1 % of the thickness of the diffusion layer set up by natural convection in an unstirred solution when an electrode reaction in steady state is occurring. 

The usual specific flow-rates for extraction are very small. In terms of space velocities, these are about 5 to 15 kg/h per litre of extractor volume, with superficial velocities in the range of 0.5 to 10 mm/s. With these small velocities, natural convection mass transfer is the favoured mechanism of transport. Gas densities are in the range of 500 to 800 kg/m3, and viscosities are about 5 x 10 7 kg/(m s), thus giving kinematic viscosities of about 10 9 m2/s, which is a very small value for a fluid. For example, the kinematic viscosity of water is 10"7 m2/s and that of ambient air is 2 x 10 5 m2/s. This makes free convection a principal mechanism for mass-transfer in high pressure gases. 

The following discussion is restricted to two-dimensional, steady, incompressible, constant-property flow. For simplicity, the body forces are neglected. The effects of body forces are considered in the chapter on natural convection. To nondimensionalize the appropriately reduced form of the governing equations from Tables 6.1 -6.3, we select a characteristic length L, a reference velocity a reference temperature... 

It can be seen that the expression for the average Nusselt number for Pr 1 is closer in form to the case where Pr — oo, than the case where Pr —> 0. The reason for this is that in natural convection, the driving force is caused by the temperature gradients, and thus defined by the thermal boundary layer. When Pr 1 and when Pr — co, the thermal boundary layer is thicker than the velocity boundary layer. Hence, the behavior of the Nusselt number would be similar in form for both cases. When Pr — 0, the behavior of the kinematic viscosity relative to the thermal diffusivity is going to be different from that of the other two cases. In addition, the right-hand side of the expression for Pr — 0 is independent of o, as one would expect for this case where the effects of the kinematic viscosity are very small or negligible. 

As explained in Chapter 1, natural or free convective heat transfer is heat transfer between a surface and a fluid moving over it with the fluid motion caused entirely by the buoyancy forces that arise due to the density changes that result from the temperature variations in the flow, [1] to [5]. Natural convective flows, like all viscous flows, can be either laminar or turbulent as indicated in Fig. 8.1. However, because of the low velocities that usually exist in natural convective flows, laminar natural convective flows occur more frequently in practice than laminar forced convective flows. In this chapter attention will therefore be initially focused on laminar natural convective flows. 

It should be noted that, in contrast to forced convective flows, in natural convective flows, due to the temperature-dependent buoyancy forces in the momentum equations, the velocity and temperature fields are interrelated even though the fluid properties are assumed to be constant except for the density change with temperature. 

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