6.

5 Natural Convection in Enclosures

1
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Enclosures are finite spaces bounded by walls and filled
with fluid. Natural convection in enclosures, also known
as internal convection, takes place in rooms and
buildings, furnaces, cooling towers, as well as electronic
cooling systems. Internal natural convection is different
from the cases of external convection, where a heated or
cooled wall is in contact with the quiescent fluid and the
boundary layer can be developed without any restriction.
Internal convection usually cannot be treated using
simple boundary layer theory because the entire fluid in
the enclosure engages to the convection.
6.5 Natural Convection in
Enclosures
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
2
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Figure 6.17 Different configuration of natural convection in enclosures

T
H T
C
L
H
(a)
L
H
T
H
T
C
(b)
T
H
T
C
H
L

L
H
T
H T
C
L
H
D

T
H
T
C
D
i

D
o

D
i

D
o

(a) shallow enclosure (b) tall enclosure (c) inclined enclosure
(d) enclosure with vertical partitions (e) concentric annulus

(f) box enclosure (g) truncated annular enclosure

6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
3
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell

Two-dimensional natural convection in a rectangular

enclosure with two differentially heated sides and
insulated top and bottom surfaces (Fig. 6.18) will be
considered.

Assumed to be Newtonian and incompressible.

Initially at a uniform temperature of zero.

At time zero the two sides are instantaneously heated

and cooled to and , respectively.

The transient behavior of the system during the

establishment of the natural convection is the subject of
analysis
6.5.1 Scale Analysis
/ 2 T / 2 T
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
4
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Figure 6.18 Two-dimensional natural convection in rectangular enclosure.

x, u
y,
0
0
L
H
T=-T/2 T=+T/2
g

T
Thermal boundary layer
Flow circulation direction
T=T
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
5
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
It is assumed that the fluid is single-component and that
there is no internal heat generation in the fluid.
Therefore, the governing equation for this internal
convection problem can be obtained by simplifying eqs.
(6.8), (6.13) and (6.14):
(6.205)
(6.206)
(6.207)
(6.208)
0
u v
x y

+

2 2
2 2
1 u u u p u u
u v
t x y x x y

_
+ + + +


,
2 2
0
2 2
1
[1 ( )]
v v v p v v
u v g T T
t x y y x y

_
+ + + +


,
2 2
2 2
T T T T T
u v
t x y x y

_
+ + +


,
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
6
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Immediately after imposing of the temperature difference,
the fluid is still motionless, hence the energy equation
(6.208) reflects the balance between the thermal inertia
and the conduction in the fluid. The scales of the two
terms enclosed in the parentheses on the right-hand side
of eq. (6.208) are and , respectively. Since ,
one can conclude that . The
balance of scales for eq. (6.208) then becomes:
Thus, the scale of the thermal boundary layer thickness
becomes:
(6.209)
2
/
t
T
2
/ T H
t
H =
2 2 2 2
/ / T y T x =
2
t
T T
t

:
1/ 2
~ ( )
T
t
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
7
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
To estimate the scale of the velocity, one can combine eqs.
(6.206) and (6.207) by eliminating the pressure to obtain:
(6.210)
where the left-hand side represents the inertia terms, and
the right-hand side represents the viscosity and
buoyancy terms. The scales of these three effects are
shown below
(6.211)
v v v u u u
u v u v
x t x y y t x y
_ _
+ + + +


, ,
2 2 2 2
2 2 2 2
v v u u T
g
x x y y x y x

1
_ _
+ + +
1

, ,
]
3
Inertia Viscosity Buoyancy

T T T
v v g T
t

6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures

8
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
To examine the relative strength of each effect, one can
divide the above expression by the scale of viscosity
effect to obtain
where eq. (6.209) was used to simplify the inertia term. For
the fluid with Pr>1, the momentum balance at requires a
balance between the viscosity and buoyancy terms:
2
Inertia Viscosity Buoyancy
1
1
Pr
T
g T
v

2
1~
T
g T
v

6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures

9
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Substituting eq. (6.209) into the above expression and
rearranging the resultant expression, the scale of vertical
velocity at the initiation of the natural convection is
obtained as following:
(6.212)
As time increases, the effect of the inertia term in eq.
(7.208) weakens, hence the effect of advection becomes
stronger. This trend continues until a final time, t
f
, when
the energy balance requires balance between the
advection and conduction terms, i.e.,
~
g T t
v

2
,
~ ~
T f f
T T T
v
H t

6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
10
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Thus, the scale of t
f
becomes
(6.213)
The thermal boundary layer thickness at time t
f
is:
(6.214)
At time t
f
, natural convection in the rectangular enclosure
reaches steady-state and the thickness of the thermal
boundary layer no longer increases with time.
1/ 2
~
f
H
t
g T

,
1/ 2 1/ 4
,
~ ( ) ~ Ra
T f f H
t H

6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
11
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
The wall jet thickness increases with time until t = t
f
, when
the maximum wall jet thickness,
v,f
, is reached (see Fig.
6.19). Outside the thermal boundary layer, the buoyancy
force is absent and the thickness of the wall jet can be
determined by balancing the inertia and viscosity terms
in eq. (6.210):
which can be rearranged to obtain:
(6.215)
For t > t
f
, steady-state has been reached, and the wall jet
thickness is related to the thermal boundary layer
thickness by .
3
~
v v
v v
t


1/ 2 1/ 2
~ ( ) ~ Pr
v T
t
1/ 2
, ,
~ Pr
v f T f

6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
12
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Figure 6.19 Two-layer structure near the heated wall.
0 x
v
T
0 x
t
, t f

t
, v f

6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures

13
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Similarly, the condition to have distinct vertical wall jets or
momentum boundary layers is , or equivalently:
(6.216)
When the vertical wall jet encounters the horizontal wall, it
will turn to the horizontal direction and become a
horizontal jet. This horizontal jet will contribute to the
convective heat transfer from the heated wall to the
cooled wall:
Considering eqs. (6.212) and (6.214), the above scale of
convective heat transfer becomes:
, v f
L <
1/ 4 1/ 2
<Ra Pr
H
H
L

,
~
conv f T f p
q v c T

1/ 4
~ Ra
conv H
q k T

6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
14
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
When a warm jet is formed at the top and a cold jet is
formed at the bottom, there will be a temperature
gradient along the vertical direction. The heat conduction
due to this temperature gradient is:
The condition under which that the horizontal wall jets can
maintain their temperature identity is that the heat
conduction along the vertical direction is negligible
compared to the energy carried by the horizontal jets:
~
cond
T
q kL
H

1/ 4
Ra
H
T
kL k T
H

<
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
15
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
or equivalently
(6.217)
The characteristics of various heat transfer regimes are
summarized in Table 6.2.
1/ 4
Ra
H
H
L

>
Regimes I: Conduction II: Tall Systems III: Boundary layer IV: Shallow systems
Condition of
occurrence
Flow pattern Clockwise circulation Distinct boundary layer on top
and bottom walls
Boundary layer on all four
walls. Core remains stagnant
Two horizontal wall jets flow
in opposite directions.
Effect of flow on heat
transfer
Insignificant Insignificant Significant Significant
Heat transfer
mechanism
Conduction in horizontal
direction
Conduction in horizontal
direction
Boundary layer convection Conduction in vertical
direction
Heat transfer
Table 6.2 Characteristics of natural convection in a rectangular enclosure heated from the side
1/ 4
/ >Ra
H
H L Ra 1
H
<
1/ 4 1/ 4
Ra / <Ra
H H
H L

<
1/ 4
/ <Ra
H
H L

/ q kH T L : / q kH T L :
,
( / )
T f
q k H T : ,
( / )
T f
q k H T :
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
16
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell

Heated from the Side

Heat transfer in regimes I and II, shown in Table 6.2, is
dominated by conduction and the fluid circulation plays
an insignificant role. Therefore, heat transfer in these two
regimes is practically equal to the heat transfer rate
estimated using Fouriers law. The flow pattern in regime
III is of the boundary layer type and the core of the fluid
is stagnant and stratified. The fluid flow and heat transfer
in regime III can be obtained via boundary layer analysis.
6.5.2 Rectangular Enclosures
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
17
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Figure 6.20 Natural convection in a square enclosure (Ra
H
=10
6
, Pr=0.71). Steady-
state distributions of dimensionless (a) temperature, (b) pressure, (c) horizontal
velocity, and (d) vertical velocity (Wang et al., 2010)
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
18
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Figure 6.20 shows contours of dimensionless temperature, pressure,
and horizontal and vertical velocities for natural convection in a
square enclosure ( ) heated from its left side and cooled from
its right side while insulated from the top and bottom. For a high
Rayleigh number, the average Nusselt number for regime III, as
obtained from boundary layer analysis, is
(6.218)
which indicates that the heat transfer in the natural convection in a
rectangular enclosure is dominated by both the Rayleigh number
and aspect ratio.
For laminar natural convection in a rectangular enclosure with aspect
ratio H/L between 1 and 10, the following correlations were
suggested by Berkovsky and Polevikov:
/ 1 H L
1/ 4
Nu 0.364 Ra
H
H
L
H

6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures

19
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
(6.219)
which is valid for , and
(6.220)
which is valid
for .
For a rectangular enclosure with a larger aspect ratio,
MacGregor and Emery (1969) recommended the
following correlations:
(6.221)
0.28 0.09
Pr
Nu 0.22 Ra
0.2 Pr
H
H
L
H
_ _

+
, ,
5 13
2 / 10, Pr 10 , Ra 10
H
H L < < < <
0.29 0.13
Pr
Nu 0.18 Ra
0.2 Pr
H
H
L
H

_ _

+
, ,
-3 5 3 3
1 / 2, 10 <Pr 10 , 10 [Pr/(0.2 Pr)]Ra ( / )
H
H L L H < < < < +
0.3
1/ 4 0.012
Nu 0.42Ra Pr L
L
H
L

,
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
20
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
which is valid for , and
(6.222)
which is valid for . It
should be pointed out that the characteristic length for
the Rayleigh and Nusselt numbers used in eqs. (6.221)
and (6.222) is the width of the enclosure, L.
For the shallow enclosure represented by regime IV in
Table 6.2, the horizontal wall jet flows from the left to
right on the top wall and from right to the left on the
bottom wall. Figure 6.21 shows streamlines and
isotherms for natural convection in a shallow enclosure
( ) heated from the right side and cooled from
the left side.
4 4 7
10 / 40, 1<Pr 2 10 , 10 <Ra 10
L
H L < < < <
1/ 3
Nu 0.046Ra
L
L

6 9
1 / 40, 1<Pr 20, 10 Ra 10
L
H L < < < < <
/ 0.1 H L
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
21
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Figure 6.21 Natural convection in a shallow enclosure: (a) Ra
H
= 10
6
, (b) Ra
H
= 10
8
(H/L = 0.1, Pr = 1.0; Tichy
and Gadgil, 1982).
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
22
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Bejan and Tien performed a scale analysis and obtained an
analytical solution via analysis of fluid flow and heat
transfer in the core region. As indicated by Fig. 6.22,
their results compared favorably with experimental and
numerical results. For a limited case, the asymptotic heat
transfer results can be expressed as:
Figure 6.22 Average Nusselt number for natural convection
in a shallow enclosure (Bejan and Tien, 1978).
Eq.
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
23
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
(6.223)
which is valid when , and is shown as dashed
line in Fig. 6.22.
2
1
Nu 1 Ra
362880
H
H
H
L
_
+

,
2
( / ) Ra 0
H
H L
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
24
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Heated from the Bottom
For a rectangular enclosure filled with fluid and heated
from the side, natural convection will be initiated as soon
as the temperature difference between the two vertical
walls is established. For a rectangular enclosure heated
from below, natural convection may or may not occur
depending on whether the temperature difference
between the top and bottom walls exceeds a critical
value. The condition for the onset of natural convection
can be expressed in terms of a critical Rayleigh number.
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
25
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
For the case that the horizontal dimension is much larger
than the height of the enclosure, the criterion for the
onset of natural convection is:
(6.224)
3
1708
H
g TH
Ra

>
Figure 6.23 Rolls and hexagonal cells in natural convection in
enclosure heated from below (Oosthuizen and Naylor, 1999).
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
26
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
When the Rayleigh number just exceeds the above critical
Rayleigh number, the flow pattern is two-dimensional
counter rotating rolls referred to as Bnard cells [see
Fig. 6.23(a)]. As the Rayleigh number further increases
to one or two orders of magnitude higher than the above
critical Rayleigh number, the two-dimensional cells
breakup to three dimensional cells whose top view is
hexagons [see Fig. 6.23(b)]. The function of the two-
dimensional rolls and three-dimensional hexagonal cells
is to promote heat transfer from the heated bottom wall
to the cooled top wall. Globe and Dropkin suggested the
following empirical correlation
(6.225)
where all thermophysical properties are evaluated at
Equation (6.225) is valid for . In
addition, H/L must be sufficiently large so that the effect
of the sidewalls can be negligible.
1/ 3 0.074
Nu 0.069Ra Pr
H
H

( ) / 2
H c
T T +
5 9
3 10 Ra 7 10
H
< <
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
27
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Inclined Rectangular Enclosure
When the rectangular enclosure heated from the side is
tilted relative to the direction of gravity, additional
unstable stratification and thermal instability will affect
the fluid flow and heat transfer. The variation of Nusselt
number as function of tilt angle is qualitatively shown in
Fig. 6.24.
0 90 180
Figure 6.24 Effect of inclination angle on natural convection in enclosure
c

6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures

28
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
The isotherms and the streamlines for Ra=10
5
are shown in
Fig. 6.25. At =135, which, according to Table 6.3, is
less than the critical inclination angle, the isotherms start
to exhibit some behaviors of thermally unstable
conditions. This is the correlation for natural convection
of air in a squared enclosure ( ) in the region
(6.226)
where is for pure conduction. While eq. (6.226) is
good for air in a squared enclosure, the following
correlation can be applied to other situations:
(6.227)
/ 1 H L
0 90 < <
o
Nu ( ) Nu (0 ) 2
sin
Nu (90 ) Nu (0 )
H H
H H
K

o
o o
Nu (0 )
H
o
1 Nu (90 ) 1 sin 0 90
Nu ( )
Nu (90 )(sin ) 90
H
H
H
c
L
L
H
H
L
H

1
+ < <

'

< <

o o
o o
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
29
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Aspect ratio, H/L 1 3 6 12 >12
Critical tilt angle,
c
155 127 120 113 110
Table 7.3 Critical inclination angle for different aspect ratio (Arnold et al., 1976)
Isothermals Streamlines
Figure 6.25 Natural convection in inclined squared enclosures
(Zhong et al, 1983).
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
30
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell

Example 6.5
A rectangular cavity is formed by two parallel plates, each
with a dimension of 0.5 m by 0.5 m, which are separated
by a distance of 5 cm. The temperatures of the two
plates are 37 C and 17 C, respectively. Find the heat
transfer rate from hot plate to cold plate for the
inclination angles of 0, 45, 90, and 180.
Figure 7.27 Natural convection in inclined squared enclosure.
T
h
T
c
L

Air
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
31
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell

Solution:

, , T
m
= 27C = 300K.

H = 0.05 m, L = 0.5 m, D = 0.5 m

From Table C.1: , k = 0.0263 W/

m-K, , and Pr = 0.707
At the inclination angle 0, heat transfer is solely by
conduction. The rate of heat transfer is
37 C
h
T
o
17 C
c
T
o
6 2
15.89 10 m /s


6 2
22.5 10 m /s


o
37 17
(0 ) 0.0263 0.5 0.5 2.63W
0.05
h c
T T
q kDH
L


6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
32
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
The Nusselt number for the case of pure conduction is
or . Heat
transfer for the case of can be calculated using eq.
(6.227), which requires the Nusselt number for .
Thus, the heat transfer rate for will be calculated
first. The Rayleigh number is:
The Nusselt number for can be obtained from eq. (6.220) :
o
Nu (0 ) 1
L

o o
Nu (0 ) ( / )Nu (0 ) 10
H L
H L
o
45
o
90
o
90
3 3
8
6 6
( ) 9.807 1/ 300 (37 17) 0.5
Ra 2.286 10
15.89 10 22.5 10
h c
H
g T T H





0.28 0.13
o
0.28 0.13
8
Pr
Nu (90 ) 0.18 Ra
0.2 Pr
0.707 0.05
0.18 2.286 10 49.6
0.2 0.707 0.5
H
H
L
H

_ _

+
, ,
_ _


+
, ,
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
33
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
The heat transfer coefficient is:
Therefore, the heat transfer rate for is:
When the inclination angle is , eq. (6.227) yields:
Thus, the Nusselt number is and the corresponding
heat transfer coefficient is:
o
90
o
45 / 4
o
o 2
Nu (90 ) 0.0263 49.6
(90 ) 2.61 W/m -K
0.5
H
k
h
H


o o
(90 ) (90 ) ( ) 2.61 0.5 0.5 (37 17) 6.53 W
h c
q h DH T T
o
o
Nu (45 ) 1 Nu (90 ) 1 sin
0.05
1 49.6 1 sin 45 3.80
0.5
H H
L L
H H

1
+
1
]
_
+

,
o
o
Nu (45 ) 38.0
H

o
o 2
Nu (45 ) 0.0263 38.0
(45 ) 2.00 W/m -K
0.5
H
k
h
H


6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
34
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
The heat transfer rate for is therefore:
When the inclination angle is , the problem becomes
natural convection in an enclosure heated from the
below. The Rayleigh number is:
The Nusselt number in this case can be obtained from eq.
(6.225):
o
45
3 3
5
6 6
( ) 9.807 1/ 300 (37 17) 0.05
Ra 2.286 10
15.89 10 22.5 10
h c
L
g T T L





o 1/ 3 0.074
5 1/ 3 0.074
Nu (180 ) 0.069Ra Pr
0.069 (2.286 10 ) 0.707 4.11
L
H

o o
(45 ) (45 ) ( ) 2 0.5 0.5 (37 17) 5.00W
h c
q h DH T T
o
180
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
35
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
The heat transfer coefficient is
The heat transfer rate for is therefore,
o
o 2
Nu (180 ) 0.0263 4.11
(180 ) 2.16 W/m -K
0.05
L k
h
L


o o
(180 ) (180 ) ( ) 2.16 0.5 0.5 (37 17) 10.80 W
h c
q h DH T T
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
36
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Natural convection in spaces between long horizontal
concentric cylinders or between spheres is very
complicated. The only practical approach to analyze the
problem is via numerical solution. The physical model of
natural convection in annular space between concentric
cylinders is show in Fig. 6.27.
6.5.3 Annular Space between
Concentric Cylinders and Spheres
Figure 6.27 Natural convection in horizontal annular space
between concentric cylinders
r
i
r
o
r, v
, u
T
i
T
o
g

6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures

37
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Since the problem is axisymmetric, one only needs to study
the right half of the domain. In the coordinate system
shown in Fig. 6.27, the governing equations are
(6.228)
(6.229)
(6.230)
1
0
u v v
r r r

+ +

2 2
2 2 2 2 2
1 1 1 2 u u u uv p u u u u v
v
r r r r r r r r r r

_
+ + + + + +


,
( )sin
ref
g T T
2 2 2
2 2 2 2 2
1 1 1 2 u v v u p v v v v u
v
r r r r r r r r r r

_
+ + + +


,
+ ( )sin
ref
g T T
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
38
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
(6.231)
where T
ref
is a reference temperature and:
(6.232)
is the effective pressure. Equations (6.228) (6.231) are
subject to the following boundary conditions:
(6.233)
(6.235)
(6.236)
2 2
2 2 2
1 1 u T T T T T
v
r r r r r r

_
+ + +


,
sin cos
eff
p p g g +
0, 0, at 0 or
v T
u




0, , at
i i
u v T T r r
0, , at
o o
u v T T r r
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
39
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Date (1986) solved this problem numerically using a modified SIMPLE
algorithm for . Figure 6.28 shows the contours of the
stream functions and isotherms at Ra = 4.7 x 10
4
. The
dimensionless stream function, dimensionless temperature and
Rayleigh number are defined as the following
(6.236)
Where the stream function, , is defined as
(6.237)
/ 0.8 and 0.15
i
D
3
, , Ra
o
i o
T T g T
T T

1
, u v
r r

6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
40
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
It can be seen that isotherms concentrate near the lower portion of the
surface of the inner cylinder and the upper portion of the surface of
the outer cylinder, which are indications of the development of
thermal boundaries near the heated and cooled surfaces. While the
contours of the streamlines have kidney-like shapes with the center
of the flow rotation moves upward due to effect of natural
convection.
The rate of heat transfer per unit length of the annulus can be
calculated by the following correlation
(6.238)
Where the Rayleigh number is defined as
(6.239)
1/ 4
3/ 5 5/ 4
Pr Ra
2.425 ( )
0.861 Pr [1 ( / ) ]
i
D
i o
i o
k T T
q
D D
_

+ +
,
3
( )
Ra
i
i o i
D
g T T D

6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures

41
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Equation (6.238) is valid for 0.7 < Pr < 6000 and Ra < 10
7
. The
thermophysical properties of the fluid should be evaluated at the
mean temperature . The scales of the thermal boundary
layer on the inner surface of the outer cylinder and on the outer
surface of the inner cylinder are:
It is obvious that
o
>
i
since D
o
> D
i
. Equation will be valid only if the
boundary layer thickness is less than the gap between the two
cylinders, i.e. only if
o
< D
o
D
i
. Under lower Rayleigh numbers, on
the other hand, we have
(6.240)
and the heat transfer mechanism between two cylinders will approach
pure conduction.
( ) / 2
i o
T T +
1/ 4 1/ 4
~ , ~
o i
o o D i i D
D Ra D Ra

1/ 4
Ra
o
o D o i
D D D

>
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
42
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Instead of using eq. (6.240) to check the validity of eq.
(6.238), another method is to calculate the heat transfer
rate via eq. (6.238) and pure conduction model, and the
larger of the two heat transfer rate should be used.
For natural convection in the annulus between two
concentric spheres, the trends for the evolution of the
flow pattern and isotherms are similar to the concentric
cylinder except the circulation between concentric
spheres has the shape of a doughnut. The empirical
correlation for the heat transfer rate is
(6.241)
where the definition of Rayleigh number is same as for eq.
(6.239). Equation (6.241) is valid for 0.7 < Pr < 4000
and Ra < 10
4
.
1/ 4
7/ 5 5/ 4
Pr Ra
2.325 ( )
[1 ( / ) ] 0.861 Pr
i
D
i i o
i o
kD T T
q
D D

+ +
,
6.5 Natural Convection in Enclosures
43
Chapter 6: Natural Convection
Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer by Amir Faghri, Yuwen Zhang, and John R. Howell
Figure 6.28 Natural convection in a horizontal annulus (Pr =0.7, /D
i
=0.8, Ra =4.710
4
; Date, 1986)