Dimensionless Numbers in Heat Transfer

It is almost impossible to read an article or listen to a lecture on heat transfer without hearing
names like Reynolds. Nusselt, Rayleigh, etc. These names refer to very specific dimensionless
numbers that are used to characterize and classify the heat transfer problems. This article
attempts to explain the meaning and significance of these numbers and help you to get used to
them.

But first, why do we need dimensionless numbers anyway? Well, we actually don't need them
but they are useful tools. The nature itself does not have a clue about these numbers. It is not like
the air says to itself " boy, my Reynolds number is exceeding 2500 and I am in a pipe so I better
switch to my turbulent mode or all the fluid dynamics textbooks will be wrong". We have
invented dimensionless numbers to be able to take our knowledge from experimenting with one
system to learning about another system with different dimensions. If I have come up with some
neat formula for calculating the pressure drop in a 2 inch pipe, can I use that formula for a 4 inch
pipe? In a way, we are trying to get rid of dimensions in order to extend our knowledge beyond
its source of acquisition. Mr. Osborne Reynolds experimented with pipes of different diameters
and discovered that, regardless of the pipe diameter, if the ratio of UD/ exceeds 2500 or so, the
flow no longer stays nice and laminar. This ratio is what we call Reynolds number and is
probably the most commonly used dimensionless group in fluid dynamics.

Dimensionless numbers allow us to experiment with model cars, airplanes and ships and predict
the behavior of the big thing under actual conditions. All we have to establish is to make sure
that there is similarity between the model and the actual thing. But, this is beyond the scope of
this article.

The Dimensionless numbers we will describe in this article are the most common numbers used
in heat transfer:

1. Reynolds Number
2. Nusselt Number
3. Prandtl Number
4. Grashof Number
 5. Rayleigh Number

Before getting into the definitions of these numbers, we should define the physical properties of
fluids since they show up all over the place in the dimensionless numbers.

Density Mass of fluid contained in a unit volume. Its units are Kg/m^3 or
slugs/ft^3. Typical values: Water = 1000 kg/m^3, Mercury = 13546
kg/m^3, Air = 1.23 kg/m^3, Paraffin Oil = 800 kg/m^3. (at pressure
=1.013e+5 Pascals and Temperature = 288.15 K.)

Viscosity Viscosity, , is the property of a fluid, due to cohesion and interaction

between molecules, which offers resistance to sheer deformation of the
fluid. Different fluids deform at different rates under the same shear
forces. Fluid with a high viscosity such as syrup, deforms more slowly
than fluid with a low viscosity such as water. All fluids are viscous,
"Newtonian Fluids" obey the linear relationship given by Newton's law

of viscosity. , where is the shear stress. is the "coefficient

of dynamic viscosity" - The Coefficient of Dynamic Viscosity, , is
defined as the shear force, per unit area, (or shear stress ), required to
drag one layer of fluid with unit velocity past another layer a unit
distance away. Units: Newton seconds per square meter, or Kilograms
per meter per second,. (Although note that is often expressed in Poise, P,

where 10 P = 1 .) Typical values: Water =1.14xe-3 ,

Air =1.78e-5 , Mercury =1.552 , Paraffin Oil

=1.9 . Kinematic Viscosity, , is defined as the ratio of

dynamic viscosity to mass density, . Units: square meters per

second, (Although note that is often expressed in Stokes, St, where St

= 1e-4 .) Dimensions: . Typical values: Water =1.14e-6 , Air

 =1.46e-5 , Mercury =1.145e-4 , Paraffin Oil =2.375e-

3 .
(source:http://www.efm.leeds.ac.uk/CIVE/CIVE1400/Section1/
Fluid_properties.htm)

Thermal Thermal conductivity is a measure of the ability of a material to conduct

Conductiv heat. It is defined using the Fourier's law of condution which, relates the
ity rate of heat transfer by conduction to the temperature gradient:

where k is the thermal conductivity. Using the Fourier's law we can

define the thermal conductivity as the rate of heat transfer through a unit
thickness of a material per unit area and per unit temperature difference.
A good conductor of heat has a high value of thermal conductivity. The
thermal conductivity is expressed in the units of (energy
rate/(length.Temperature). In metric system, its unit is W/m.K.

Thermal conductivity of most material vary with temperature. For

example:

T (K) Copper Aluminum

100 482 302

200 413 237

300 401 237

400 393 240

600 379 231

800 366 218

 For both cases the thermal conductivity decreases with temperature.
Thermal conductivity of most liquids decrease with increasing
temperature. Water is, however, an exception to this rule. According to
the kinetic theory of gases, the thermal conductivity of gases is
proportional to the square root of the absolute temperature and inversely
proportional to the square root of the molar mass. It is obvious that the
thermal conductivity of a gas increases with the increasing temperature.

Specific Specific heat is the amount of heat that is required to raise the
Heat temperature of a unit mass of a substance by one degree. In a constant
pressure process

The units for the specific heat are kJ/kg.K (or C). Typical values of Cp
for various materials (at 300 K) are shown below:

Cp
Material
(kJ/kg.K)

Aluminum
903
(pure)

Copper (pure) 385

Gold 129

Silicon 712

Water 4180

Air 1005

Coefficient This property is usually denoted by and is defined as the change in

of the density of a substance as a function of temperature at constant
Thermal pressure. It can be approximated as:
Expansion

In other words, to find the change in density as a function of a change in

temperature, we just multiply the density by .

Thermal When a temperature gradient is applied to a martial, the heat travels from
Diffusivity the high temperature region to the low temperature. A measure of how
heat propagates through a medium may be defined by the ratio of the
heat conducted through the material to the heat stored in the material.

Heat capacity is defined as the product of density and specific heat,

. The thermal diffusivity is defined as:

The thermal diffusivity is, therefore, the ratio of heat conducted through
the material to the heat stored per unit volume. The larger the thermal
diffusivity the faster the propagation of heat into the material. If the
thermal diffusivity is small it means that a big part of the heat is
absorbed by the material and only a small portion is conducted through.
Some typical value of thermal diffusivity:

Material
(m^2/s)

Aluminum (pure) 97.5e-6

 Copper (pure) 113e-6

Gold 127e-6

Glass 0.34e-6

Water 0.14e-6

Air 22.1e-6

We are ready now to explore these numbers in more detail.

Reynolds Number

Reynolds number defined as (where L is a characteristic length) may be interpreted as

the ratio of two forces that influence the behavior of fluid flow in the boundary layer. These two
forces are the inertia forces and viscous forces:

When the Reynolds number is large, the inertia forces are in command. Viscous forces dominate
the boundary layer when the Reynolds number is small. Now, how does this relate to transition
from laminar to turbulent flow?

Any real flow of fluid contains small disturbances that will grow given enough opportunities. as
long as the viscous forces dominate these disturbances are under control. As the inertia forces get
bigger, the viscosity can no longer maintain order and these tiny disturbances grow into trouble
makers and we transition to turbulent flow.

Another important quantity of the boundary layer that is influenced by the Reynolds number is
its thickness. As the Reynolds number increases, the viscous layer gets squeezed into a smaller
distance from the surface.

The value of Reynolds number beyond which the flow is no longer considered laminar is called
the critical Reynolds number. For flow over a flat plate, the critical Reynolds number is
observed to vary between 1e+5 to 3e+6 depending on the turbulence level in the free stream and
the roughness of the surface. We normally use 5e+5 as the critical Reynolds number for flow
over flat plates.

Calculation of the Reynolds number is easy as long as you:

 Identify the characteristic length

 Pick the right velocity
 Use a consistent set of units

For flow over a flat plate, the characteristic length is the length of the plate and the characteristic
velocity is the free stream velocity. For pipes the characteristic length is the pipe diameter and
the characteristic velocity is the average velocity through the pipe obtained by dividing the
volumetric flow rate by the cross-sectional area (we are assuming that the pipe is full, of course).
For pipes with a non-circular cross-section, the characteristic length is the Hydraulic Diameter
defined as 4A/P, where A is the cross-sectional area of the duct and P is the wetted perimeter.
You can easily verify that for a circular pipe the hydraulic diameter equals the pipe diameter. For
non-cicular pipes the average velocity is used as the characteristic velocity. The situation gets
messy when you are dealing with a problem that has many velocity and length scales such as the
flow inside a computer cabinet. You must decide, based on your design objectives, which length
and velocity length scales make sense for calculation of the Reynolds number.

Nusselt Number
Nusselt number is the dimensionless heat transfer coefficient and appears when you are dealing
with convection. It, therefore, provides a measure of the convection heat transfer at the surface. It
is defined as hL/k where, h is the heat transfer coefficient, L is a characteristic length and k is the
thermal conductivity. But, what does this grouping mean from a physical standpoint? Let's find
out.

I am afraid that we have to look at the boundary layer in order to explain the concept of Nusselt
number. We will, of course, cover the basics of the boundary layer in a separate tutorial but for
now it suffices to say that when a fluid flows over a solid surface, the first layer of the fluid stick
to the boundary (we even have a name for this thing called, no slip condition). This causes the
flow to retard in the vicinity of the wall. As we move away from the wall the effect of this no slip
thing gets smaller and smaller up to a point where it is no longer felt by the fluid. To get to this
point, though, we have had to go through a layer of fluid who still knows about the wall. This
layer is called the boundary layer. This was the effect of the wall on the velocity (or momentum).
A similar argument applies when, for example, a cold fluid flows over a hot surface. The first
layer of the fluid (which is now stuck to the surface) gets its heat from the surface through pure
conduction. It then gives its newly acquired energy to all of the other fluid molecules that it
comes in contact with as they pass by it (this is convection). As we move further and further
away from the wall, the effect of the hot wall is felt less and less (it, of course, depends on the
thermal conductivity of the fluid). Eventually, there comes a point where the fluid does not have
a clue about the hot wall. The layer of fluid between the wall and this point is called the thermal
boundary layer. It is where all of the action is taking place (as far as heat transfer between the
solid and fluid is concerned). Before continuing with the Nusselt number, let us define another
dimensionless property: Prandtl Number.

Prandtl Number

Heat transfer gurus have invented another dimensionless number called the Prandtl number
which is a grouping of the properties of the fluid but it has a significance to our discussion.
Prandtl number is defined as:
It is the ratio of momentum diffusivity (kinematic viscosity) to thermal diffusivity. It can be
related to the thickness of the thermal and velocity boundary layers. It is actually the ratio of
velocity boundary layer to thermal boundary layer. When Pr=1, the boundary layers coincide.
Typical values of the Prandtl number are:

Material Pr

Liquid
0.004-0.03
metals

Gases 0.7-1.0

Water 1.7-13.7

Oils 50-100,000

When Pr is small, it means that heat diffuses very quickly compared to the velocity (momentum).
This means the thickness of the thermal boundary layer is much bigger than the velocity
boundary layer for liquid metals.

Now, back to the Nusselt number.

Remember that we explained how the first fluid layer stick to the solid surface and the heat is
transferred via conduction. Well, let's write this equation:
In a boundary layer situation the characteristic length is the thickness of the boundary layer.
Consider a fluid layer of thickness L and a temperature difference of across this layer. Heat
transfer by convection can be calculated as h while heat transfer by conduction is k /L.
Dividing the convection heat transfer to the conduction heat transfer, we get:

So, the Nusselt number may be viewed as the ratio of convection to conduction for a layer of
fluid. If Nu=1, we have pure conduction. Higher values of Nusselt mean that the heat transfer is
enhanced by convection.

Grashof Number

You see this number and you should think of natural or free convection. The Grashof number is
the ratio of buoyancy forces to the viscous forces.
In natural convection the Grashof number plays the same role the is played by the Reynolds
number in forced convection. The buoyant forces are fighting with viscous forces and at some
point they overcome the viscous forces and the flow is no longer nice and laminar. For a vertical
plate, the flow transitions to turbulent around a Grashof number of 10^9.

Rayleigh Number

The Rayleigh number is the product of Grashof and Prandtl numbers. It turns out that in natural
convection the Nusselt number scales with Rayleigh rather than just Grashof. Most correlations
in natural convection are of the form:

where .

References: For writing this note we have used material from two excellent heat transfer text
books:
1- Heat Transfer, A Practical Approach, Yunus A. Dengel, Mcgraw-Hills
2- Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer, Frank Incropera and david DeWitt, 4th Edition,
John Wiley& Sons
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