Interaction of surface radiation with natural convection. (Q2754449)

This paper presents some results on natural convection flows in closed cavities, open cavities and \(L\)-shaped corners. Particularly, the interaction of convection with radiation and/or conduction is analyzed, and comparison with experimental results is given. This is done using a new method, called semi-experimental method, to solve this class of problems, which is discussed in detail. Before doing it, a detailed discussion of existing literature on free convection in closed cavities is made showing that a considerable amount of work is still necessary to be done in the case of open cavities and \(L\)-corners. Thus, the main scope of this paper is to report results on the interaction between the various modes of heat transfer in open cavities and \(L\)-corners in order to obtain useful correlations for computing the overall heat transfer.NEWLINENEWLINEThe authors show that (i) at low temperature levels radiation heat transfer is significant and, hence, cannot be neglected; (ii) for a square cavity, the convection-radiation coupling reduces Nusselt number by 10--15 total heat transfer; (iii) the combined free convection, conduction and radiation in an \(L\)-corner are relatively insensitive to radiation; however, the conductive coupling cannot be ignored; (iv) the semi-experimental approach appears to be a viable option in modelling transport of heat and fluid flow in order to obtain estimates of heat transfer rates.NEWLINENEWLINEFor the entire collection see [Zbl 0961.00018].