Journal article
Natural convection of liquid metals in vertical cavities
Experimental thermal and fluid science, Vol.1(1), pp.83-91
1988
DOI: 10.1016/0894-1777(88)90051-9
Abstract
A combined experimental and numerical study is reported of natural convection heat transfer and fluid flow in vertical cavities filled with liquid metals. Experiments are performed in two different test cells with two opposing side walls held at constant but different temperatures and the remaining walls well insulated. Tin and gallium are used as the fluids inside these cavities. Temperature measurements are employed to deduce the significance of natural convection in the liquid metals as well as to verify the results of numerical simulations of the experiments. The flow structure is visualized by the predicted streamlines. For various values of the governing dimensionless parameters, it is found that the natural convection patterns in liquid metals are considerably different from those found in fluids of high Prandtl number. The flow is characterized by a large convection cell in the center and small recirculation cells in the corners of the cavity. The heat fluxes at the hot and cold vertical walls show a variation reflecting the complicated flow patterns. The need for highly accurate three-dimensional numerical simulations is emphasized.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Natural convection of liquid metals in vertical cavities
- Creators
- F WolffC BeckermannR Viskanta
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Experimental thermal and fluid science, Vol.1(1), pp.83-91
- Publisher
- Elsevier Inc
- DOI
- 10.1016/0894-1777(88)90051-9
- ISSN
- 0894-1777
- eISSN
- 1879-2286
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 1988
- Academic Unit
- Mechanical Engineering
- Record Identifier
- 9984064596202771
Metrics
7 Record Views