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The influence of spacing in convective heat transfer between two vertical surfaces at different temperatures

The goal of this paper is to investigate the influence of spacing between two vertical surfaces at different temperatures on resulting heat flow rate. The numerical analysis is carried out using Finite Volume Method (FVM), and the results are compared to the data obtained with two different analytical expressions. The first expression is derived for steady state heat conduction in a stagnant medium, while the second takes into account the convective heat transfer that occurs in a fluid medium. The mathematical model is composed of mass, momentum and energy equations, where the momentum and energy are being coupled due to existence of buoyancy driven flow in the domain. The medium used in computation is air, while the variations in fluid density are taken into account by application of incompressible ideal gas law. From the obtained results, it is evident that increase of distance between the surfaces increases the influence of convection, and inclusion of effective thermal conductivity in analytical model is needed to obtain accurate results.

Natural convection heat transfer, Finite Volume Method, heat flow rate

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