Mixed thermal convection: fundamental issues and analysis of the planar case

Abstract

This paper aims to renew interest on mixed thermal convection research and to emphasize three issues that arise from the present analysis: (i) a clear definition of the reference temperature in the Boussinesq approximation; (ii) a practical delimitation of the three convective modes, which are the forced convection (FC), mixed convection (MC) and natural (or free) convection (NC); (iii) and, finally, a uniform description of the set FC/MC/NC in the similarity framework. The planar case, for which analytical solutions are available, allows a detailed illustration of the answers here advanced to the above issues.