Measurements of Transient Natural Convection on Flat Vertical Surfaces

Abstract

Experimental measurements of natural convection transients in air and in water are compared with the results of the integral analysis presented by the first author. An application of infrared techniques to the measurement of transient surface temperatures is described. The measurements, over a wide range of thermal capacity, are reduced to the variables which arose in the analysis and the measured responses are in essentially complete agreement with the results of that analysis for the case of a step in input flux. None of the measurements of natural convection transients on vertical plates has indicated temperature overshoot for the step condition.