Natural Convection in Horizontal Thin-Walled Honeycomb Panels

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental study of the stability of and natural convection heat transfer through a horizontal fluid layer heated from below and constrained internally by a honeycomb. Examination of the types of boundary conditions exacted on the fluid at the cell side-walls has shown that there are three limiting cases: (1) perfectly conducting side-walls; (2) perfectly adiabatic side-walls; and (3) side-walls having zero thickness. Experiments described in this paper approach the latter category. The fluid used is air and the honeycomb used is square-celled. Measured critical Rayleigh numbers are found to be intermediate between those applying to cases (1) and (2), and consistent with an “equivalent wave number” of approximately 0.95 times that for case (1). The measured natural convective heat transfer after instability is found to be significantly less than that predicted by the Malkus-Veronis power integral technique. However, it is found to approach asymptotically the heat transfer which would take place through a similar fluid layer unconstrained by a honeycomb. A general correlation equation for the heat transfer is given.