Experimental study of natural convection heat transfer from a vertical plate in a non-newtonian fluid

An experimental investigation of natural convection heat transfer to non-Newtonian fluids from isothermal vertical plates was carried out. Three aqueous solutions of Carbopol 934 (1.25%, 1.5% and 1.75%) were selected as pseudoplastic fluids providing a flow behavior index range from 0.2 to 0.67. All the experimental data lay in the laminar flow range (N_GrN_Pr < 10⁹). A successful correlation for predicting natural convective heat transfer coefficients for non-Newtonian fluids from flow behavior index 0.2 to 1.0 inclusive was developed.