THE EFFECT OF A NON-UNIFORM SURFACE TEMPERATURE ON LAMINAR NATURAL CONVECTION IN A RECTANGULAR ENCLOSURE

Three dimensional solutions were developed for natural convection in a 2 × 1 × 1 rectangular enclosure by finite-difference calculations. Sawtooth temperature distributions with different amplitudes and orientations were imposed on the lower (2×1) surface to simulate the effect of cooling coils or jackets on the collector plate of a flat-plate solar heater. The shorter dimension of the enclosure was progressively inclined.

The circulation patterns were not changed significantly by the surface temperature distributions. The variation of the Nusselt number with inclination was not changed significantly but the magnitude increased with the amplitude of the surface temperature variations for inclinations of less than 90 degrees.

It is concluded that the collecting plate of a solar collector should be maintained as nearly isothermal as possible to minimize heat losses by natural convection through the air gap.