HEAT-TRANSFER ACROSS A VERTICAL WALL SEPARATING 2 FLUIDS AT DIFFERENTTEMPERATURES

In this paper we study the conjugate heat transfer across a vertical w all separating two fluids at different temperatures. We present a clas sification of the solutions of the problem in terms of two main parame ters; epsilon, the ratio of thickness to height of the wall and alpha, measuring the ratio of the thermal resistance of one of the boundary layers to the thermal resistance of the wail. Numerical and asymptotic solutions are presented for all possible values of alpha. We show tha t a maximum average Nusselt number or non-dimensional overall heat flu x is attained for values of alpha much smaller than one, but still lar ge compared with epsilon(2). Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.