FILM CONDENSATION INDUCED BY A NATURAL CONVECTIVE FLOW - STEADY-STATEANALYSIS

In this paper we study the laminar condensation process of a saturated vapor in contact with one side of a Vertical thin plate, caused by a natural laminar boundary layer flow on the other surface of the plate. The effects of both longitudinal and transversal heat conduction in t he plate are considered. The momentum and energy balance equations are reduced to a system of differential equations with five parameters. A symptotic and numerical solutions for the temperature and condensed fi lm thickness distributions are presented for all possible Values of th e nondimensional plate thermal conductance alpha. Copyright (C) 1996 E lsevier Science Ltd.