EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES OF NATURAL-CONVECTION IN PARTITIONED ENCLOSURES WITH A TROMBE WALL GEOMETRY

Natural convection heat transfer was investigated in a scaled rest fac ility of a Trombe wall geometry. A silicons oil was employed as the co nvecting medium to obtain targe Rayleigh numbers (up to 1.5 X 10(10), based on enclosure height) characteristic of a full-scale Trombe wall in a passive solar building. The main objectives were to study the eff ects of Trombe wall nonisothermality and location on heat transfer, fl uid temperature and fluid flow patterns. As expected, Nusselt numbers were slightly larger on the Trombe wall space side than on the living space side. Nusselt numbers increased slightly as the mass transfer ga ps in the Trombe wall were increased. The results were verified, for t he zero gap case, by comparing with previous studies. Physical underst anding of the convection process was enhanced by flow visualization da ta. The information obtained should be useful to designers in optimizi ng overall building performance for passive solar heating.