LAMINAR NATURAL-CONVECTION IN VERTICAL CHANNELS WITH PERIODIC WALL PROTRUSIONS

Natural convection flow and heat transfer of a viscous fluid confined between two vertical parallel plates is analytically investigated taki ng volumetric heat generation into account. It is assumed that one of the plates is flat and the other has periodic protrusions. The short p rotrusions are assumed to be periodic in span, facilitating a mathemat ical representation for the arbitrary shape protrusion by a Fourier se ries. The governing equations of momentum, and energy are solved by re gular perturbation method. The flow, and heat transfer characteristics are determined for different values of Grashof number, wall temperatu re ratio, heat source parameters, protrusion frequency and spacing.