3-DIMENSIONAL NATURAL-CONVECTION IN AN ENCLOSURE WITH AN INTERNAL ISOLATED VERTICAL PLATE

Natural convection in a cubic enclosure with an internal isolated heat ed vertical plate was investigated both experimentally and numerically . The internal plate was suspended under the lower surface of the encl osure top wall and electrically heated. The six enclosure walls were a t a lower constant temperature. The plate average Nusselt number and t he air temperature in the enclosure symmetry plane were experimentally determined in the range of Ra = 8 X 10(4) to 5 x 10(7). Numerical sim ulations of laminar natural convection in the same configuration were performed. The agreement between the test data and the numerically pre dicted values is reasonably good, with a maximum deviation in plate av erage Nusselt number of 12.3 percent and that in air temperature of 9. 4 percent. Detailed temperature and velocity distributions in four cro ss sections were presented for the case of Ra = 6.57 X 10(5).