NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL-STUDY OF TRANSIENT TURBULENT NATURAL-CONVECTION IN A HORIZONTAL CYLINDRICAL CONTAINER

Transient, turbulent, natural convection in a horizontal cylindrical c ontainer is numerically and experimentally investigated. The container is of aluminium, filled with water,and a piece-wise constant heat flu x is imposed on the outside wall. Numerical results show that there ex ist conduction-controlled, developing and quasi-steady-state periods d uring the transient and that the existence of the wall has some influe nce on the flow and heat transfer. The flow undergoes two-vortex! four -vortex and then again two-vortex configuration changes during the tra nsient. The four-vortex flow pattern appears to be relatively unstable , and is accompanied by asymmetric flow in the bottom region of the co ntainer. Both numerical predictions and experiments reveal a well-stra tified thermal field and numerical results are validated against exper imental data. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.