Jl. Xia et al., NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL-STUDY OF TRANSIENT TURBULENT NATURAL-CONVECTION IN A HORIZONTAL CYLINDRICAL CONTAINER, International journal of heat and mass transfer, 41(22), 1998, pp. 3635-3645
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.