Impairment of Local Heat Transfer of the Turbulent Mixed Convection in a Vertical Flat Plate

The heat transfer of the buoyancy-aided turbulent mixed convective flow in a vertical flat plate was investigated experimentally. Mass transfer experiments were carried out based on the heat and mass transfer analogy. The Rayleigh numbers ranged from 1.69 × 10⁸ to 2.11 × 10¹³, depending on the height of the vertical flat plate. The Reynolds numbers varied from 4,585 to 17,320 for turbulent regimes. The test results for turbulent forced convections agreed well with the forced convection correlations established by Petukhov et al. The local heat transfer rates of the turbulent mixed flow exhibited the impairment of heat transfer compared to the forced convection and non-monotonous behavior along the axial position due to buoyancy effect. The local minimum heat transfer was 38.6% lower than the forced convection heat transfer. The turbulent mixed convection heat transfer is affected by the height of vertical plate.