Abstract
Natural convective heat transfer from a wide isothermal plate which has a “wavy” surface, i.e., has a surface which periodically rises and falls, has been numerically studied. The surface waves run parallel to the direction of flow over the surface and have a relatively small amplitude. Two types of wavy surface have been considered here — saw-tooth and sinusoidal. Surfaces of the type considered are approximate models of situations that occur in certain window covering applications, for example, and are also sometimes used to try to enhance the heat transfer rate from the surface. The flow has been assumed to be laminar. Because the surface waves are parallel to the direction of flow, the flow over the surface will be three-dimensional. Fluid properties have been assumed constant except for the density change with temperature that gives rise to the buoyancy forces, this being treated by means of the Boussinesq type approximation. The governing equations have been written in dimensionless form, the height of the surface being used as the characteristic length scale and the temperature difference between the surface temperature and the temperature of the fluid far from the plate being used as the characteristic temperature. The dimensionless equations have been solved using a finite-element method. Although the flow is three-dimensional because the surface waves are all assumed to have the same shape, the flow over each surface thus being the same, and it was only necessary to solve for the flow over one of the surface waves. The solution has the following parameters: the Grashof number based on the height, the Prandtl number, the dimensionless amplitude of the surface waviness, the dimensionless pitch of the surface waviness, and the form of the surface waviness (saw-tooth or sinusoidal). Results have been obtained for a Prandtl number of 0.7 for Grashof numbers up to 106. The effects of Grashof number, dimensionless amplitude and dimensionless pitch on the mean heat transfer rate have been studied. It is convenient to introduce two mean heat transfer rates, one based on the total surface area and the other based on the projected frontal area of the surface. A comparison of the values of these quantities gives a measure of the effectiveness of the surface waviness in increasing the mean heat transfer rate. The results show that while surface waviness increases the heat transfer rate based on the frontal area, the modifications of the flow produced by the surface waves are such that the increase in heat transfer rate is less than the increase in surface area.
