GENERAL HEAT TRANSFER EQUATION (GHTE)

There are several processes where heat transfer by convection plays a major role in materials processing. In
fact, in most of these reactors, convective heat transfer plays a major role in facilitating (i) gas-solid reaction
to produce pig iron in blast furnace and copper in an Outokumpu furnace and (ii) gas-liquid reaction in LD
converters for steelmaking. Convective heat transfer also plays a major role in Hall-Heroult cells to produce
aluminium, castings and joining processes.

We need a general heat transfer equation (GHTE) which can be used to solve problems involving either
conduction or convection or both or even all through modes of heat transfer. For Constantk, ρ, and cp, the
GHTE in cartesian coordinates is given below:

•
∂T ∂T ∂T ∂T k  ∂ 2T ∂ 2T ∂ 2T  q
+Vx +Vy +Vz =  2 + 2 + 2 + (1)
∂t ∂x ∂y ∂z ρcp  ∂x ∂y ∂z  ρcp

Unsteady Convection Conduction Heat generation

state term
k
In equation 1, = Thermal diffusivity = α orК (cappa) (m2/S)
ρcp
Radiation heat transfer is incorporated in the GHTE through boundary conditions since radiation is a surface
phenomenon.

In forced convection problems, the temperature profile depends on the velocity profile but the reverse is not
true. Hence the velocity profile is first obtained independently by solving the continuity and Navier-Stokes
equation. The calculated velocities are then used in the GHTE.

In natural convection, both the velocity profile and the temperature profile are inter-dependent. Here the
GHTE, continuity and Navier-Stokes equations are solved simultaneously.

The GHTE is also available incylindrical&spherical coordinate systems.

𝑞𝑞̇ (2)

Example

Water flows with a bulk temperature of 25oC at a velocity of 5cm/s in a tube with an inside diameter of 2.5cm.
The tube surface is maintained at 70oC. Find the temperature of water at the exit of the tube of length 20 cm?

0.05 m/s r
25 C z 0.025 m

L = 0.2 m

Assume that water flows in the axial direction, that is, Vr = Vθ= 0. Since Re < 2100, the flow is laminar. Heat
flows in both the radial and axial direction. Vr = 0 and therefore conduction predominantly transports heat in
the radial direction.In the axial direction, convection mainly transports heat. There is no heat source inside the
pipe. The flow is continuous and hence it is a steady state problem. The GHTE reduces to:
 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 𝑘𝑘 1 𝜕𝜕 𝜕𝜕𝑇𝑇
𝑉𝑉𝑧𝑧 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 = 𝜌𝜌𝑐𝑐𝑝𝑝 𝑟𝑟 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕
�𝑟𝑟 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 �

Vz is determined independently as this is a forced convection problem:

𝑟𝑟 2
𝑉𝑉𝑧𝑧 = 2𝑉𝑉�𝑧𝑧 �1 − � � �
𝑅𝑅

Boundary conditions are:

z=0 T = 25 C for 0 ≤ 𝑟𝑟 ≤ 0.0125 𝑚𝑚

𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕
r=0 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕
= 0 for 0 ≤ 𝑧𝑧 ≤ 0.2 𝑚𝑚 (symmetry boundary condition)
r = 0.0125 T = 70 C

To rigorously check whether the conduction term in axial direction is indeed insignificant, compare the “order
of magnitude” of convection and conduction terms in the axial direction, as shown below.
𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 �𝑇𝑇 ∗
𝑈𝑈 0.05𝑇𝑇 ∗
Convection term = 𝑉𝑉𝑧𝑧 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 ~ = = 0.25𝑇𝑇 ∗ , where 𝑇𝑇 ∗ is a reference temperature.
𝐿𝐿 0.2

𝑘𝑘 𝜕𝜕 2 𝑇𝑇 𝑘𝑘𝑇𝑇 ∗ 0.6𝑇𝑇 ∗
Conduction term = 𝜌𝜌𝐶𝐶 �𝜕𝜕𝑧𝑧 2 � ~ 𝜌𝜌𝐶𝐶 = 1000 ∗4187 ∗0.2 = 7.1 × 10−7 𝑇𝑇 ∗
𝑝𝑝 𝑝𝑝 𝐿𝐿2

Since the order of magnitude of the conduction term is much less than the convection term, it can be ignored.

This problem is not straightforward to solve analytically.

Heat transfer in turbulently flowing fluids

If we place a temperature measuring device with a fast response in a turbulently flowing fluid we would
observe a rapidly fluctuating temperature.

The general heat transport equation derived last time would still apply but would be almost being incapable of
solution with reasonable expenditure of computer time and (were a solution to be computed) yielding
solutions which contain more information than needed. Hence we introduce concepts of time-averaged
temperature (similar to the definition of time-averaged velocity:
1 t + ∆zt
T = ∫ ∆t Tdtand a fluctuating temperature, 𝑇𝑇 ′ , defined by 𝑇𝑇 = 𝑇𝑇� + 𝑇𝑇 ′
∆t t − z
Now we time-average the general heat conduction equation, which results in:

𝜕𝜕𝑇𝑇� 𝜕𝜕𝑇𝑇� 𝜕𝜕𝑇𝑇� 𝜕𝜕𝑇𝑇� 𝜕𝜕 2 𝑇𝑇� 𝜕𝜕 2 𝑇𝑇� 𝜕𝜕 2 𝑇𝑇�

𝜌𝜌𝐶𝐶𝑝𝑝 � + 𝑉𝑉�𝑥𝑥 + 𝑉𝑉�𝑦𝑦 + 𝑉𝑉�𝑧𝑧 � = 𝑘𝑘𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒 � 2 + 2 + 2 �
𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 𝜕𝜕𝑥𝑥 𝜕𝜕𝑦𝑦 𝜕𝜕𝑧𝑧

In the above equation, keff = effective thermal conductivity = k + kt. Also, note that the above equation is
similar to the GHTE except for the fact that the instantaneous terms have been replaced by the corresponding
time-averaged terms.

kt is turbulent thermal conductivity and it shows the effect of turbulence flow on the temperature profile.
kt can be determined from the equation kt = Cpμt. As was discussed earlier μt can be obtained from turbulent
models.

Macroscopic approach to heat transfer

Instead of a velocity profile, in several situations, we only need the heat flux. Consider the earlier example of
flow of water through a heated pipe, the schematic diagram of which is shown below.

In the above figure, 𝑇𝑇� is the mean temperature and TW is the wall temperature.
We are interested in the heat flux, q. As a first guess we might suppose q ∝ (Tw – TF) and this experimentally)
turns out to be a good approximation i.e. q=h (Tw-TF) where the proportionality constant, h, is a “heat transfer
coefficient” which we can expect to depend on physical properties and on the flow.

Another example: flow past a submerged object:

Again, we put q=h (Tw-TF). Strictly speaking in this case we expect q to be a function of position on the
surface also, which means that h will be, but usually we take q and h to be the values averaged over whole
surface.]

Typical values of “h”in W/m2°K

Natural convection: Gases: 3-23,liquids:50-500,
Forced convection: Gases: 11-120 , viscousliquids: 50-600,water: 500-12000
Boiling water: 1000-20000
Condensing vapors: 103-105

Correlations for h

Forced convection: Nu = f(Re, Pr)

Nu= hL/k, where L = characteristic dimension, k = thermal conductivity.
Re = Reynolds number.
Pr = Prandtl number = Cpμf/k
For flow in a pipe: Nu=0.026 Re0.8 Pr1/3 for Re>10000, 0.6<Pr<100 and length/diameter>10.

Natural convection: Nu = f(Gr, Pr)

𝐿𝐿3 𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔∆𝑇𝑇
𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺 = 𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺ℎ𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜 𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛 =
𝜈𝜈 2 𝜇𝜇
β = coefficient of thermal expansion = 1/T, 𝜈𝜈𝑓𝑓 = 𝜌𝜌 𝑓𝑓
𝑓𝑓