Accepted Manuscript

Experimental investigation on the effect of vertical vibration on thermal per-

formances of rectangular flat plate

A.R. Sarhan, M.R. Karim, Z.K. Kadhim, J. Naser

PII: S0894-1777(18)30806-9
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.expthermflusci.2018.10.024
Reference: ETF 9641

To appear in: Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science

Received Date: 30 April 2018

Revised Date: 20 July 2018
Accepted Date: 21 October 2018

Please cite this article as: A.R. Sarhan, M.R. Karim, Z.K. Kadhim, J. Naser, Experimental investigation on the effect
of vertical vibration on thermal performances of rectangular flat plate, Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science
(2018), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.expthermflusci.2018.10.024

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 Experimental investigation on the effect of vertical vibration on thermal performances
of rectangular flat plate

A.R. Sarhan a, b, M.R. Karim a, Z.K. Kadhimc, J. Naser a, *

a
Department of Mechanical and Product Design Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn,
Victoria 3122, Australia.
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Anbar, Ramadi, Anbar 31001, Iraq
c
Mechanical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Wasit University, Wasit, Iraq.
*Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jnaser@swin.edu.au (J. Naser).

Abstract
Vibration effects on thermal performances of the rectangular flat plate under natural
convection condition are experimentally investigated in both horizontal and slightly inclined
from horizontal orientations in multiple angles. The effects of Rayleigh number and
vibrational Reynolds number on the average heat-transfer coefficient are also examined. The
Aluminium made plate was subjected to sinusoidal vibration in the vertical plane. The test
sample was heated under a constant heat flux. The amplitude of vibration was varied from 1.5
to 7.5 mm and the frequency of vibration from 0 to 16 Hz. From the results of the
experiments, it is observed that the average heat-transfer coefficient increases linearly with
increasing Rayleigh number for different orientation angles. It was also found that the
average heat-transfer coefficient is much higher for the cases when the plate is horizontal, and
it decreases when the orientation angle value was increased. Such as the average heat-transfer
coefficient decreased by approximately 13% for 30o orientation case. The measured result
further showed that the average heat-transfer coefficient in the vertical position is lower than
the average heat-transfer coefficient in the horizontal position and slightly higher than the
other orientation angles (i.e. 30o, 45o and 60o). Finally, it was found that the increases in
oscillation frequencies lead to an increase in the average heat-transfer coefficient and the
maximum increase was obtained in the horizontal position and higher frequencies. However,
the average heat-transfer coefficient decreases with increasing the vibration frequencies when
the plate was in the vertical position.
Keywords: Heat transfer, Natural convection, Orientation, Oscillation, vibrational Reynolds
number.
Nomenclature
the total area, m
the amplitude of vibration, mm
acceleration of vibration, m s-2
oscillation frequencies, Hz
gravity acceleration, m s-2
the average heat-transfer coefficient, W/m2 oC
electricity current, Amp
thermal conductivity, W/m oC
length of plate, mm
the number of thermocouples
Nusselt number, dimensionless
heat generation, W
convection heat transfer, W
radiation heat transfer, W
thickness of plate, mm
film temperature, oC
surface temperature, oC
ambient temperature, oC
Rayleigh number, dimensionless
vibration Reynolds number, dimensionless
vibration speed, m s-1
width of plate, mm
electricity voltage, Volt
Greek symbols
Stefan–Boltzmann constant, 5.67E-08 W m-2 K-4
emissivity, dimensionless
characteristic length, m
coefficient of thermal expansion of air, K-1
kinematic viscosity, m2 s-1
orientation angle, degree
the vibration strength, dimensionless
1. Introduction

Over the past few decades, the subject of heat dissipation from engineering systems and
devices has received a remarkable attention due to its wide and practical applications in real-
world engineering concerns [1]. Many engineering systems and devices produce heat energy
during its operation. Increase in heat dissipation from operating devices results in better
performance and higher reliability [2]. Research in this area has several applications in
engineering such as electronic cooling, solar collectors, and nuclear reactors involved in the
thermal transport phenomenon [3]. In most cases, natural convection is considered one of the
main cooling techniques which play an important role in maintaining reliable operation of
equipment. Since there are many variables that affect the rate of natural convection, several
investigations have been carried out in the past to find the way to increase natural heat
transfer [4-9].

The effect of heating direction is one of the most important parameters that should be studied
to increase the amount of heat transfer from equipment through natural convection. Elshafei
[10] used an experimental method to investigate the impacts of heat flux and orientation on
natural convection heat transfer from a heat sink with hollow/perforated circular pin fins. It
was found that depending on Rayleigh number the performance of solid pin fin heat sink for
upward and sideward orientations shows a competitive nature. Similarly, Huang, Sheu and
Wang [11] provided an experimental data for the square pin fins heat skins in a different
orientation. From test results, it was found that, downward facing orientation yields the
lowest heat transfer coefficient. However, for upward and sideward facing orientations, the
heat transfer coefficients are of comparable magnitude. In contrast, Al-Azawi [12] stated that
the sideward vertical fin orientation provided the best performance on the natural cooling.
Kobus and Wedekind [13] also found the highest rate of heat transfer coefficient in the
vertical direction. This contradiction can be attributed to the environmental conditions in the
laboratory and the nature of the test samples used in these studies. In addition, a human error
which may occur during performing experimental work has a significant impact on results.
Passive method of heat transfer is a useful technique and many researchers have used this
method recently as a cost effective and reliable technique [14-19].

The vibration impact on natural convection heat transfer is one of the concerns that should be
considered during the design of equipment under a dynamic situation due to its operation.
One of the earlier investigations on the effects of vibration on natural convection heat transfer
is undertaken by Lemlich [20], who performed an experimental study by electrically heated
wires. The author found that the amplitude and frequency have a greater effect than the effect
of other factors whereas the direction of vibration has no significant effect. Dawood,
Manocha and Ali [21] reported that the relative vibrational heat-transfer coefficient increased
linearly irrespective of the frequency of vibration. Fu and Huang [22] numerically
investigated the effects of a vibrational heat surface on natural convection in a vertical
channel flow. They stated that natural convection of a vibrational heat plate with a certain
combination of frequency and amplitude is possibly smaller than that of a stationary state.
Similarly, Shokouhmand, Abadi and Jafari [23] found that vortices appear in the left and right
area of the test samples due to the horizontal vibration causing the reduction in the rate of
heat transfer.

From literature, it is evident that a large number of experimental and theoretical

investigations have been carried out on natural convection heat transfer. Previous research [4,
6, 8, 11, 24, 25] were made towards understanding the impact of orientation change on the
amount of heat transfer that is dissipated by natural convection. All these studies did not
consider that equipment used in various applications may operate under dynamic conditions
caused by motion, oscillation. There are very few studies that theoretically dealt with the
effects of vibration on natural convection [5, 7, 20, 23]. Accordingly, the objective of the
present work is to investigate the effect of vibration on natural convection heat transfer from
rectangular flat plate heat sinks under different orientation. The amplitude and frequency of
vibration were varied from 1.63 to 7.16 mm and from 2 to 16 Hz respectively. Different
inclination angles from the horizontal of ±0o, ±30o, ±45o, ±60o, ±90o were employed.

2. Description of the experimental setup

The experimental set-up consists of test surfaces, a sensitive orientation angle adjusting
mechanism, an electrical power source, an oscillation mechanism, temperature measuring
system and a data logger. In the present study, an experimental investigation is carried out on
natural convection heat transfer from flat plate heat sink placed in different orientations (0o,
30o, 45o, 60o, 90o). This has been done with the help of a sensitive orientation angle (θ)
adjusting mechanism designed to allow the heat sinks to move in angular motion from (0o to
360o). The plate heat sink is fabricated from an aluminium alloy and it has a dimension of
300 mm length, 100 mm width and 3 mm thickness, respectively. The electrical power source
used in the present study has a range of capacity (0-200 W) with an accuracy of ±0.1 W. An
electrical plate heater is placed at the bottom side of the test surface covering the whole
surface. Glass wool and fibreglass insulation have been used for the heater plate at bottom
and side wall respectively.

Thirty pre-calibrated mineral insulated K-type thermocouples located at symmetric positions

on the plate have been used for measuring the surface temperatures of the heat sink and data
are recorded using a data acquisition device. The accuracy of K-type thermocouples is ± 0.5
K. To determine conduction heat loss through the plate, a thermocouple is placed underneath.
But, during the experiments, no significant temperature difference was found. Therefore, the
heat loss by conduction through the insulated side of the base plate is ignored. All
experiments are performed in an isolated area keeping the power supply and measuring
devices in a neighbouring room. The ambient air temperature is measured by a shielded
thermocouple. Figure 1 shows a schematic diagram of the heat sink and heating system.

Figure 1

The oscillation mechanism was composed of a random function generator, power amplifier,
vibration exciter and vibration meter. The vibration was induced by connecting the random
function generator to a power amplifier which sends a vibrational sinusoidal wave to the
vibration exciter device. The amplitude of vibration, which was controlled by varying the
electrical signal to the power amplifier, was measured with a calibrated digital oscilloscope.
Then the vibration meter was used to measure the actual frequency and amplitude that
reaches the test sample. The schematic diagram of the experimental setup developed for
current investigation is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2

3. Measurement techniques

The experimental procedure mainly consists of two parts: (a) natural convection condition in
the absence of vibration; (b) convection with vibration.

The initial test was carried out to establish the data for natural convection condition without
vibration. An arbitrary electrical input was given to the electrical heater placed at the bottom
of the test surface. The flat plate surface was allowed to reach steady state condition. The
output reading of the thermometer was recorded when a thermocouple has given two
consecutive readings similar. As mentioned earlier, the surface temperatures of the heat sink
are measured by thirty pre-calibrated K-type mineral insulated thermocouples located at
symmetric positions on the plate. An average value of the output reading of the thermometer
was calculated to represent the average temperature of the surface. This procedure was
repeated for all angles used in this investigation to obtain the complete data for natural
convection condition with vibration.

The next test run was conducted with convection under plate vibration. An arbitrary input
was given to the electrical heater. The generator frequency was first calibrated by using a
digital oscilloscope. Then it was adjusted to the desired level. The power amplifier then
received the generated signal to amplify it. The amplifier was then set to the power-load
position, thus starting the vibration of the plate. Finally, vibration meter mounted on the
bracket carrying the sample test was used to read the frequency, amplitude, velocity and the
acceleration of vibration. The average temperature of the surface, frequency, amplitude,
velocity and the acceleration of vibration were recorded after the steady state has reached.
Keeping the amplitude of vibration constant, the angles were varied from ±0o to ±90o.
Finally, the amplitudes of vibration were changed (i.e. 2, 6, 10 and 16 Hz) to obtain further
data.

4. Data Analysis

In the present experimental study, ambient air temperature is always maintained at 25 oC and
thermophysical properties of the air are calculated at the film temperature ;

(1)

(2)

where is the room temperature and is the surface temperature of heat sink. By
neglecting the loss of heat through conduction in downward direction, the convective heat
transfer coefficient of the flat plate heat sink is found using the following equations [11, 26,
27];
(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

Where is the total area of the surface heat sinks ( ), is the Boltzmann constant,
is emissivity and is the shape factor which is assumed to 1.0 in the present study.

The dimensionless variables such as Nusselt number ( ), Rayleigh number ( ),

vibrational Reynolds number ( ), vibration speed ( ) and amplitude of vibration ( ) can
be defined as follow [20, 28, 29];

(7)

(8)

(9)

(10)

(11)

The following equation is used to calculate the volumetric expansion coefficient [29];

(12)

In the current study, the characteristic length of the test sample is calculated as follows;
 for θ= 0o
(13a)

for 0o < θ < 90o

(13b)

for θ= 90o
(13c)

The effect of the amplitude and the frequency of vibration was expressed in the present
investigation in terms of vibration strength ( ). The vibration strength can be defined as the
ratio of acceleration of vibration to that of gravity, as follows:

(14)

4. Results and discussion

As mentioned earlier, the main objective of the current study is to investigate the effect of
vibration and orientation angles on natural convection heat transfer from vibrating
rectangular flat plate heat sinks under various Rayleigh number (100 ≤ Ra ≤ 500), oscillation
frequencies (0 ≤ f ≤ 16 Hz), a constant heat flux (250 ≤ q ≤ 1500 W m-2), and amplitude of
vibration (1.5 ≤ a ≤ 7.5 mm).

For the purpose of analysis, the initial experiments were conducted to establish the data of
natural convection condition without vibration (f= 0 Hz). Figure 3 illustrated the effect of
Rayleigh number on the average heat-transfer coefficient at q= 250 W m-2. The figure shows
that the average heat-transfer coefficient increases linearly with increasing Rayleigh number
for different orientation angles used in the present investigation. Also, it is found that the
average heat-transfer coefficient is much higher for the cases when the plate is horizontal.
The average heat-transfer coefficient decreases when the orientation angle value is increased.
The average heat-transfer coefficient decreased by approximately 13% for 30o orientation
case. This could be attributed to the fact that, in the horizontal position, heat transfer from the
plate and the effect of buoyancy force is in the same direction, which leads to an increase in
load currents, thus improve the heat transfer process. Figure 3 also showed that the average
heat-transfer coefficient in the vertical position is lower than the average heat-transfer
coefficient in the horizontal position and slightly higher than the other orientation angles (θ)
(i.e. 30o, 45o and 60o). A possible explanation for this might be that the air boundary layer is
reheated by the heat transfer from the plate to it through conduction in the horizontal
direction and then convection which affects the density of the air boundary layer and thus
affects the buoyancy force. The characteristic length of the sample test ( ) has also a
significant effect on the heat transfer process (see Equation 13(a-c)).

Figure 3

The effect of vibration strength on the vibration speed is shown in Figure 4. It can be seen
from the graph that the vibration speed increases with increasing vibration strength and reach
the maximum value at an intermediate value of vibration strength. Then the vibration speed
started to fluctuate with the increases of vibration strength till again reach the highest value at
Λ=2. This results may be explained by the fact that, the vibration strength directly relates to
the vibration frequency, which in turn relates to the vibration speed (see Eqs. 10 & 14).

Figure 4

The measured results of the average heat-transfer coefficient as a function of vibrational

Reynolds number at different vibration frequencies (f= 2, 6, 10 and 16 Hz) and different
orientation angles are shown in Figures 5 to 8. The heat flux used for this set of
measurements was 250 W m-2. It can be seen from the plots that the average heat-transfer
coefficient decreases continuously with increasing the vibrational Reynolds number for
different orientation angles used in the present study. However, the maximum values of the
average heat-transfer coefficient were obtained in the horizontal position and higher
frequencies. These results are consistent with those of other studies [4-6]. This is due to the
effect of the amplitude and the speed of vibration (Figure 4). The high vibrational amplitudes
work to penetrate the thermal boundary layer of air near the plate surface. On the other hand,
high vibrational speed creates a secondary flow that works in conjunction with the main flow
to improve the average heat-transfer coefficient.
 Figure 5 to 8

The effect of Rayleigh number on the Nusselt number at different vibration frequencies (f= 0,
2, 6, 10 and 16 Hz) and different orientation angles (θ= 0 o, 30o, 60o and 90o) are illustrated in
Figures 9 to 12. These figures show that the Nusselt number increases linearly with
increasing Rayleigh number for different vibration frequencies and orientation angles used in
the present work. However, the Nusselt number decreases with increasing the vibration
frequencies when the plate was in the vertical position. Approximately 14 % reduction in the
Nusselt number is observed when the plate was vibrated with 16 Hz in the vertical position
which can be attributed to the fact that movement of air eddies near the plate surface is in
opposite direction of the buoyancy and main flow forces.

Figure 9 to 12

The present study includes calculating the dimensionless numbers like Nusselt number (Nu),
Rayleigh number (Ra) and vibratory Reynolds number (Rev). The study has strongly relied on
dimensional numerical analysis to find equations relate such variables to each other. The
following equation was formulated:

(15)

Where, C, m, n and l are constants whose values may be obtained using analytics software
(Statistica 13.0)

5. Conclusions

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the vibration and orientation effects on
heat transfer from vibrating rectangular flat plate heat sinks under natural convection
condition in both horizontal and slightly inclined from horizontal orientations in multiple
angles. The plate was subjected to various oscillation frequencies at constant heat flux. The
average heat-transfer coefficient was found to increase linearly with increasing Rayleigh
number for different orientation angles. It was also observed that the average heat-transfer
coefficient is much higher for the case when the plate is horizontal and decreases by
increasing the orientation angle value. Approximately, 13% decrease in the average heat-
transfer coefficient was observed for 30o orientation case. The results also showed that the
average heat-transfer coefficient in the vertical position is lower than the average heat-
transfer coefficient in the horizontal position and slightly higher than the other orientation
angles (θ) (i.e. 30o, 45o and 60o). Finally, it was found that the increase in oscillation
frequencies lead to an increase in the average heat-transfer coefficient and the maximum
increase was obtained in the horizontal position and higher frequencies. However, the
average heat-transfer coefficient decreases with increasing the vibration frequencies when the
plate was in the vertical position.
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Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the heat sinks and heating system.
(1) Heat sinks; (2) Sample holder; (3) The exciter; (4) Vibration meter; (5) Sine random
generator; (6) Oscilloscope; (7) Power amplifier; (8) Selector switch;
(9) Thermometer
Figure 2. Schematic diagram of the experimental setup
Figure 3. Effects of Rayleigh number on the average heat-transfer coefficient
 Figure 4. Effects of vibration strength on the vibration speed

Figure 5. Effects of vibrational Reynolds number on average heat-transfer coefficient

at Freq. = 2 Hz
Figure 6. Effects of vibrational Reynolds number on average heat-transfer coefficient
at Freq. = 6 Hz

Figure 7. Effects of vibrational Reynolds number on average heat-transfer coefficient

at Freq. = 10 Hz
Figure 8. Effects of vibrational Reynolds number on average heat-transfer coefficient
at Freq. = 16 Hz

Figure 9. Effects of Rayleigh number on Nusselt number at θ = 0o and different

frequencies
Figure 10. Effects of Rayleigh number on Nusselt number at θ = 30o and different
frequencies

Figure 11. Effects of Rayleigh number on Nusselt number at θ = 60o and different
frequencies
Figure 12. Effects of Rayleigh number on Nusselt number at θ = 90o and different
frequencies
Table 1. Uncertainties of the experimental parameters.

Parameter Absolute uncertainty Relative uncertainty

Frequency ± 0.1 Hz −

Power ± 0.1 W −

Temperature − ±0.2%

Amplitude − ±1%

Conflict of Interest

There is no Conflict of Interest.

Highlights

 The average heat-transfer coefficient is much higher when the plate is horizontal.
 The average heat-transfer coefficient decreases with increasing orientation angle.
 The average heat-transfer coefficient increases with increasing oscillation frequencies.