Ch6 Convection heat transfer over flat plate

For flow over a flat plate, transition from laminar to turbulent is usually taken to occur at the critical Reynolds
number of 5x105

V x V x
Re x  
 

Drag force

1
D f  CD V2 A
2

CD is drag coefficient
Heat Transfer Coefficient

The local Nusselt number at a location x

hx x
Laminar: Nu x   0.332 Re x0.5 Pr 1/3
k
hx
Turbulent: Nu x  x  0.0287 Re x0.8 Pr 1/3
k

Pr is Prandtl number

 Cp
Pr  
 k

The average Nusselt number over the entire plate is determined by performing the integrations

1 Lk
L 0 x
hL  Nu x dx

For larminar flow

hL L
Nu L  0.644 Re 0.5
L Pr
1/3

k

For turbulent flow

1 xcri k 1 L k hL
hL  
L 0 x
Nu x ,lamiar dx  
L xcri x
Nu x ,turbulent dx  0.0359 Re 0.8 Pr 1/3 830 Pr 1/3  L
k

All fluid properties are obtained at:

Tw  T
Tf 
2

Convection heat transfer : q  h L A(Tw  T )

Problem1. During a cold winter day, wind at 55 km/h is blowing parallel to a 4-m-high and 10-m-long wall of a house.
If the air outside is at 5°C and the surface temperature of the wall is 12°C, determine the rate of heat loss from that
wall by convection. What would your answer be if the wind velocity was doubled? Answers: 9081 W, 16,200 W
Problem2. The forming section of a plastics plant puts out a continuous sheet of plastic that is 1.2 m wide and 2 mm
thick at a rate of 15 m/min. The temperature of the plastic sheet is 90°C when it is exposed to the surrounding air,
and the sheet is subjected to air flow at 30°C at a velocity of 3 m/s on both sides along its surfaces normal to the
direction of motion of the sheet. The width of the air cooling section is such that a fixed point on the plastic sheet
passes through that section in 2 s. Determine the rate of heat transfer from the plastic sheet to the air
Problem3. The top surface of the passenger car of a train moving at a velocity of 70 km/h is 2.8 m wide and 8 m long.
The top surface is absorbing solar radiation at a rate of 200 W/m2 and the temperature of the ambient air is 30°C.
Assuming the roof of the car to be perfectly insulated and the radiation heat exchange with the surroundings to be
small relative to convection, determine the equilibrium temperature of the top surface of the car. Answer: 35.1°C