A Numerical and Experimental Study of Natural Convection in the Annulus between Horizontal Non-Circular Cylinders with a Uniform Gap

균일한 간격을 가진 비원형환상공간에서의 자연대류에 관한 수치해석 및 실험적 연구

A numerical and experimental investigation has been carried out to understand a characteristic of natural convection within a horizontal non-circular annulus. A finite-difference method has been used to solve the governing equations numerically. The effect of Rayleigh number. Prandtl number, aspect ratio and diameter ratio is studied analytically. The ranges of the parameters studied herein are Rayleigh number from $10^3$ to $2{\times}10^4$, Prandtl number from 0.1 to 10, aspect ratio from 0.25 to 1.5 and diameter ratio from 1.5 to 9.0. A Mach-Zehnder interferometer is used to obtain isothermal fringes for a diameter ratio Do/Di=2.6 and aspect ratio H/L=0.75 experimentally. A comparison between the experimental and numerical results under similar conditions shows good agreement.