Analysis of natural convection in a low gravity environment

Conference · Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1992

OSTI ID:5418952

Mattor, E E; Durgin, W W; Bloznalis, P; Schoenberg, R ^[1]

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1. Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MA (United States) NASA, Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX (United States)

Natural convection inside a spherical container was studied experimentally with two apparatuses at low buoyancy levels. The data generated by these experiments, plotted nondimensionally as the Nusselt versus Rayleigh numbers, give correlations for Rayleigh numbers between 1000 and 10 exp 8, a range previously untested. These results show that natural convection has significant effects at a Rayleigh number of 1000 and higher, although the behavior of the Nusselt number as the conduction limit is approached is still unknown for a spherical geometry. 11 refs.

• Research Organization: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Houston, TX (United States). Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
• OSTI ID: 5418952
• Report Number(s): AIAA-Paper-92-0603; CONF-920157-
• Resource Relation: Conference: 30. American Institute of Astronautics and Aeronautics (AIAA) aerospace sciences meeting and exhibit, Reno, NV (United States), 6-9 Jan 1992
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
CONTAINERS
NATURAL CONVECTION
CORRELATIONS
NUSSELT NUMBER
SPHERES
SPHERICAL CONFIGURATION
WEIGHTLESSNESS
CONFIGURATION
CONVECTION
ENERGY TRANSFER
HEAT TRANSFER
MASS TRANSFER
420400* - Engineering- Heat Transfer & Fluid Flow