Journal of Flow Visualization and Image Processing

ISSN for PRINT: 1065-3090

For Online Access

Best Paper Award Selection - Editorial Board Site

2000, Volume7

Issue 1

92 pages

Issue price - $140.00

Shigeaki Inada
Department of Mechanical System Engineering, Gunma University, 1-5-1 Tenjincho, Kiryu, 376-8515, Japan

Masahiro Yamazaki
Department of Mechanical System Engineering, Gunma University, 1-5-1, Tenjincho, Kiryu, Gunma 376-8515 Japan

Wen-Jei Yang
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, U.S.A.

The natural convective thermal field in the air around a horizontal isothermal cylinder with a longitudinal plate fin is visualized by means of laser holographic interferometry. The cylinder is either heated or cooled to maintain a constant surface temperature, while either a copper (conducting) or a balsa (insulating) fin is attached longitudinally on the cylinder at various circumferential locations to grasp the effect of fin-air interaction on convective flow patterns that appear in the form of interference fringes. As a result, a vertically ascending (in the heated cylinder case) or descending (cooled case) plume interacts with an air stream along the fin. Subsequently, it is discovered that an optimal circumferential fin location exists at which local heat transfer performance around the cylinder becomes uniform. The optimal circumferential location is unaffected by fin material and is unchanged, always situated downstream of the plume irrespective of the cylinder being heated or cooled. An additional experiment is performed on frost formation on a cooled cylinder. It is found that a substantially more uniform thickness of frost is formed on the cylinder surface when a fin is attached on the optimal circumferential location than in the absence of a fin.

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