Measurement of natural convection heat transfer in an attic shaped enclosure

Heat transfer by natural convection in triangular enclosures is an area of significant importance in applications such as the design of greenhouses, attics and solar water heaters. However, given its significance to these areas it has not been widely examined. In this study, the natural convection heat transfer coefficients in an attic shaped enclosure were determined for Grashof Numbers over the range 107 to 109. It was found that the measured heat transfer coefficients could be predicted to within 5% by Ridouane and Campo’ (2005) equation (Eqn. 1) for natural convection in a triangular enclosure previously developed for Grashof Numbers in the range 105 to 106.

Nu=0.286*A-0.286*Gr1/4 (Eqn. 1)

As such, it is suggested that this equation may be suitable for predicting the natural convection heat transfer coefficients in full scale attic enclosures.