Three-Dimensional Transient Natural Convection in a Horizontal Cylinder: A Numerical Analysis

A mathematical formulation of the governing equations for transient natural convection in a finite length horizontal cylinder is developed and constructed in finite difference form. The boundary conditions consist of radial heat flux for a specified thermal resistance, axial heat flux from one closed end and three different conditions at the other end to represent exposure to a hot convecting gas environment. The formulation is expressed in terms of the vorticity equations, energy equation and a set of vector potential equations. Solution is by the alternating direction implicit method for the vorticity and energy equations and the successive over relaxation method for the vector potential equations. Numerical experiments were run using the model to determine the local wall heat flux and the local wall temperatures. A heat transfer correlation is presented in terms of the Nusselt and Rayleigh numbers. Steady state conditions are obtained for the nondimensional time approximately equal to .005. Circumferential heat transfer coefficient variations are shown with larger values occurring near the top of the cylinder. Axial coefficients vary within approximately 10 percent with the largest values occurring near the center of the cylinder. With respect to test conditions at the AEDC facility, the convective components appear to be less than 10 percent of the radiative heat flux to the cylinder walls when a high temperature gas air is enclosed in the cylinder.