A correlation for heat transfer during laminar natural convection in an enclosure

containing uniform mixture of air and hydrogen

Nilesh Agrawal
a,
, Seik Mansoor Ali
a
, K. Velusamy
b
, Sarit K. Das
c
a
Safety Research Institute, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Government of India, Kalpakkam, 603102, India
b
Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India Kalpakkam, 603102, India
c
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, 603102, India
a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o
Available online 9 September 2011
Keywords:
Gas mixture
Natural convection
Temperature dependent properties
Heat transfer correlation
In this paper, a correlation for heat transfer due to laminar natural convection in a rectangular enclosure con-
taining a uniform mixture of hydrogen and air with vertical walls at different temperatures is proposed. This
correlation is in terms of Nusselt and Rayleigh numbers evaluated by taking properties of air alone. Mixture
properties, viz., density, viscosity, specic heat capacity and thermal conductivity are not needed in this cor-
relation. A modication factor which is based on the mole fraction of hydrogen in the mixture accounts for
the differences in heat exchange due to differences in the properties of mixture and pure air. Thus, this cor-
relation is easier to use for a dilute mixture of hydrogen and air as compared to the conventional correlations
that are based on mixture properties which may be cumbersome to evaluate. Further, the results highlight
that heat transfer correlations for a mixture of gases can be expressed in terms non-dimensional numbers
for dominant gas and a correction factor for the gas mixing with it. An in-house code HDS (Hydrogen Distri-
bution Simulator), which has well validated modules for calculation of mixture properties, has been used to
carry out numerical study and establish this heat transfer correlation.
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Natural convection is encountered in many engineering applica-
tions including electronic devices, refrigeration and air conditioning,
building insulation, solar energy etc. Due to its passive nature, it is
the preferred mode of heat removal in nuclear applications including
decay heat removal and containment cooling. A detailed review of lit-
erature dealing with natural convection heat transfer from isolated
vertical and horizontal surfaces was given by Khalifa [1,2]. A critical
review of natural convection in enclosures has been presented by
Ostrach [3]. Detailed scaling law for growth of boundary layers and
Nusselt number are provided by Bejan [4]. Transient development
of natural convection in enclosures has been addressed by Patterson
and Imberger [5], Leal et al. [6] and Sai et al. [7]. De Vahl Davis and
Jones [8] have provided a benchmark solution for laminar natural
convection in enclosures for Rayleigh number in the range of 10
3
to
10
6
. Markatos and Pericleous [9] demonstrated the use of standard
k-epsilon model for turbulent natural convection in square enclosures
for Rayleigh numbers in the range of 10
3
to 10
16
.
Fromthe above literature survey, it is seen that the correlations for
heat transfer need non-dimensional numbers (Rayleigh number and
Nusselt number) which are based on uid properties (density, dy-
namic viscosity, thermal conductivity and specic heat). The physical
properties of a mixture of gases, like hydrogen and air, may not be
readily available at different concentrations. Thus, there is a need to
evolve a methodology to evaluate heat transfer coefcient for a uid
which is a mixture of gases (with one gas as dominant species).
In the present paper, a correlation for heat transfer during laminar
natural convectionin a rectangular enclosure containing a uniformmix-
ture of hydrogen and air with vertical walls at different temperatures is
developed. In this correlation, Nusselt and Rayleigh numbers are evalu-
ated by taking properties of air alone (which is the dominant gas in the
enclosure). Property variation due to different mixture composition is
accounted through a modication factor. Thus, this correlation is easier
to use as compared to the conventional correlations that are based on
mixture properties which are cumbersome to evaluate. An in-house
code HDS (Hydrogen Distribution Simulator), which has well validated
modules for calculation of mixture properties, has been used to carry
out numerical studies and establish this heat transfer correlation.
2. The mathematical model
2.1. Governing equations
Natural convection process in the enclosure is governed by con-
servation equations of mass momentum and energy represented by
the Eqs. (1)(4). These equations are given below:
International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 39 (2012) 2429
Communicated by: A.R. Balakrishnan and T. Basak.
Corresponding author at: Room No. 206, Safety Research Institute, AERB, IGCAR
Campus, Kalpakkam, 603102, India.
E-mail address: nilesh_agrawal@igcar.gov.in (N. Agrawal).
0735-1933/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.icheatmasstransfer.2011.08.022
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ i chmt
Continuity:

V
_ _
0 1
The mixture continuity equation is converted into a pressure cor-
rection equation.
X-momentum equation
u
t
u

V
_ _

p
x
u 2
Y-momentum equation
v
t
v

V
_ _

p
y
v B
y
3a
The body force term (B
y
) is treated differently for Boussinesq As-
sumption (BA) and Temperature Dependent Properties (TDP) as
given in Eqs. (3b) and (3c), respectively.
B
y

ref
1T g 3b
B
y
g 3c
Energy equation
C
p
T
t
C
p
T

V
_ _
kT 4
The governing equations in Cartesian co-ordinate system are dis-
cretized using rst order upwind scheme for convective terms and
second order central difference scheme for diffusion terms. The set
of linear equations formed after discretization of the momentum, en-
ergy and pressure correction equations are solved using the tri-
diagonal matrix algorithm. Alternate direction implicit scheme is in-
corporated for faster convergence.
2.2. Property calculation in HDS code
HDS has in-built subroutines for evaluation of physical properties
based on concentration of species and temperature. The models for
physical properties as implemented in the code HDS are given in
Eqs. (5) to (8). The theoretical background of these formulations
can be found in Bird et al. [10]. The concentration of the species is
taken as an input parameter. The code then calculates the properties
of the individual species at discrete temperatures using Lennard Jones
table given in [10] and Lagrange interpolation and stores them in ar-
rays before the simulation begins. During simulation runs, it uses La-
grange interpolation to evaluate the properties at cell temperatures.
Density:

ref

A
X
A

A;ref

ref
T

ref
T
ref
T
5
Viscosity: viscosity based on Chapman Enskog theory [10]

A
2:6693 10
6

M
A
T
_

2
A

A
X
A

B
X
B

AB
6
Where
AB

1

8
p
1 M
A
M
B
_ _
1=2
1

A

B
_ _
1=2
M
B
M
A
_ _
1=4
_ _
2
Nomenclature
A Coefcients in the heat transfer correlation and poly-
nomial t
B
y
Body force in y-direction
C
p
Specic heat capacity, [J/kgK]
g Acceleration due to gravity, [m/s
2
]
h Coefcient of heat transfer, [W/m
2
K]
H Height of the cavity, [m]
k Thermal conductivity, [W/(mK)]
L Width of the cavity, [m]
M Molecular weight, [kg/kmol]
Nu Nusselt number (= hL/k), [dimensionless]
p Pressure, (N/m
2
)
R Universal gas constant [J/kmolK]
Ra Rayleigh number, (gTH
3
/), [dimensionless]
T Temperature, [K]
t Time, [s]

V Velocity vector [m/s]

u, v x and y direction velocities, [m/s]
X Mole fraction [dimensionless]
x, y Coordinate directions, [m]
Symbols
Thermal diffusivity, (=k/C
p
), [m
2
/s]
Coefcient of thermal expansion, [1/K]
Dynamic viscosity, [Ns/m
2
]
Kinematic viscosity, (=/) [m
2
/s]
Modication factor
Density [kg/m
3
]
Collision diameter, [L]
A factor appearing in Eq. (6)
Mass fraction of a species, [dimensionless]
Collision integral, [dimensionless]
Superscript
m, n Exponents in the heat transfer correlation
Subscripts
A,B Species index
H Parameters based on height of the enclosure
H
2
Parameters referring to Hydrogen
L Parameters based on width of the enclosure
ref Reference
air Parameters referring to air
mix Parameters referring to mixture of hydrogen and air
Refers to cross-section at half the enclosure height
Abbreviations
BA Boussinesq Assumption
TDP Temperature Dependent Properties
25 N. Agrawal et al. / International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 39 (2012) 2429
Thermal conductivity: Based on Euken formula [10]
k
A
C
p

5
4
R
M
_ _

k
A
X
A
k
A

B
X
B

AB
7
Specic heat capacity: polynomial t [11]
C
p
A
0
A
1
T A
2
T
2
A
3
T
3
A
4
T
4
C
p;mix

A
X
A
M
A
C
p;A
_ _

A
X
A
M
A
_ _
8
The coefcients A
0
to A
4
taken from Turns [11] are input to the
code through a text le. The physical properties subroutines were
rst validated against data given in Turns [11], Incropera [12] and
Yaws [13]. Details of validation of the numerical code and the proper-
ties modules are reported elsewhere [14,15].
3. Problem denition
Inadvertent release of hydrogen in enclosed spaces will initially
form a stratied layer at the top of the enclosures. Driving mechanisms
such as jet induced mixing, natural convection and molecular diffusion
would form a homogeneous mixture of hydrogen and air in due course
of time. In a previous study (Agrawal et al. [16]), an index called Non-
uniformity index was used to estimate the time required to formnearly
uniform mixture of hydrogen and air in the enclosure. Heat transfer
characteristics of the uniform mixture thus formed are explored in the
present study.
Natural convection is studied for 2D enclosures shown in Fig. 1.
The enclosure has two adiabatic horizontal walls (bottom and top)
and two isothermal vertical walls maintained at different tempera-
tures T
h
and T
c
. Rayleigh number (Ra
H
) is varied by changing the di-
mensions of the enclosure for a constant temperature difference of
30 K around a reference temperature of 300 K. The cell sizes are cho-
sen in such a way that cells near the wall are ner compared to the
centre and ow near the wall is adequately resolved. All the physical
properties are evaluated at 300 K. Two cases are considered in the
paper as given below.
Case 1. Natural convection in enclosure lled with air.
Case 2. Natural convection in enclosure lled with uniform mixture
of hydrogen and air.
Case 1 is used to reproduce the heat transfer correlation given in
literature so that the results from the numerical procedure is validat-
ed and then Case 2 is used to obtain the correlation for heat transfer in
a uniform mixture of hydrogen air mixture.
In order to arrive at the correlation for laminar natural convection
in hydrogen air mixture presented in this paper, parametric studies
have been carried out. The ranges of the parameters used in the
study are as follows:
Rayleigh number (Ra
H
): 10
3
to 10
7
Aspect ratio (H/L): 1 to 10
Hydrogen mole fraction (X
H2
): 0 to 0.2
Grid independence study was carried out for all the cases men-
tioned in this paper and grid independent results on the nest grid
are presented.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Case 1: Natural convection in enclosure lled with air
Numerical study of natural convection in air lled enclosures was
carried out using both Boussinesq Assumption (BA) and Temperature
Dependent Properties (TDP) and results have been presented in
Table 1. The vertical velocity prole on the horizontal mid plane,
i.e., plane at y=H/2 is given in Fig. 2. The results of simulations
with BA and TDP are comparable and in subsequent studies TDP is
used as it represents real situation.
Fig. 1. Setup of the numerical experiment and boundary conditions.
Table 1
Comparison of natural convection parameters for (a) Ra
H
=10
3
, (b) Ra
H
=10
4
, (c) Ra
H
=10
5
and (d) Ra
H
=10
6
(BMK=Results of de Vahl Davis [8]).
Sl.
no.
Parameter Ra 10
3
(3030 grid) Ra 10
4
(4040 grid) Ra 10
5
(5050 grid) Ra 10
6
(8080 grid)
BMK BA TDP BMK BA TDP BMK BA TDP BMK BA TDP
1 Nu
av
1.118 1.136 1.191 2.243 2.249 2.461 4.519 4.541 4.984 8.88 9.042 9.874
2 Nu
1/2
1.118 1.109 1.161 2.243 2.277 2.484 4.519 4.538 4.873 8.799 8.308 8.888
3 Nu
min
0.692 0.726 0.689 0.586 0.63 0.653 0.729 0.813 0.823 0.989 1.174 1.168
y 1 0.99 0.99 1 0.993 0.993 1 0.995 0.995 1 0.995 0.995
4 Nu
max
1.505 1.517 1.652 3.528 3.564 3.954 7.717 7.744 8.851 17.93 18.64 21.46
y 0.092 0.104 0.104 0.143 0.136 0.136 0.081 0.083 0.07 0.038 0.038 0.027
5 V
max
3.697 3.613 3.465 19.62 19.39 17.4 68.59 68.92 61.87 219.4 222.7 198.94
y 0.178 0.185 0.185 0.119 0.115 0.115 0.066 0.063 0.063 0.038 0.038 0.038
6 U
max
3.649 3.539 3.414 16.18 15.95 13.85 34.73 35.11 28.73 64.63 66.41 56.66
x 1.118 1.136 1.191 2.243 2.249 2.461 0.855 0.86 0.845 0.85 0.858 0.858
26 N. Agrawal et al. / International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 39 (2012) 2429
During natural convection, boundary layer gets formed near the
hot and cold walls. In the boundary layer regime, where the thermal
boundary layers near the vertical walls are distinct, the correlation
for natural convection can be put in the form given in Eq. (9).
Nu
L
A
L
H
_ _
m
Ra
n
H
9
where Nu
L

hL
k
and Ra
H

gTH
3

The two exponents n and m were sequentially determined with

the help of numerical simulations. For square enclosures, the aspect
ratio is unity and the exponent n could be determined using curve
tting on data for square enclosures. The coefcient A and exponent
m were then evaluated using curve tting on the data for square
and rectangular enclosures as shown in Fig. 3. Thus, a correlation of
the form given in Eq. (10) is obtained for natural convection in enclo-
sures containing air. This correlation is taken as the basis for obtaining
heat transfer correlation for uniform mixture of hydrogen and air
Nu
L
0:150
L
H
_ _
1:092
Ra
H
0:305
10
where
10
3
Ra
H
10
7
1H=L10
_
4.2. Case 2: Natural convection in enclosure lled with uniform mixture
of hydrogen and air
The change in physical properties of hydrogen air mixture with
mole fraction of hydrogen is shown in Fig. 4. Density and viscosity
of the mixture decrease while thermal conductivity and specic
heat capacity increase with increasing concentration of hydrogen. It
can be seen that for X
H2
b0.2, the property curves are nearly linear.
As a result of these changes in properties, the Rayleigh number Ra
H
of the mixture decreases with mole fraction of hydrogen as shown
in Fig. 5.
The graph of Nusselt number vs Rayleigh number for square en-
closures containing different mole fractions of hydrogen is shown in
Fig. 6. Regression analyses on the curves corresponding to different
mole fractions of hydrogen show that the coefcient A decreases
Fig. 3. Variation of parameter (Nu
L
Ra
H
0.305
) with aspect ratio for Case 1.
Fig. 4. Ratio of physical properties of hydrogen air mixture vs mole fraction of
hydrogen.
Fig. 5. Ratio of Rayleigh number of hydrogen air mixture to Rayleigh number of air vs
mole fraction of hydrogen.
Fig. 2. Vertical velocity component at y=H/2 for (a) Ra
H
=10
3
and (b) Ra
H
=10
5
(M&P=Markatos and Pericleous [9]).
27 N. Agrawal et al. / International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 39 (2012) 2429
with mole fraction of hydrogen. A modied correlation as given in
Eq. (11) is proposed. In this correlation Nusselt number and Rayleigh
number are evaluated with physical properties of air alone at the ref-
erence temperature and the coefcient A is kept the same as in
Eq. (10). A modication factor (X
H2
) is included which is the only
term that depends on the mixture composition.
Nu
L;mix
A
L
H
_ _
m
Ra
n
H;air
11
where Nu
L;mix

hL
k
air
and Ra
H;air

gair TH
3

air

air

Nu
L;mix
Nu
L;air

k
mix
k
air
_ _
Nu
L
Nu
L;air
_ _
12
The modication factor can be approximated as given in Eq. (12)
where Nu
L,air
is the Nusselt number obtained for pure air and Nu
L,mix
is
the mixture Nusselt number obtained at a given Ra
H,air
. The depen-
dence of modication factor () on the mole fraction of hydrogen, es-
timated by around 260 parametric studies consisting of variation in
aspect ratio, Rayleigh number, and mole fraction of hydrogen, is
shown in Fig. 7. The equation for the linear curve t on the data
obtained is shown on the gure along with the coefcient of regres-
sion (R
2
). The modication factor is thus determined to be as given
in Eq. (13).
X
H2
10:664X
H2
13
Thus, the correlation for natural convection in hydrogen air mix-
ture with Nusselt number and Rayleigh number taken with respect
to air at reference temperature of 300 K is given in Eq. (14).
Nu
L;mix
0:150 10:664X
H2

L
H
_ _
1:092
Ra
0:305
H;air
14
for 110
3
Ra
H, air
V10
7
, 1H/L10 and 0X
H2
0.2
This new correlation enables the user to calculate heat transfer co-
efcient for a range of mixture composition using only the physical
properties data of air at reference temperature. In order to test the ca-
pability of the correlation obtained, further simulations were carried
out and the numerical results were compared with the values
obtained from correlation. This comparison is shown in Fig. 8. It is
seen that the correlation under-predicts the Nusselt number for
values below 4 but tends to over predict for higher values of
Nusselt number. The overall deviation from the simulated values is
within a 10% band as shown by dashed lines in the gure. Thus,
the results obtained using the code and the correlation are in reason-
able agreement and the correlation results may be used in lieu of ac-
tual numerical simulations.
5. Conclusion
In the present paper, a correlation for heat transfer during laminar
natural convection in a rectangular enclosure containing a uniform
mixture of hydrogen and air with vertical walls at different tempera-
tures is proposed. This correlation is in terms of Nusselt number and
Rayleigh number evaluated by taking properties of air alone, wherein
mixture properties like density, viscosity, specic heat capacity and
thermal conductivity are not needed. A modication factor which is
based on the mole fraction of hydrogen in the mixture accounts for
the differences in heat exchange due to differences in the properties
of mixture and pure air. This correlation is easier to use as compared
to the conventional correlations that are based on mixture properties
which may be cumbersome to evaluate for different temperatures
and mixture compositions. This study is also an indicator that similar
correlation can be obtained for a mixture of gases taking one gas (in
the present case air) as reference.
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simulations.
Fig. 6. Nusselt number vs Rayleigh number for square enclosures for different mole
fractions of hydrogen in the mixture.
28 N. Agrawal et al. / International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 39 (2012) 2429
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