Turbulent natural convection of air in a non-partitioned or partitioned cavity with differentially heated vertical and conducting horizontal walls

Abstract Turbulent natural convection of air in a non-partitioned or partitioned cavity with differentially heated vertical and conducting horizontal walls was studied experimentally. The dimensions of the cavity, which were 0.75 m high × 0.75 m wide × 1.5 m deep, resulted in two-dimensional flow in the mid-plane of the cavity. The hot and cold walls of the cavity were isothermal at 50 and 10 °C, respectively, giving a Rayleigh number of 1.58 × 109. Five partitions of a higher thermal conductivity material than that of the cavity were installed on the hot wall. The partitions were 150 mm long, 3 mm thick and covered the depth of the cavity. The local velocity and temperature were systematically measured at different locations in the cavity using a laser Doppler anemometer and a micro-diameter thermocouple. Both mean and fluctuation quantities are presented, i.e. ū, u′rms, v, v′rms, T , T′rms, u ′ v ′ , u ′ T ′ , and v ′ T ′ . The local and average Nusselt numbers, the wall shear stress as well as the turbulent kinetic energy are also presented. The experiments were conducted with very high accuracy and as such the results can establish experimental benchmark data and will be useful for validation of computational fluid dynamics codes.