Experimental studies of natural convection in partitioned enclosures with a Trombe wall geometry

Natural convection heat transfer was investigated in a scaled test facility of a Trombe wall geometry. A silicone oil was employed as the convecting medium to obtain large Rayleigh numbers (up to 1.5 {times} 10{sup 10}, based on enclosure height) characteristic of a full-scale Trombe wall in a passive solar building. The main objectives were to study the effects of Trombe wall nonisothermality and location on heat transfer, fluid temperature and fluid flow patterns. As expected, Nusselt numbers were slightly larger on the Trombe wall space side than on the living space side. Nusselt numbers increased slightly as the mass transfer gaps in the Trombe wall were increased. The results were verified, for the zero gap case, by comparing with previous studies. Physical understanding of the convection process was enhanced by flow visualization data. The information obtained should be useful to designers in optimizing overall building performance for passive solar heating.