The influence of convection on heat transfer in liquid tin

Heat flow through liquid tin has been measured with convective flow present in the melt. The results indicate that heat flow in the melt is enhanced by a factor of 9.6 due to this fluid flow, as compared to heat flow through a stagnant melt. The enhancement factor was found to be essentially constant at temperature differences greater than 4 °C across the melt. This is shown to be due to a constant fluid flow rate at higher temperature differences. It is noted that the thermal flow through a convective melt can be strongly limited by the thermal resistance of the container walls along the heat flow path.