A correlation for laminar mixed convection from vertical plates using transient experiments

The applicability of the transient cooling experimental technique is studied for developing a correlation for Nusselt number with other pertinent parameters for laminar aiding mixed convection flows over an isothermal vertical plate. A heated aluminum plate, modeled as a lumped system, is allowed to cool in the mixed convection environment during which the transient response of the plate is recorded using a data acquisition system. The experimentally known transient response of the plate is then compared with the numerically computed transient response to estimate the square of the residual. The minimization of this residual using Levenberg-Marquardt iterative procedure retrieves the values of relevant parameters in the correlation, whose form is assumed a priori. The experiments were conducted for a temperature range of 410-305 K and a corresponding Richardson number range 20-0.04. The retrieved values of the parameters compare well with those available in literature. © 2008 Springer-Verlag.