Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer of Natural Convection Adjacent to Upward-Facing Inclined, Heated Plates

Turbulent transition mechanisms and local heat transfer characteristics of the natural convective flows over upward-facing, inclined plates were investigated experimentally. The experiments were performed in the range of modified local Rayleigh numbers from 104 to 8×1014 and of inclination angles θ from 0 to 90°. The flow fields over the plate and the surface temperatures of the plate were visualized with dye and liquid crystal thermometry. The results showed that longitudinal vortices play a main role on the turbulent transition over the plates of θ