"Laboratory/Demonstration Experiments in Heat Transfer: Free Convection"

One excellent method for reinforcing course content is to involve students in laboratory exercises or demonstrations which are designed to compare experimental data with data or correlations from the literature.As part of the requirements for CHEG 3143, Heat Transport, and CHEG 3232, Laboratory II, junior level chemical engineering students were required to perform simple heat transfer experiments using inexpensive materials that are readily available in most engineering departments.The design, implementation and analysis of three of these experiments are described in this paper.Unavoidable forced convection (with limited resources) caused the correction factors to be > 1 for the horizontal plate and the horizontal mercury-in-glass thermometer.Any effect of forced convection on the vertical plate was offset by a lowering of the convection coefficient, since the lower edge of the plate was close to a horizontal table top, and this retarded the free convection flows relative to an isolated vertical plate suspended in a very large room.