Forced convection from a heated flat plate

Abstract

Heat-transfer coefficients are calculated for forced convection from a heated flat plate, of finite breadth and infinite span, at zero incidence to a steady stream of viscous, incompressible fluid. The complete range of the Reynolds number R is considered and the results for large R are compared with the Pohlhausen boundary-layer solution for a plate of infinite breadth with the Blasius velocity field.

It is found that the heat transfer from the trailing edge of the plate is important for small Reynolds numbers but steadily diminishes as R increases. The limiting value of the heat-transfer coefficient at the leading edge agrees to good accuracy with Pohlhausen's result and the corresponding overall heat-transfer coefficient is within 3% of Pohlhausen's value for an equal length of the infinite plate measured from the leading edge. The results over the whole Reynolds-number range are probably correct to this order of accuracy.

The Reynolds analogy between skin friction and heat transfer, exactly true at large Reynolds numbers, is found to be inadequate at small values of R, as may then be expected, due to the existence of a pressure gradient parallel to the plate.