Free Convection About a Vertical Circular Plate

This paper reports on a study of a three-dimensional numerical solution of free convection of air about a vertical circular plate for isothermal and isoflux heating conditions. The governing equations were solved in a vorticity and vector potential formulation. Fluid is drawn toward the heated plate from the bottom and the front of it. The fluid converges as it approaches the plate and moves almost vertically upward close to the plate. For the case of isoflux heating, the plate temperature at a particular radius increases with height and the location of maximum temperature shifts upward with increasing Grashof number. For both isothermal and isoflux heating conditions, the correlations between the Nusselt and Grashof numbers for the case of the circular plate have been developed as a function of the same for the flat plate under similar conditions.