Measurements of Natural Convection and Surface Radiation from a Heated Vertical Plate Immersed in Quiescent Air at Sub-Atmospheric Pressures

Abstract

In this article, natural convection and surface radiation from a vertical plate to air have been measured for vertical plates with several total emissivities of the vertical plate surface. The experiments were conducted under a variety of pressures, ranging from atmospheric pressure at 760 mmHg to a very low 4 × 10⁻⁵ mmHg. It has been demonstrated that at the lowest possible pressure, the mechanism of natural convection vanishes, and the mechanism of surface radiation predominates, depending on the value of the total emissivity.

Keywords:

• natural convection
• surface radiation
• vertical plate
• air
• sub-atmospheric pressure