The effect of surface thermal radiation on heat transfer in a ventilated cavity

In this work, experimental and numerical results were obtained to analyze the effect of surface thermal radiation on heat transfer by mixed convection in a ventilated cavity. Experimental temperature profiles were obtained at six different depths and heights consisting of 14 thermocouples each. Five turbulence models were evaluated against experimental data. The radiative heat transfer model was solved with the discrete ordinate method. The effect of thermal radiation on experimental heat transfer coefficients is significant; it increases between 87% (Re = 30,372 and Ra = 3.04 × 1011) and 110% (Re = 6021 and Ra = 2.27 × 1011), when the emissivity of the walls increases from 0.03 to 0.98.