Simulation and analysis of transient cooldown natural convection experiments

The characteristics of natural convection heat transfer during transient cooldown in 3-dimensional fluid layers and hemispherical cavity have been investigated by means of a finite-difference numerical method. It was found that the turbulent structure and heat transfer characteristics of the unstably-stratified upper wall region are similar for internal heating (IH) case and transient cooldown (TCD) case, except near the cooled bottom wall of fluid layer, and for a small region (φ≤15 ) near the bottom of the hemispherical cavity. For most of the surface area of the hemispherical cavity, there is excellent agreement between the heat fluxes calculated for the IH and the TCD cases. Calculations also showed that pseudosteady-state natural convection (PSSNC) is a better model for simulation of volumetric energy sources. (orig.)