Turbulent natural convection of liquid deuterium, hydrogen and nitrogen within enclosed vessels

Quasi-steady natural convection of liquid deuterium, hydrogen, and nitrogen within a sphere, hemisphere, horizontal cylinder, and vertical cylinder has been studied experimentally for the case of a nearly uniform wall temperature. A single expression relating the Nusselt and Rayleigh numbers. Nu = 0.104 Rasup(0.352), fits the deuterium and nitrogen data over the range 7 x 108 < Ra < 6 x 1011, while the hydrogen Nusselt numbers are 8% lower. The temperature field within the vessels is virtually free of horizontal temperature gradients. A single dimensionless temperature profile characterizes the vertical temperature distribution for each vessel shape, with the profiles for the sphere, hemisphere, and horizontal cylinder being nearly identical. (author)