Visualization of Natural Convection Heat Transfer on Horizontal Cylinder Using the Copper Electroplating System

Natural convection heat transfer phenomena on a horizontal cylinder have been studied experimentally in order to investigate the applicability of analogy experimental methodology using a copper electroplating system and to visualize the local heat transfer rates depending on the angular position and the diameter of the horizontal cylinder. In the copper electroplating system, the copper ion produced at the anode moves by convection and diffusion to the cathode and reduces at the cathode, representing the heat transfer. By using aluminum cathode with a distinguishable color, the amount of copper plated could visualize the amount of heat transferred depending on the angular position of the cylinder. The diameter of the cylinder is varied from 0.01m to 0.15m, which correspond to Rayleigh numbers in the range of 1.73x107 to 5.69x1011. The test results are in good agreement with existing heat transfer correlations