Convection in an enclosed space

[corus]

How do you determine the coefficient of natural convection in an enclosed rectangular space where the longer side can either be vertical or horizontal?

Is there any software that can simultaneously solve for the air flow that occurs in an enclosed space, dependent on the surface temperature difference, and thus determine the heat transfer coefficent, as well as determine the surface temperatures as unknowns?

corus

 

[ko99]

Corus,

Any good CFD software will do exactly that (Fluent, CFdesign, Flotherm, etc).

Note that in an enclosed space, convection may not be the dominant heat transfer path. The CFD model should also include the effects of radiation and conduction from the heat source to the external enclosure.

ko (

http://www.ecooling.biz)