Sei sulla pagina 1di 8

12/16/2019 Nusselt number - Wikipedia

Nusselt number
In fluid dynamics, the Nusselt number (Nu) is the ratio of convective to conductive heat transfer at
a boundary in a fluid. Convection includes both advection (fluid motion) and diffusion (conduction).
The conductive component is measured under the same conditions as the convective but for a
hypothetically motionless fluid. It is a dimensionless number, closely related to the fluid's Rayleigh
number.[1]

A Nusselt number of value one represents heat transfer by pure conduction.[2] A value between one
and 10 is characteristic of slug flow or laminar flow.[3] A larger Nusselt number corresponds to more
active convection, with turbulent flow typically in the 100–1000 range.[3] The Nusselt number is
named after Wilhelm Nusselt, who made significant contributions to the science of convective heat
transfer.[4]

A similar non-dimensional property is the Biot number, which concerns thermal conductivity for a
solid body rather than a fluid. The mass transfer analogue of the Nusselt number is the Sherwood
number.

Contents
Definition
Context
Derivation
Empirical Correlations
Free convection
Free convection at a vertical wall
Free convection from horizontal plates
Flat plate in laminar flow
Forced convection in turbulent pipe flow
Gnielinski correlation
Dittus-Boelter equation
Sieder-Tate correlation
Forced convection in fully developed laminar pipe flow
Convection with uniform temperature for circular tubes
Convection with uniform heat flux for circular tubes
See also
External links
References

Definition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nusselt_number 1/8
12/16/2019 Nusselt number - Wikipedia

The Nusselt number is the ratio of convective to conductive heat transfer across a boundary. The
convection and conduction heat flows are parallel to each other and to the surface normal of the
boundary surface, and are all perpendicular to the mean fluid flow in the simple case.

where h is the convective heat transfer coefficient of the flow, L is the characteristic length, k is the
thermal conductivity of the fluid.

Selection of the characteristic length should be in the direction of growth (or thickness) of the
boundary layer; some examples of characteristic length are: the outer diameter of a cylinder in
(external) cross flow (perpendicular to the cylinder axis), the length of a vertical plate undergoing
natural convection, or the diameter of a sphere. For complex shapes, the length may be defined
as the volume of the fluid body divided by the surface area.
The thermal conductivity of the fluid is typically (but not always) evaluated at the film temperature,
which for engineering purposes may be calculated as the mean-average of the bulk fluid
temperature and wall surface temperature.
In contrast to the definition given above, known as average Nusselt number, local Nusselt number is
defined by taking the length to be the distance from the surface boundary[5] to the local point of
interest.

The mean, or average, number is obtained by integrating the expression over the range of interest,
such as:[6]

Context
An understanding of convection boundary layers is necessary to understanding convective heat
transfer between a surface and a fluid flowing past it. A thermal boundary layer develops if the fluid
free stream temperature and the surface temperatures differ. A temperature profile exists due to the
energy exchange resulting from this temperature difference.

The heat transfer rate can then be written as,

And because heat transfer at the surface is by conduction,

Thermal Boundary Layer

These two terms are equal; thus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nusselt_number 2/8
12/16/2019 Nusselt number - Wikipedia

Rearranging,

Making it dimensionless by multiplying by representative length L,

The right hand side is now the ratio of the temperature gradient at the surface to the reference
temperature gradient, while the left hand side is similar to the Biot modulus. This becomes the ratio
of conductive thermal resistance to the convective thermal resistance of the fluid, otherwise known as
the Nusselt number, Nu.

Derivation
The Nusselt number may be obtained by a non-dimensional analysis of Fourier's law since it is equal
to the dimensionless temperature gradient at the surface:

, where q is the heat transfer rate, k is the constant thermal conductivity and T the
fluid temperature.

Indeed, if: , and

we arrive at

then we define

so the equation becomes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nusselt_number 3/8
12/16/2019 Nusselt number - Wikipedia

By integrating over the surface of the body:

where

Empirical Correlations
Typically, for free convection, the average Nusselt number is expressed as a function of the Rayleigh
number and the Prandtl number, written as:

Otherwise, for forced convection, the Nusselt number is generally a function of the Reynolds number
and the Prandtl number, or

Empirical correlations for a wide variety of geometries are available that express the Nusselt number
in the aforementioned forms.

Free convection

Free convection at a vertical wall


Cited[7] as coming from Churchill and Chu:

Free convection from horizontal plates


If the characteristic length is defined

where is the surface area of the plate and is its perimeter.

Then for the top surface of a hot object in a colder environment or bottom surface of a cold object in a
hotter environment[7]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nusselt_number 4/8
12/16/2019 Nusselt number - Wikipedia

And for the bottom surface of a hot object in a colder environment or top surface of a cold object in a
hotter environment[7]

Forced convection on flat plate

Flat plate in laminar flow


The local Nusselt number for laminar flow over a flat plate, at a distance downstream from the edge
of the plate, is given by[8]

The average Nusselt number for laminar flow over a flat plate, from the edge of the plate to a
downstream distance , is given by[8]

[9]

Forced convection in turbulent pipe flow

Gnielinski correlation
Gnielinski's correlation for turbulent flow in tubes:[8][10]

where f is the Darcy friction factor that can either be obtained from the Moody chart or for smooth
tubes from correlation developed by Petukhov:[8]

The Gnielinski Correlation is valid for:[8]

Dittus-Boelter equation
The Dittus-Boelter equation (for turbulent flow) is an explicit function for calculating the Nusselt
number. It is easy to solve but is less accurate when there is a large temperature difference across the
fluid. It is tailored to smooth tubes, so use for rough tubes (most commercial applications) is
cautioned. The Dittus-Boelter equation is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nusselt_number 5/8
12/16/2019 Nusselt number - Wikipedia

where:

is the inside diameter of the circular duct


is the Prandtl number
for the fluid being heated, and for the fluid being cooled.[7]

The Dittus-Boelter equation is valid for [11]

Example The Dittus-Boelter equation is a good approximation where temperature differences


between bulk fluid and heat transfer surface are minimal, avoiding equation complexity and iterative
solving. Taking water with a bulk fluid average temperature of 20 °C, viscosity 10.07×10−4 Pa·s and a
heat transfer surface temperature of 40 °C (viscosity 6.96×10−4, a viscosity correction factor for
can be obtained as 1.45. This increases to 3.57 with a heat transfer surface temperature of
100 °C (viscosity 2.82×10−4 Pa·s), making a significant difference to the Nusselt number and the heat
transfer coefficient.

Sieder-Tate correlation
The Sieder-Tate correlation for turbulent flow is an implicit function, as it analyzes the system as a
nonlinear boundary value problem. The Sieder-Tate result can be more accurate as it takes into
account the change in viscosity ( and ) due to temperature change between the bulk fluid average
temperature and the heat transfer surface temperature, respectively. The Sieder-Tate correlation is
normally solved by an iterative process, as the viscosity factor will change as the Nusselt number
changes.[12]

[7]

where:

is the fluid viscosity at the bulk fluid temperature


is the fluid viscosity at the heat-transfer boundary surface temperature

The Sieder-Tate correlation is valid for[7]

Forced convection in fully developed laminar pipe flow


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nusselt_number 6/8
12/16/2019 Nusselt number - Wikipedia

For fully developed internal laminar flow, the Nusselt numbers tend towards a constant value for long
pipes.

For internal Flow:

where:

Dh = Hydraulic diameter
kf = thermal conductivity of the fluid
h = convective heat transfer coefficient

Convection with uniform temperature for circular tubes


From Incropera & DeWitt,[13]

OEIS sequence A282581 gives this value as .

Convection with uniform heat flux for circular tubes


For the case of constant surface heat flux,[13]

See also
Sherwood number (mass transfer Nusselt number)
Churchill–Bernstein equation
Biot number
Reynolds number
Convective heat transfer
Heat transfer coefficient
Thermal conductivity

External links
Simple derivation of the Nusselt number from Newton's law of cooling (http://www.jhu.edu/virtlab/h
eat/nusselt/nusselt.htm) (Accessed 23 September 2009)

References
1. Çengel, Yunus A. (2002). Heat and Mass Transfer (Second ed.). McGraw-Hill. p. 466.
2. Çengel, Yunus A. (2002). Heat and Mass Transfer (Second ed.). McGraw-Hill. p. 336.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nusselt_number 7/8
12/16/2019 Nusselt number - Wikipedia

3. "The Nusselt Number" (http://pages.jh.edu/~virtlab/heat/nusselt/nusselt.htm). Whiting School of


Engineering. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
4. Çengel, Yunus A. (2002). Heat and Mass Transfer (Second ed.). McGraw-Hill. p. 336.
5. Yunus A. Çengel (2003). Heat Transfer: a Practical Approach (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
6. E. Sanvicente; et al. (2012). "Transitional natural convection flow and heat transfer in an open
channel". International Journal of Thermal Sciences. 63: 87–104.
doi:10.1016/j.ijthermalsci.2012.07.004 (https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.ijthermalsci.2012.07.004).
7. Incropera, Frank P.; DeWitt, David P. (2000). Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer (4th ed.).
New York: Wiley. p. 493. ISBN 978-0-471-30460-9.
8. Incropera, Frank P.; DeWitt, David P. (2007). Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer (6th ed.).
Hoboken: Wiley. pp. 490, 515. ISBN 978-0-471-45728-2.
9. Incropera, Frank P. Fundamentals of heat and mass transfer. John Wiley & Sons, 2011.
10. Gnielinski, Volker (1975). "Neue Gleichungen für den Wärme- und den Stoffübergang in turbulent
durchströmten Rohren und Kanälen". Forsch. Ing.-Wes. 41 (1): 8–16.
11. Incropera, Frank P.; DeWitt, David P. (2007). Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer (6th ed.).
New York: Wiley. p. 514. ISBN 978-0-471-45728-2.
12. "Temperature Profile in Steam Generator Tube Metal" (http://www.profjrwhite.com/math_methods/
pdf_files_hw/sgtm3.pdf) (PDF). Retrieved 23 September 2009.
13. Incropera, Frank P.; DeWitt, David P. (2002). Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer (5th ed.).
Hoboken: Wiley. pp. 486, 487. ISBN 978-0-471-38650-6.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nusselt_number&oldid=930374018"

This page was last edited on 12 December 2019, at 01:16 (UTC).

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this
site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nusselt_number 8/8

Potrebbero piacerti anche