DISCUSSSION

The purpose of the experiment of Forced Convection Heat Transfer were to

demonstrate the use of extended surface to improve heat transfer from the surface and to
determine the temperature distribution along an extended surface.

Based on the experiment, the theory involved in forced convection were when a fluid
is forced past a solid body and heat is transferred between the fluid and the body, this is
called forced convection heat transfer. More heat is transferred if the air velocity is increased
over the heated surface. The fluid is constantly being replaced and the rates of heat transfer
are higher than the natural convection which has low velocity. In the case of low velocities,
where rates of natural convection heat transfer are comparable to forced convection heat
transfer, the Grashofs number is still significant. But in general the influence of natural
circulation, depending as it does on coefficient of thermal expansion and on the gravitational
acceleration, is replaced by dependence on circulation velocities and the Reynolds number.
Heat transfer from an object also can be improved by increasing the surface area in contact
with the air. In practice, it may be difficult to increase the size of body to suit. The surface
area in contact with the air may be increase by adding fins or pins normal to the surface.
These features are called extended surface. The effect of the extended surface can be
demonstrated by comparing finned and pinned surfaces with a flat plate under the same
condition of power input and airflow.

Basically the experiment was started with placing the flat plate heat exchange into the
duct. Next, the ambient air temperature was recorded and set the heater power control. The
temperature was allowed to rise until 80C, then the heater power was adjusted to 20W. After
the setting process, the heated plate temperature was recorded, tH at air velocity 0.0 m/s. After
that, the step was repeated with different air velocity, 1.0 and 1.5 m/s and the result was
recorded. The experiment was repeated by replacing the flat plate with the finned and pinned
plate.

Based on results in the table, the heater temperature for flat, pinned and finned plate
were significantly decreases as the air velocity increases. This is because the heat transfer is
higher when the air velocity of the fluid or air is in contact with the surface of plate. The
different temperature of the heater temperature and the ambient temperature were calculated
to determine which plate has the most high heat transfer from the plate to the air with
different air velocity. Based on the results obtained, it can be concluded the pinned plate has
the highest heat transfer. The heat loss for the pinned plate from 0.0 m/s to 1.5 m/s was
higher than the flat and finned plate. Thus, the experiment was followed the theory which
more heat is transferred if the air velocity is increased over the heated surface.
 Furthermore, the results obtained shows that pinned plate has the highest heat transfer
compared to flat and finned plate. This was caused due to the different surface area. Flat plate
has the lowest surface area so that the air resistance is lower compared to the other plate.
Meanwhile, for the finned plate and the pinned plate, each of it has different surface area and
air resistance due to the total heat transfer was depended on the contact of air movement with
the surface of plates. The higher the surface area, the higher the heat transfer from an object.
Thus, the experiment followed the theory given which the increasing surface area will
improve the heat transfer.

There were few possible errors that occur in the experiment. Firstly, the ambient air
may be slightly different from the actual temperature due to the presence of air-conditioner in
the laboratory. Moreover, free convection was not perfect, and at times, the heat transfer
problem resembled that of forced convection. Based on the error stated, the desired results
could not be obtain.
REFERENCE

https://web.njit.edu/~slm22/dl/manole_lab3.pdf
www.scribd.com/document/306281790/Transport-Lab-Report-
Experiment-2-docx

RESULT

Air Heater temperature, tH (C) tH tA (C)

Velocity
( m/s ) Flat Pinned Finned Flat Pinned Finned
0.0 82.1 75.8 73.1 58.7 52.4 49.7

1.0 81.8 65.3 65.3 58.4 41.9 41.9

1.5 81.5 55.4 57.3 58.1 32.0 33.9