Experimental analysis of the air flow field over a hot flat plate

The present study relates to an experimental analysis of the flow field in the air above a flat, hot metallic plate in the absence of externally-induced streams. As widespread instrumentation of the domain was excluded in order to prevent measurements being affected by the sensors, in this work a criterion used in previous works by the same author was adopted, involving the use of a light coil as a partial tracer of the air flow field. The study measures the variation of the angular velocity of the coil with variations in the temperature of the hot plate beneath and other influencing parameters related to the geometry of the tracer. The results, in the case of a meanly regular behaviour in the broader sense described in the text, show a number of interesting particularities for lighter coils. The paper concludes with a numerical correlation of the experimental data, performed using the Mathematica® code, in order to extend the discrete results of the tests in a continuous way.