Experimental investigation of mixed convection in multiple ventilated enclosure with discrete heat sources

Mixed convection heat transfer in multiple ventilated enclosure with three numbers of discrete heat sources at bottom is investigated experimentally. Each of the three heat sources has been flush mounted at the enclosure bottom and subjected to uniform heat flux. All the walls of enclosure are insulated adequately and the enclosure can be considered as adiabatic. The enclosure is having inlet at bottom of left side wall and outlet at both the left and right sides of the roof of enclosure. The flow velocity and applied heat flux are varied. The experimental investigations were executed for AR (L/H) = 1, range of Reynolds number and Grashof number considered are 270 ⩽ Re ⩽ 6274 and 7.2 × 106 ⩽ Gr ⩽ 5.5 × 107 and as a consequence, the Richardson number obtained in the range 0.201-571. The experimental results stipulate that the heater nearest to enclosure inlet (heater-1) subjected lowest surface temperatures at all Reynolds numbers while the surface temperatures of heater-2 and heater-3 are almost same until Grashof number attains a critical value. Different correlations are proposed for Nusselt number within the range of parameters considered in the study.