Analysis of thermal dispersion in an array of parallel plates with fully-developed laminar flow

The effect of thermal dispersion upon heat transfer across a periodic array of parallel plates is studied. Three basic heat transfer problems are addressed, each for steady, fully-developed, laminar fluid flow: (a) transient heat transfer due to an arbitrary initial temperature distribution within the fluid, (b) steady heat transfer with constant heat flux on all plate surfaces, and (c) steady heat transfer with constant wall temperatures. For problems (a) and (b), the effective thermal dispersivity scales with the Peclet number Pe according to 1 + CPe2, where the coefficient C is independent of Pe. For problem (c) the coefficient C is a function of Pe.