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Horizontal Cylinder — Isothermal

Average h and heat rate from an isothermal horizontal cylinder in natural convection.

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Orientation alone can halve your cooling: the same plate at the same ΔT convects about twice as well with its hot face up as with its hot face down.

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Horizontal Cylinder in Natural Convection — Isothermal

Calculates the average convective heat transfer coefficient and total heat rate from a long, isothermal horizontal cylinder in a quiescent fluid. The Churchill–Chu single-cylinder correlation spans the full laminar-to-turbulent range. The ends of the cylinder are treated as adiabatic, so only the lateral surface participates.

Rayleigh Number

Properties are evaluated at the film temperature Tf=(Ts+T)/2, with the diameter as the characteristic length:

RaD=ν2gβ(TsT)D3Pr

Nusselt Number (Churchill–Chu)

Nu={0.60+[1+(0.559/Pr)9/16]8/270.387RaD1/6}2

valid for 105RaD1012.

Heat Transfer Coefficient and Heat Rate

h=DNuk,Q=h(πDL)(TsT)

References

  • Churchill, S. W. and Chu, H. H. S., Correlating Equations for Laminar and Turbulent Free Convection from a Horizontal Cylinder, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, 18, 1049, 1975.
  • Incropera, F. P. and DeWitt, D. P., Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer, eq. 9.34.
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Frequently asked questions

Average h and heat rate from an isothermal horizontal cylinder in natural convection. Enter your inputs and press Calculate — the worked solution shows every step of the method with your numbers substituted in.

When there is no fan, pump or significant draught — enclosures, outdoor surfaces on still days, passive heat sinks. If there is any imposed flow, compare the two mechanisms: when Gr/Re² is well below one, forced convection dominates and the forced-convection calculators are the right tools.

No — it computes the convective part only. At typical natural-convection coefficients of 2–10 W/m²·K, radiation from a painted or oxidised surface is often the same order of magnitude, so total heat loss should add a radiative term from the Radiation calculators.