Heat transfer at a laminar free convection and separated flow past a rib in a vertical channel with isothermal walls

The results of numerical computations of a free laminar convection and heat transfer between two parallel isothermal plates in the presence of a single rib on the channel surface are presented. The investigations have been conducted for a channel with the aspect ratio AR = L/w = 10, where L is the channel height, and w is the distance between the plates. An infinitely thin adiabatic rib was located on one of the channel walls in the middle of its height. The relative rib height l/w was varied in the range 0÷0.8. The wall temperature was higher than the ambient temperature, and the Rayleigh number was varied in the range Ra = 10²÷10⁵. The main attention has been paid to the study of the influence of the rib height and the Rayleigh number on local and integral heat transfer and the Reynolds number in the channel (the convective thrust). A fundamental difference in the heat transfer over the channel height has been shown on the ribbed wall and on a smooth surface. The computational results have been compared with the case of a symmetric distribution of the ribs on the both walls with the integral height equal to a single rib.