Find the convective heat transfer coefficient

AI Thread Summary
The discussion centers on calculating the convective heat transfer coefficient (h) for petrol in a flow scenario, with initial calculations yielding a value of 14,533.475 W/m²K, which seemed high to the poster. The Reynolds number (Re) was calculated using the formula Re = Dup/μ, with varying inputs leading to different results; one participant calculated Re to be approximately 126,500, suggesting the initial value may have been underestimated. Another user confirmed their own Re calculation as 125,200 and subsequently calculated h to be 30,950 W/m²K using established equations from a heat transfer textbook. The conversation highlights the importance of using accurate values for viscosity and density in these calculations. Overall, the forum members provided guidance on refining the calculations and confirmed the plausibility of the results.
Carlo09
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Ok it's my first time here and I was hoping to get some help on some questions I have been given. I am a first year chem eng and I'm finding the work pretty hard so any help at all will be useful, thanks.

I need to find the convective heat transfer coefficient, h for petrol using this equation:

hD/Lamdaf = 0.37 Re^0.6

so using information I am given:

D = 3mm = 0.003m
Lamdaf (thermal conductivity) = 0.145 w/m k
(M)=viscosity = 0.0006 Pa s
u=Velocity of petrol = 19.2 m/s
P=density of petrol = 737.22 kg/m^3

Ok so to calculate Re I am using: Dup/(M) = (0.003*19.2*737.22)/0.0006 = 70773.12

Is this correct so far?

Then I put this back into the equation and rearrange for h which I get to be =14533.475! w/m^2 k

Is this correct because it seems very big to me! if not please can someone point me into the right direction... thank you very much!
 
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I'm assuming this is flow through a pipe? You seem to have run the numbers correctly, and that convective coefficient doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility to me.

Your Reynold's number does seem a bit low, I caluclated 126,500 but I might have used some fuzzy numbers in there.
 
It says the temperature of petrol is monitored by a thermocouple in the flow, so I'm guessing pipes?

How did you get your Re at that value? Have i used the wrong values to calculate it?

Thank you for your help
 
I calculated the Reynold's number using the equation:

Re_{D}=\frac{\rho*u_{m}*D}{\mu}

where
\rho=719\frac{kg}{m^{3}}
u_{m}=19.2\frac{m}{s}
D=3mm
\mu=3.3*10^{-4}Pa*s

With these inputs the Reynold's number works out to 125,200.
 
So since I was a third of the way there anyway, I went ahead and tried calculating the convective heat transfer coefficient. The equations I used are out of my heat transfer textbook, "Introduction to Heat Transfer" by Incropera and DeWitt.

The answer I got was h= 30,950 W/m^2*K

I attached the MathCAD sheet I used to calculate it rather than trying to type it out in Latex.
 

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