Cooling of an objetct by forced convection

Abstract

We present an experiment on forced convection where a previously heated object is cooled under the effect of a controlled stream of air. We consider a square copper plate in which temperature variations can be considered negligible and we measure the cooling rate as a function of the average velocity of the air stream. We use a thermal camera to measure the temperature field and the cooling curves as a function of time for different conditions. An empirical relation between the characteristic cooling time and the mean velocity of the air stream is reported. The results obtained are discussed in the framework of simple dimensional models and their limits of validity.