Free convection in tilted rectangular enclosures heated at the bottom wall and vented by different slots-venting arrangements

Free convection from a tilted rectangular enclosure heated at the bottom wall and vented by uniform slots opening at different walls of the enclosure was experimentally investigated. The experiments were carried out to study the effects of venting arrangement, opening ratio and enclosure's tilt angle on the passive cooling of the enclosure. The experiments were carried out at a constant heat flux of 250 W/m(2) and for enclosure tilt angles ranging from 0degrees to 180degrees. Three different venting arrangements of the air from the enclosure were studied: (1) top-venting arrangement, (2) side-venting arrangement, and (3) top and side-venting arrangement. Each venting arrangement was studied at different opening ratios of 1, 0.75, 0.5 and 0.25. The results showed that: (1) for top-venting arrangement, the Nusselt number decreases as the tilt angle of the enclosure increases, (2) for side-venting and side and top-venting arrangements, the Nusselt number increases as the tilt angle increases in the range {[}0degrees, 90degrees], then it decreases with the increase of the tilt angle, (3) for the three venting arrangements and at any tilt angle, the Nusselt number increases with the increase of the opening ratio of the slots, (4) for any tilt angle and at any opening ratio, the top and side-venting arrangement has the highest rate of cooling of the enclosure, and (5) for small tilt angles, the rate of cooling of the enclosure for top-venting arrangement was higher than that for side-venting arrangement, but with increasing tilt angle, the rate of cooling for side-venting arrangement becomes higher than that for top-venting arrangement. Correlations were developed for the three venting arrangements to predict the average Nusselt number of the enclosure in terms of the opening ratio and the enclosure tilt angle. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.