Heat transfer by free convection in air from isothermal horizontal surfaces heated and facing upward has been experimentally studied by using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The local and the average heat-transfer coefficients and the temperature distributions were determined in the range of Gr Pr from 1.9 × 106 to 1.7 × 108. Measurements were compared with available experimental and theoretical results. Periodical flow instabilities caused random changes, which could reach +45 and −35 percent of mean values in the local Nusselt number and +23 and −15 percent of mean value in the average Nusselt number. The nature of the free convection flow over the heated surface and the separation of the boundary layer were inferred from these random changes in the local and average Nusselt numbers.

A Mach-Zehnder interferometer was employed to determine the three-dimensional temperature field, and the circumferential and average Nusselt numbers for laminar flow of air in the entrance region of an isothermal horizontal tube where the velocity and the temperature profiles were developing simultaneously. The influence of free convection due to buoyancy on forced convection heat transfer was investigated. The Reynolds numbers ranged from 120 to 1200, the Grashof numbers ranged from 0.8 × 104 to 8.7 × 104, and the ratio L/D was varied from 6 to 46. The free convection increases, substantially, the average Nusselt number, by up to a factor of 2.0 from the analytical predictions, which account for forced convection only, near the tube inlet. Far from the tube inlet the free convection tends to decrease the average Nusselt number below the analytical predictions.

The influence of free convection due to buoyancy on forced laminar flow of air in the entrance region of a horizontal isothermal tube was investigated. The Graetz numbers ranged form 2.5 to 110.0, the Reynolds numbers ranged from 120 to 1200, the Grashof numbers ranged from 0.8 × 104 to 8.7 × 104, and the ratio L/D was varied from 6 up to 46. The average Nusselt numbers based on the log-mean temperature difference, ranged from 2.0 to 25.9. The heat transfer data were correlated according to the influence of free convection which was found to have a significant effect at points close to the entrance to the tube.