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• A large majority of practical applications of heat transfer in the chemical process industries involve either heat transfer to a
fluid or heat transfer from a fluid.

• The heat flow mechanism in solids is by conduction; whereas the heat flow mechanism in fluids is due to convection.
• Convection is the transfer of heat from one point to another point within a fluid by mixing of hot and cold portions of the
fluid.
• Heat transfer by convection occurs as a result of the movement of the fluid on a macroscopic scale in the form of circulating
currents.
• The circulating currents may be set up either by heat transfer process itself or some external agency.
• It is restricted to the heat flow in fluids.
• In the case of convective heat transfer, the physical mixing of the hot and cold portions of a fluid is responsible for the flow of
heat from one place to another within the fluid.
• Convection is classified as: (i) free or natural convection and (ii) forced convection.
• When the circulating currents arise from the heat transfer process itself, i.e., from the density differences arising in turn due
to temperature differences/ gradients within the fluid mass, the mode of heat transfer is called free or natural convection.
• Examples of natural convection:

• 1. Heating of a vessel containing liquid by means of a gas flame situated underneath. The liquid at the bottom of the
vessel gets heated, expands and rises because its density has become less than that of the remaining liquid. Cold liquid
of higher density takes its place and a circulating current is set up.
• 2. The flow of air across a heated radiator/heat of a room by means of a steam radiator.
• When the circulating currents are produced by an external agency such as an agitator in a reaction vessel, pump, fan or
blower, the mode of heat transfer is called forced convection.Here fluid motion is independent of density gradients.
• Example of forced convection:

• Heat flow to a fluid pumped through a heated pipe.
• In general, higher rates of heat transfer are obtained in forced convection as compared to natural convection owing to a
greater magnitude of circulation in the forced circulation.
• In the case of convective heat transfer taking place from a surface to a fluid, the circulating currents die out in the immediate
viscinity of the surface and a film of the fluid, free of turbulence, covers the surface.
• Heat transfer through this film takes by thermal conduction.
• Since the thermal conductivity of most fluids is low, the main resistance to heat transfer lies in the film.
• Therefore, an increase in the velocity of the fluid over the surface results in improved heat transfer mainly because of
reduction in the thickness of the film.
If the resistance to heat transfer is considered as lying within the film covering the surface, the rate of heat transfer Q is given by
The effective thickness x is not generally known and therefore this equation is usually rewritten in the form:
• This is the basic equation for the rate of heat transfer by convection under steady state conditions, where 'h' is called the film
heat transfer coefficient or surface coefficient or simply film coefficient.
• The value of 'h' depends upon the properties of the fluid within the film region, hence it is called the film heat transfer
coefficient.
• It depends upon the various properties of the fluid, linear dimension of surface and fluid velocity (i.e. the nature of flow).
• Numerically, heat transfer coefficient (h) is the quantity of heat transferred in a unit time through a unit area at a temperature
difference of one degree between the surface and surrounding. h has the units of W/(m 2 ·K) in the SI system.
• The term 1/h is called as the thermal resistance.
• Consider that a hot fluid is flowing through a circular pipe and a cold
fluid is flowing on the outside of the pipe.
• The heat will flow from the hot fluid to the cold fluid through a
series of resistances.
• Generally, the velocity of the fluid may be considered to be zero at
the solid surface and it rapidly increases as we move away from the
wall surface.
• It is found that even in the turbulent flow, where convective heat
flow occurs from a surface to a fluid, the thin film of the fluid free of
turbulence (viscous sublayer) exists at the wall surface.
• This thin film of fluid covering the surface is of great importance in
determining the rate of heat transfer as all the heat reaching the
bulk of the cold fluid must pass through the film of fluid by
conduction.
• The thermal conductivities of the fluids are very low so that the
resistance offered by the film to the heat flow is very large even
though the film is thin.
• Beyond this film, the turbulence present brings about rapid
equalisation of temperature.
• The temperature gradients for the situation under consideration are
shown in Fig.
• The dotted lines Y1Y2 and Z1Z2 represent the boundaries of thin films
(hot and cold fluid films).
• The flow of fluid to the left of Y1Y2 and right of Z1Z2 is turbulent.
• The temperature gradient from the bulk of the hot fluid to the
metal wall is represented by TaT' T2, where Ta is the maximum
temperature of the hot fluid, T' is the temperature at the boundary
between turbulent and viscous regions and T2 is the temperature at
the actual interface between fluid and solid.
• Similarly, the temperature gradient in the cold fluid is represented
by lines T3T"Tb.
• In heat transfer calculation, for convenience, average temperature of
the fluid is usually used rather than the maximum temperature or
the temperature at the outer surface of the film.
• The average temperature (T1) of the hot fluid is represented by the
line marked NN and similarly the average temperature (T4) of the
cold fluid is represented by the line marked MM.
• The temperature change from T1 to T2 is taking place in the hot fluid
film of thickness x1. The rate of heat transfer through this film by
conduction is given by
• The effective film thickness x1 depends upon the nature of flow and
nature of the surface, and is generally not known. Therefore above
Equation is usually rewritten as
• where hi is known as the inside heat transfer coefficient or the surface

coefficient or the simply film coefficient.
• As seen from Equation, the film coefficient is a measure of the rate of heat
transfer for unit temperature difference and unit surface of heat transfer
and it indicates the rate or speed of transfer of heat by a fluid having a
variety of the physical properties under varying degrees of agitation.
• In the SI system, it has the units of W/(m2·K).
• The overall resistance to heat flow from the hot fluid to the cold
fluid is made up of three resistances in series. They are:
• 1. Resistance offered by the film of hot fluid.
• 2. Resistance offered by the metal wall and
• 3. Resistance offered by the film of cold fluid.
• where Ui and Uo are the overall heat transfer coefficients based on the
inside area and outside area, respectively.
• Above equations state that the rate of heat transfer is a product of three
factors namely the overall heat transfer coefficient, the area of heating
surface and the temperature drop.
When the metal wall resistance is very small in comparison
with the resistances of fluid films, then Equation reduces to:

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• A large majority of practical applications of heat transfer in the chemical process industries involve either heat transfer to a

fluid or heat transfer from a fluid.

• Examples of natural convection:

• Example of forced convection:

• where hi is known as the inside heat transfer coefficient or the surface

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