Basics of Internal Forced Convection — Lesson 1

Do you like to keep your feet warm during a cold winter? A radiant floor heating system could be the solution! A hydronic radiant heating system uses hot water passing through tubes under the floor to heat it up, so that the floor can radiate its heat and keep the room, and your feet, warm.

The water inside the tubes transfers heat to the floor through internal forced convection. The water temperature can drop several degrees during the process. To properly design these systems, we must know the temperature drop so that we can estimate how much energy we would need to heat the water back to its initial temperature. In this lesson, we will explore the basics and learn how to perform a thermal analysis for internal flows.

Alternate video link.

Here are the accompanying handout slides for the lesson.