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Overview

This laboratory is located in Building 538. The primary use of this laboratory is for undergraduate laboratory courses for mechanical and aerospace engineering students. All three aspects of heat transfer - conduction, convection, and radiation related experiments are performed in this course. The objectives of this laboratory course are to have the student apply the theory presented in classroom and to familiarize him/her with contemporary instrumentation and methodology used in heat transfer measurements. Throughout the course, the student obtains experience in gathering, recording and analyzing experimental data. The results obtained, and interpretations of these results are presented in a formal report prepared after each experiment .

Some examples of laboratory experiments performed are given below.

Personnel

Laboratory Co-coordinator: Dr. Kunal Mitra,
Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

Graduate Assistants:
Mr. Arunrach Sawetprawichkul
Mr. Lu Xiaodong
Mr. Anil A. Ogale
Mr. Arindam Banerjee
Mr. Kothandaraman Jay

Some examples of laboratory experiments: Experiment: Free Convection Heat Transfer Goals: To familiarize students with the dimensionless parameters governing free convection and to illustrate experimental techniques for determining free convection heat transfer correlations. In addition the student is also introduced to computerized data acquisition using Labview (National Instruments) and processing procedures.

Experiment: Solar Collector Measurements Goals: To measure the efficiency of the solar collector under varying flow rates, angle of inclination, and inlet water temperatures. In addition the student is also introduced to computerized data acquisition and processing procedures.

Experiment: Transmittance Measurement of Glass Plates Goals: To measure the transmittance of a laser beam through glass plates of different thickness and of different materials. By measuring the intensities of a Helium-Neon laser beam (632.8nm) with and without the plate in the beam path, the overall transmittance of the plate is recorded as the ratio of the two intensities. The measured refractive indices and absorption coefficients are compared with the published values.