Paraphrase for Discussion - Essay Example

The article is about an experiment to test the convection of the sphere in two different dimensions where the airstream is in a horizontal as well asvertical state. Heat transfer which is known as convection can be achieved through forced or natural convection. Forced convection is a result of external force while natural convection is caused by natural variations of the temperatures in the fluid. In this particular case, it can be noted that vertical positioning of the airstream will result in both free and forced convection unlike in a horizontal setup of the airstream where only forced convection is witnessed.

The general assumption is that the object’s convection is higher in a vertical stream as a result of the extra free convection where the temperature would be expected to drop fast. However, it has been tested that free convection would be rather negligible in magnitude to the forced convection. The main reason for this negligible magnitude can be attributed to the aspect of velocity in free convection compared to forced convection. A faster velocity can lead to more energy being transferred into the system as molecules come into contact with the surface of the object while forced convection is mainly concerned with molecules being constantly being forced to the surface.

As such, it can be observed that there is a correlation between linear convection coefficient and fluid velocity as shown by the experiment. However, the main source of error in this experiment was related to the time of sampling of every five seconds of the swinging action of the objects in the airstream. The biggest error is witnessed in the spikes of data especially on the convection verse time figures. As the object moved from the main airstream, it lost speed and force due to the fact that there was less air molecules contacting the surface of the object and the result was a drop in the temperature of the object.

The hardware to collect temperature can be cited as the main cause of the error in this experiment. In real terms, energy is lost through convection as well as well as reduction of molecules as the object move from the main airstream. Given that more energy is lost to convection, it can be noted that the convection coefficients will appear higher than what is actually obtaining on the ground. It has therefore been recommended that future experiments should ensure that temperatures are increased where the an extremely thermal resistive material has to be used in order to hold the object against swinging while in touch of little surface area as far as possible.