Influence of free convection on heat transfer in control problems for a cylindrical body

The paper considers influence of free convection on controlled heating or cooling of cylindrical bodies. Horizontal and vertical alignments of the body are studied. Free convection appears to be the main way of heat transfer for parameters of the considered experimental setup. An experiment of free cooling of a horizontal cylinder in ambient air has been performed. Its results are consistent with numerical estimations. Simulation of cylinder controlled heating shows that the non-uniformity of the heat transfer coefficient along the cylinder's surface can have considerable influence on the temperature at some critical points for materials with relatively small conductance.