Abstract
An experimental study has been performed to investigate the influence of density inversion of water on free convection and temperature-distribution characteristics of air-water layers within a cooled circular tube. The experiments were carried out under the condition that the tube-wall temperature was favorably decreased at a uniform rate. A holographic interferometry technique was adopted to determine the time-dependent distributions of the temperature in the tube. It was observed that the temperature-distribution behavior varied to a great extent due to the cooling rate of the tube wall based on the time-dependent sequential flow pattern. The heat-transfer characteristics along the tube wall were also extensively determined. It was found that there were three peculiar dendritic-ice formations within the water layer of the horizontal tube based on the cooling rate.
