OUTLINE OF A UNIFIED SIMILARITY THEORY FOR TURBULENT CONVECTION NEXT TO VERTICAL SURFACES.

A similarity theory is presented for the fully developed turbulent boundary layer next to vertical surfaces where heat transfer effects are important. The theory is applicable over the entire domain from pure forced to pure natural convection. Particular limiting cases considered are: pure forced convection, mixed but primarily forced convection and pure natural convection. The unifying characteristic of these flows is seen to be the existence of a constant heat flux layer near the wall. An attempt is made to evaluate the universal constants from the available data. Finally, the significance of these results to experimenters and numerical modelers is assessed.