This experimental and numerical research is in the area of thermal processing. The investigation will study the effects of the coupling between the conduction in the material and the convective fluid flow, the contributions of the boundary conditions at an upstream of the point of emergence of the of the material, the augmentation by buoyancy forces in the fluid and by radiative loss, and the influence of turbulence. Interest also lies in the heat transfer rate at the surface, the downstream temperature decay and the effect of the important physical variables such as material velocity, temperature levels and material and fluid properties. These aspects are important in the simulation of the process and in the optimization, control and design of the relevant physical system. The results obtained will contribute to a basic understanding of the underlying physical processes and will provide important inputs for improving and designing practical materials processing systems. In a wide variety of applications related to the thermal processing of materials, such as extrusion, rolling and continuous casting, continuously moving materials subjected to heat transfer environments are encountered. In many cases, the motion of the material itself generates the fluid flow for the thermal transport and this is the circumstance proposed for detailed experimental and numerical investigation in this research effort. Though the problem is of considerable practical and fundamental importance, little detailed study has been undertaken to answer many of the basic issues that arise and to provide the relevant inputs for process design.
