3. Conclusion

The aim of this presentation is to provide a basis for the analysis of natural convection situations encountered in current applications. A complete analysis of a real problem, the dimensioning of a plant or the optimization of a process in which these convective mechanisms sometimes play a decisive role, obviously requires more extensive specific knowledge. It would be illusory to draw up a complete catalog. The intention is to focus on the fundamental aspects of this question, as an aid to problem formulation. Even so, such an article cannot cover all the basic configurations, and many areas have not been addressed. This is the case for :

• natural convection in stratified fluids;

• the coupling between natural convection and thermal radiation ;

• the role of natural convection...