Natural convection in rooms.

The studies described in the present paper have been developed by the teams involved in the French National Research Programm "ARC Convection Naturelle dans l'Habitat" coordinated by CNRS-PIRSEM (Inte disciplinary Research Programm on Energy and Materials, National Scientific Reseach Center) and suported by AFME (French Agency for Energy Management). After a short description of the experimental facilities of each laboratory, we give some significant results on high Rayleigh number natural convection in rooms. The various studies are carried out either in real scale test cells representative of real rooms , or in scale models. Present studies are mainly oriented to physical analysis of the various regimes found in the cavities, unstabilties development, influence of radiation heat transfer on natural convection flows and heat transfer.