The process of vortex formation, distributions of pressure coefficients, and convective heat transfer in a turbulent flow past a cavity with a low aspect ratio and inclined frontal and rear walls were experimentally studied. The angle of wall inclination (P was varied in the interval from 30 degrees to 90 degrees. Visualization techniques were applied to trace the evolution of the flow with the angle 9 as the transverse cavity became more open. Pressure fields in the longitudinal and transverse sections on the bottom wall of the cavity, and on its frontal and rear walls, were measured. The measured distributions of temperature in the longitudinal and transverse sections on the three heated walls, and the obtained thermographic fields over the whole heated surface, were used to calculate local and average heat-transfer coefficients. It is found that in the interval of wall inclination angles phi = 60-70 degrees the flow in the cavity becomes unstable, with the primary vortex changing its structure from single-cellular to double-cellular. As a result, the distributions of static pressure and surface temperature across and along the cavity suffer dramatic changes. At smallest angles 9 the flow re-attachment point gets displaced into the cavity to cause an abrupt growth of pressure and heat-transfer coefficients on the rear wall, which leads to a slight increase of the surface-mean pressure and heat transfer inside the cavity. At the angle of instability, (p = 600, the local heat-transfer coefficient decreases markedly over the cavity span from the end faces of the cavity toward its center, and a most pronounced intensification of heat transfer is observed. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.