Open Access

ARTICLE

NUMERICAL STUDY OF 3D THERMAL AND HYDRAULIC CHARACTERISTICS OF WAVY FIN AND TUBE HEAT EXCHANGER

by

a Department of Mechanical Engineering, Islamic University of Technology, Board Bazar, Gazipur-1704, Bangladesh
b Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717, USA
1 Corresponding author. Email:arafat@iut-dhaka.edu

Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer 2012, 3(3), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.5098/hmt.v3.3.3006

Abstract

This numerical analysis presents the airside performance of a wavy fin-and-tube heat exchanger having 4 row configurations considering steady, incompressible and 3D flow using Commercial CFD Code ANSYS CFX 12.0. Results are presented in the form of friction factor (f), Colburn factor (j) and efficiency index (j/f). The numerical procedure has been validated by comparison with published numerical and experimental results and good agreement has been observed. A series of numerical calculations have been carried out in order to analyze the influence of various geometric characteristics on different fields as well as on the heat transfer and pressure drop and efficiency within a heat exchanger. The effects of longitudinal pitch (Ll), transverse pitch (Lt), Fin Pitch (Fp), wavy angle (Wa) and inlet flow angle (α) on wavy fin-and-tube heat exchanger are studied. Different inlet flow angles such as 0˚, + 17.5˚, -17.5˚, +35˚ and -35˚ are employed normal to the face of the heat exchanger in order to investigate the performance of inlet flow angles. There is a strong correlation between the response of the flow efficiency, pressure drop and heat transfer performance to these parameters.

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Keywords

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