Search

Abstract: Air is a cheap and safe fluid, widely used in electronic, aerospace and air conditioning applications. Because of its poor heat transfer properties, it usually flows through extended surfaces, such as finned surfaces, to enhance the convective heat transfer. In this paper, experimental results are reviewed and numerical studies during turbulent air forced convection through extended surfaces are presented. The thermal and hydraulic behavior of a reference trapezoidal finned surface, experimentally evaluated by present authors in an open-circuit wind tunnel, has been compared with numerical simulations carried out by using the commercial CFD software COMSOL Multiphysics. Once the model has been validated, numerical simulations have been extended to other rectangular finned configurations, in order to study the effects of the fin thickness, fin pitch and fin height on the thermo-hydraulic behavior of the extended surfaces. Moreover, several pin fin surfaces have been simulated in the same range of operating conditions previously analyzed. Numerical results about heat transfer and pressure drop, both for plain finned surfaces and for pin fin surfaces, have been compared with empirical correlations from the open literature, and more accurate equations have been developed and proposed. As shown with an optimization example, these new equations can be used as an easy-to-implement calculation approach for heat sink design in electronic thermal management. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The present paper deals with CFD study of flow and thermal characteristics in air-conditioned rooms under turbulent mixed convection conditions. Air enters room from a sidewall slot flush with isothermal ceiling and leaves through a slot in opposite wall flush with floor. Velocity and temperature distributions are determined by a CFD model that has been previously validated by comparison with experimental data. Rigorous dimensional analysis shows that performance of the air-distribution system depends on: supply Reynolds number Re d , Grashof number Gr d (or Archimedes number Ar d ), room aspect ratio L/H, dimensionless heights of supply and return ports (d/H and t/H), where H is room height. For a room with fixed geometry, the effects of Re d and Gr d (or Ar d ) are investigated systematically by varying one parameter at a time. Results show that ceiling average Nusselt number (Nu d,av) increases with Re d and decreases with Gr d (or Ar d ). For a given Gr d , the heat removal index (HRI) increases with Re d up to Re d  ≈ 9000, then stays practically constant thereafter. For a given Re d , HRI decreases with increasing Gr d (or Ar d ). A criterion for distinction between forced and mixed convection situations is developed, resulting in a critical Archimedes number of 0.11. Results further indicate that Ar d alone, irrespective of the particular values of Re d and Gr d , determines to a reasonable extent Nu d,av and HRI when Ar d is above its critical value. Streamlines and temperature contours are found to be consistent with other results and helped explain them. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The wave-finned flat tube heat exchangers are widely used in air-cooled condensers of a power plant. Due to the oblique arrangement of the wavy fins on the A-frame tube bundles of the air-cooled condenser, the finned tube is prone to fouling thus the thermo-flow performances of air-cooled condensers are likely to become deteriorated. A new configuration of wave-finned flat tube, in which the fin surface rotates to be perpendicular, is proposed in this paper to prevent the fouling from gathering on the finned tube. The physical and mathematical models for the fluid and heat flows of the cooling air through the present and proposed wave-finned flat tube bundles are setup, and the thermo-flow characteristics are compared. For the proposed finned tube, the influences of the fin pitch, height and the Reynolds number on the flow and heat transfer performances are investigated, and the correlations of the friction factor and Nusselt number are recommended. The results show that the buoyancy effect should be taken into account for the correlation of the friction factor at low Reynolds numbers, but this buoyancy force can be ignored for the Nusselt number. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper highlights the application of fuzzy logic to predict the heat transfer in an air cooled heat exchanger equipped with three types of tube inserts including; butterfly, classic and jagged twisted tape. In the study which was carried out in the range of Reynolds number, the maximum heat transfer was obtained by the butterfly insert with an inclined angle of 90°. The results have also revealed that the heat transfer rates obtained by employing the classic and jagged inserts, reduced by increasing twist ratio. Moreover, it has been also shown that, fuzzy logic is a powerful technique used for predicting the heat transfer due to its low error rate. The average error of fuzzy technique as compared with experimental data was found to be 0.68% for this study. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The continuously increasing requirement for high heat transfer rate in a compact space can be met by combining the small channel/microchannel and heat transfer enhancement methods during fluid subcooled flow boiling. In this paper, the sintered microporous coating, as an efficient means of enhancing nucleate boiling, was applied to a horizontal, rectangular small channel. Water flow boiling heat transfer characteristics from the small channel with/without the microporous coating were experimentally investigated. The small channel, even without the coating, presented flow boiling heat transfer enhancement at low vapor quality due to size effects of the channel. This enhancement was also verified by underpredictions from macroscale correlations. In addition to the enhancement from the channel size, all six microporous coatings with various structural parameters were found to further enhance nucleate boiling significantly. Effects of the coating structural parameters, fluid mass flux and inlet subcooling were also investigated to identify the optimum condition for heat transfer enhancement. Under the optimum condition, the microporous coating could produce the heat transfer coefficients 2.7 times the smooth surface value in subcooled flow boiling and 3 times in saturated flow boiling. The combination of the microporous coating and small channel led to excellent heat transfer performance, and therefore was deemed to have promising application prospects in many areas such as air conditioning, chip cooling, refrigeration systems, and many others involving compact heat exchangers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper presents a mathematical model for determining optimal configuration of plate finned tube condensers widely used in air conditioning system. The condenser investigated in this work is a cross-flow air-refrigerant type with aluminium plain fin geometry. Refrigerant HFC 134a flows inside while air flows outside the copper tubes. Minimum entropy change of air and refrigerant is used as the criterion for analysis. This entropy change resulting from losses due to heat transfer and pressure drop can be represented in a form of entropy generation number, . The proposed mathematical model is divided into three regions: superheated, two-phase and sub-cooled regions. Effects of heat transfer and pressure drop of air side and refrigerant side on entropy generation rate are simultaneously analyzed through the implicit method. Results from the mathematical model show that entropy generation number decreases with increasing fin pitch and decreasing number of rows and tube diameter. In addition, this work also presents an optimal configuration of condenser. The optimal tube diameter and the number of fin per inch are 6.35–12.7 mm ( inch) and 11–12, respectively. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]