Study of thermal–hydraulic performance of fin-and-oval tube compact heat exchangers with corrugated fin patterns

Abstract

In the recent years the development of application of vortex generator have increased the heat transfer enhancement in compact heat exchanger. But it has been a challenge to improve heat transfer without using vortex generator. The main motivation of this research is to study thermal–hydraulic performance characteristics in an oval shaped tube compact heat exchanger with new design of fins and tube by using computational fluid dynamics approach. One-corrugated and three-corrugated fins with oval tubes are used of the FTCHE (fin-and tube compact heat exchanger) that takes a huge step in the development of FTCHEs with increased thermal efficiency. The major advantage of such design is its ability to produce high thermal efficiency and performance criteria of FTCHE. I have investigated the thermal and hydraulic characteristics in the range of Reynolds number 200-800. This study proves that there is difference of flow between plain and corrugated fins and it gives better thermal and hydraulic performance. I have found that three corrugated fin patterns show better results than one corrugated fin patterns. I have found potential improvement over the baseline case.