Heat Transfer Characteristics of a Fluid Flow in Multi Tube Heat Exchanger Fitted with Perforated Fins

Abstract

The heat transfer and flow resistance characteristics for air flow cross over circular finned tube heat exchanger has been studied numerically and experimentally. The purpose of the study was to improve the heat transfer characteristics of an annular finned-tube heat exchanger for better performance. The study has concentrated on the effect of the number of perforations and perforations shapes on the heat transfer and pressure drop across a staggered finned tube heat exchanger. The Numerical part of present study has been performed using ANSYS Fluent 14.5 using SST Turbulent model, while the experimental study consist from a test rig with different models of heat exchangers and all required measurement devices were building up to cover the experimental work for the range of Reynolds number (7500-17500). The experimental results show that average Nusselt number of the six circular perforations fins model is about 11.08 % higher than that for solid fin model and with triangular perforations model is about 10.12 % higher than that for the solid fin. Triangular perforation finned heat exchanger model gives  a best result than the other models due to excessive increment in the )Nu( in comparison with other models take in consideration pressure drop. The results were validated with previous work and the comparison between the experimental and numerical shows a good agreement with a maximum deviation ±10% between them.