Experimental and CFD analysis on the thermo hydraulic performance of a corrugated louvered fin and flat tube compact heat exchanger

Abstract

One of the important aspects of any heat exchanger is to increase the newlinerate of heat exchange between two streams of fluids. When one stream of the newlineflowing fluid is gas and the other is a liquid, the heat transfer surface on the newlinegas side needs to have a much larger surface area, as it is well known that the newlineheat transfer co-efficient for gases is much lower than that for liquids. A heat newlineexchanger having a surface area density greater than about 700m2/m3is quite newlinearbitrarily referred to as a compact heat exchanger. The heat transfer newlineco-efficient of the extended surfaces may be higher or lower than that of the newlineunfinned surfaces. The louvered fins increase both the surface area and the heat transfer co-efficient. They are available in a wide variety of newlineconfigurations of the heat transfer matrix. Their heat transfer and pressure newlinedrop characteristics are very important, and hence, the extensive studies were newlinedone on louvered fin heat exchangers by various researchers. In the present work, an experimental investigation was carried out to newlineanalyze the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of a corrugated newlinelouvered fin and flat tube compact heat exchanger used as a radiator in an newlineinternal combustion engine. Experiments were conducted by positioning the newlineradiator in an open-loop wind tunnel. Hot water at 90°C was supplied through the radiator, and the air was newlinemade to flow across the radiator at atmospheric temperature. During the newlineexperiment the mass flow rate of water was varied from 0.075 to 0.135 newlinem3/min and the frontal air velocity was varied from 2.5 m/s to 7.5 m/s. A total newlineof 24 sets of air and water flow rate combinations were tested, and the newlinetemperature and pressure drops of the air and water were acquired. Using newlinethese experimental results, the influence of the overall heat transfer newlineperformance of the heat exchanger due to the effects of the mass flow rate of newlinewater in the tube side was investigated. newline