Numerical investigation on possibility of heat transfer enchancement using reduced weight fin configuration

ABSTRACT

The heat transfer augmentation using extended surfaces (fins) is nothing new in the field of convective heat transfer, yet another milestone in this area is the usage of lesser weight porous fins to overcome the shortcoming of rigid fins in intrinsic passages. The present numerical analysis is focussed towards the heat transfer augmentation of concentric tube heat exchanger with the help of circumferentially attached porous fin. The analysis is aimed at predicting the effect of the following parameters fin height, spacing, conductivity and Darcy number (Da) on the non-dimensional convective heat transfer coefficient (Nu). Darcy's model is adopted for simulation and the finite volume method is adopted for discretisation. It is found that the permeability and height of the fin significantly affect the flow field. The heat transfer augmentation is inferred from the results and it is very high at large values of Da.

KEYWORDS:

• Porous fin
• convective heat transfer
• heat exchanger
• fluid flow

Greek abbreviations::

• ρ density (kg/m³)
• α τhermal diffusivity (m²/s)
• ε effectiveness
• Θ dimensionless temperature
• Φ velocity potential
• Ψ stream function
• ή performance index
• µ dynamic viscosity (kg/m s)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

K. Logesh http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4598-8759