Investigation of the thermal-flow performances of sinusoidal wavy finned-tube heat exchangers

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to examine the influence of wave amplitude and wave number on the thermal-flow behavior of sinusoidal wavy finned-tube heat exchangers. Thirteen geometries with various wave amplitudes (0.75–2.5 mm) and wavenumbers (2–6 waves) are analyzed for Reynolds numbers varying from 800 to 2700. The inspection revealed that the thermal exchange rate, the Colburn factor, and the friction factor increase with wave amplitude (A) and the number of waves (N_w), while the fin efficiency decrease for all Re. For Re varying from 1066 to 2700, the wavy fins with A = 1.75 mm and N_w = 4 provide the most outstanding values of the performance evaluation criterion (PEC). However, at Re = 800, the PEC ratios decrease with augmented A and N_w. Regarding the global performance criterion, the wavy fins with the lowest amplitude values (A = 0.75 mm) and the number of waves (N_w = 2) reached the highest G_pc values at all Reynolds numbers.

KEYWORDS:

• Sinusoidal wavy fin
• heat exchanger
• waves number
• wave amplitude
• numerical prediction

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).