Assessment of heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics within finned flat tube

• Published in: Case studies in thermal engineering 2018-09, Vol.12, p.557-562
• Main Authors: Zaidan, Maki H., Alkumait, Aadel A.R., Ibrahim, Thamir K.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2214-157X; 2214-157X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.csite.2018.07.006

In this paper, the heat transfer and flow characteristic of air over flat finned tube with perforated and non-perforated fin have been carried out numerically. The mesh generation and finite volume analyses have been conducted using Ansys 15 with a RNG k–e turbulent model to estimate heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop. The free stream velocity ranging between 3,4,5,6, and 7 m/s have been applied for all cases in the simulation and verified with the available data. A satisfactory agreement was found between the percent results and the references with a maximum deviation of 7% for the finned circular tube with solid fin. The results present a considerable enhancement in Nusselt number with using perforation technique, where the perforation provide 8.5%, 13.6% and 18.4% enhancement using circular, square and triangular perforation respectively. Triangular perforation model offers a considerable finding due to the increment in the Nusselt number comparing to the pressure drop. Keywords: Annular flat finned tube, Perforated fins, Heat transfer, Turbulent flow