Computer aided investigation on the effect of internal surface micro grooving for enhanced thermal management of heat exchanger

• Main Authors: Eid, Mohamed Moustafa Abdelhalim Ahmed, Zubir, Mohd Nashrul Mohd, Muhamad, Mohd Ridha Bin, Newaz, Kazi Md. Salim
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Boundary layers; Empirical analysis; Grooves; Grooving; Heat exchangers; Heat flux; Heat transfer; Mechanical systems; Thermal management; Tube heat exchangers; Tubes
• ISSN: 0094-243X; 1551-7616
• DOI: 10.1063/5.0070873

Heat is an energy form that is found in most electrical and mechanical systems. Heat influences the performance of systems negatively and therefore its removal is vital to making a system more efficient. Using heat exchangers for cooling is a widely used method in the industry. Enhancing the performance of the heat exchangers will help to reduce the cost and materials used by the system. In the present work, a strategy has been proposed to modify tube heat exchanger surface configuration by generating a micro-grooving pattern to improve the heat transfer performance. A computational fluid analysis was conducted on three groove variations on tubes and were compared to a smooth tube to quantify the effects of the micro-grooving. Each of the tubes has the same pitch of 500 microns but a different square groove depth of 200 microns, 500 microns and 1000 microns. The analysis was conducted on various flow conditions ranging from 4000 to 24000 Re at constant heat flux. The results of the simulation on the smooth tube showed good validity with empirical calculations. Further, it was shown that the 1000-micron depth square micro-groove produces the highest improvement in Nu and effectiveness with 95.56% and 100% respectively at the highest Re investigated. It is suggested that the groove depth to pitch ratio plays a significant role in contributing to the heat transfer improvement due to much pronounced formation of fluid recirculation within the groove, further promoting better convection at on the boundary layer surface.