Numerical investigation of heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics in an offset strip fin heat exchanger

Abstract

This paper presents a numerical simulation to determine the air-side heat transfer and the pressure drop characteristics of a flat tube heat exchanger with offset strip fin. The effects of the fin bending ratio such as 29%, 36%, 44%, 50%, and the fin spacing such as 2.10 mm, 2.35 mm, 2.60 mm on the performance of the heat exchanger are studied by using a commercial CFD software. The air having constant viscosity, thermal conductivity, and density enters the heat exchanger at 298 K and the wall temperature of the strip fins is considered as constant at 314 K. Variations of the heat transfer coefficient and the pressure drop in the airside are presented with respect to the frontal air velocity while Colburn j-factor and the friction factor f are presented with respect to the airside Reynolds number ranging from 200 to 1200. Finally, the thermal-hydraulic performance of all investigated cases is compared by using the volume goodness factor, j/f 1/3. The results show that the air-side heat transfer coefficient and the pressure drop increase when the frontal air velocity ascends. The air-side heat transfer coefficient decreases with the increase of fin spacing. The fin bending ratio does not have a significant effect on the pressure drop in the considered fin spacing. Both the Colburn j-factor and friction factor reduce with the increment of Reynolds number and fin spacing.

Keywords

• Strip fin
• Fin spacing
• Fin bending ratio
• Compact heat exchanger

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