Effect of geometrical parameters on heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of plate fin and tube heat exchangers

In this study, the influences of the changes in fin geometry on heat transfer and pressure drop of a plate fin and tube heat exchanger are investigated, numerically. A comparison between experimental results (Herchang Ay, JiinYuh Jang and Jer-Nan Yeh, 2002) and numerical ones for temperature distribution and local convective heat transfer coefficients over a plate-fin surface inside the plate finned and three row tubes heat exchangers are performed. In addition, plate fin and one row tube heat exchanger is analyzed numerically for different geometrical parameters. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) program called Fluent is used in all analysis. In numerical study for plate fin and one row tube heat exchanger, the effects of the distance between two fins, tube center location, fin height, tube thickness, and tube ellipticity on heat transfer and pressure drop across the heat exchanger are investigated. The distance between fins is found to have a considerable effect on pressure drop. It is observed that placing the fin tube at downstream region affects heat transfer positively. Another important result of the study is that increasing ellipticity of the fin tube increases the heat transfer while it, also, results in an important reduction in pressure drop.