Thermal and Hydraulic Performance of Finned Tube Heat Exchangers

Abstract

This study numerically examines the heat transfer and pressure drop performance of finned tube heat exchangers with staggered and inline tube layout for a range of tube pitch. The first part of the thesis considers the case where the heat exchanger is placed in fully ducted airflow. The simulations indicate that the performance reduced considerably for the staggered tube layout with an increase in the tube pitch, but a minimal difference for the inline tube arrangement. The effects of other geometrical parameters like fin pitch and the number of tube rows are then presented. Finally, a correlation for fin and tube heat exchangers with inline tube layout is proposed based on 280 simulations for 70 different configurations. The proposed heat transfer correlation can describe the database within ±8% discrepancy while the friction factor correlation can correlate the dataset within a ±10% discrepancy. The mean deviations for heat transfer and friction factor correlations are 4.3% and 5.4%. An important factor that influences the performance of flat plate and finned tube heat exchangers is when there is bypass flow around the heat exchanger. The next section of this thesis numerically investigates the partially ducted inline fin and tube heat exchanger with side bypass. The effects of the side clearance and the Reynolds number on the heat transfer and the pressure drop performance of the heat exchanger are presented. The simulations indicate that the heat transfer performance depreciates by more than 25% for infinite side clearance. The study then compares the pressure difference observed for entry, exit and the friction pressure drop with the various correlations available in the literature. Finally, the heat transfer and pressure drop performance for staggered and inline tube layouts are compared.