Comparison of Additively Manufactured Louvered Plate-Fin Heat Exchangers

Author(s):  
Michael Bichnevicius ◽  
David Saltzman ◽  
Stephen Lynch

Abstract Additive manufacturing (AM) enables improved heat exchanger (HX) designs where performance is based on the achievable geometry. However, consequences of the AM process that affect HX performance such as increased surface roughness, dimensional tolerance issues, and defects like cracks may vary among identically designed AM parts due to AM machine settings. This paper experimentally compares the thermal and hydraulic performance of three AM HXs built using a traditionally manufactured, stamped aluminum oil cooler design. The AM HXs exhibited significantly higher air-side pressure drop and higher heat transfer rate than the traditional HX in large part due to increased AM surface roughness. Among AM HXs, one AM HX had notably higher heat transfer rate and air-side pressure drop due to poor print quality on the thin air-side fin features. The fin thickness among AM HXs also varied by about 15%, and there were only slight differences in surface roughness. This study indicates that functional HXs built using AM vary in performance even when the same digital model is used to print them and that AM HXs as a group can perform considerably differently than their traditional counterparts.

2013 ◽  
Vol 465-466 ◽  
pp. 500-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shahrin Hisham Amirnordin ◽  
Hissein Didane Djamal ◽  
Mohd Norani Mansor ◽  
Amir Khalid ◽  
Md Seri Suzairin ◽  
...  

This paper presents the effect of the changes in fin geometry on pressure drop and heat transfer characteristics of louvered fin heat exchanger numerically. Three dimensional simulation using ANSYS Fluent have been conducted for six different configurations at Reynolds number ranging from 200 to 1000 based on louver pitch. The performance of this system has been evaluated by calculating pressure drop and heat transfer coefficient. The result shows that, the fin pitch and the louver pitch have a very considerable effect on pressure drop as well as heat transfer rate. It is observed that increasing the fin pitch will relatively result in an increase in heat transfer rate but at the same time, the pressure drop will decrease. On the other hand, low pressure drop and low heat transfer rate will be obtained when the louver pitch is increased. Final result shows a good agreement between experimental and numerical results of the louvered fin which is about 12%. This indicates the capability of louvered fin in enhancing the performance of heat exchangers.


Energies ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 400
Author(s):  
Miftah Altwieb ◽  
Rakesh Mishra ◽  
Aliyu M. Aliyu ◽  
Krzysztof J. Kubiak

Multi-tube multi-fin heat exchangers are extensively used in various industries. In the current work, detailed experimental investigations were carried out to establish the flow/heat transfer characteristics in three distinct heat exchanger geometries. A novel perforated plain fin design was developed, and its performance was evaluated against standard plain and louvred fins designs. Experimental setups were designed, and the tests were carefully carried out which enabled quantification of the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics. In the experiments the average velocity of air was varied in the range of 0.7 m/s to 4 m/s corresponding to Reynolds numbers of 600 to 2650. The water side flow rates in the tubes were kept at 0.12, 0.18, 0.24, 0.3, and 0.36 m3/h corresponding to Reynolds numbers between 6000 and 30,000. It was found that the louvred fins produced the highest heat transfer rate due to the availability of higher surface area, but it also produced the highest pressure drops. Conversely, while the new perforated design produced a slightly higher pressure drop than the plain fin design, it gave a higher value of heat transfer rate than the plain fin especially at the lower liquid flow rates. Specifically, the louvred fin gave consistently high pressure drops, up to 3 to 4 times more than the plain and perforated models at 4 m/s air flow, however, the heat transfer enhancement was only about 11% and 13% over the perforated and plain fin models, respectively. The mean heat transfer rate and pressure drops were used to calculate the Colburn and Fanning friction factors. Two novel semiempirical relationships were derived for the heat exchanger’s Fanning and Colburn factors as functions of the non-dimensional fin surface area and the Reynolds number. It was demonstrated that the Colburn and Fanning factors were predicted by the new correlations to within ±15% of the experiments.


2018 ◽  
Vol 172 ◽  
pp. 02003
Author(s):  
R Badgujar Pankaj ◽  
S Rangarajan ◽  
S. R Nagaraja

The objective of the present paper is to propose an analytical model for calculating performance parameter of a radiator having rectangular tube with louvered fins. The theoretical effectiveness, heat transfer rate, outlet temperatures of both air and coolant are determined using effectiveness-NTU method. The coolant and air side pressure drop is also calculated. The proposed procedure is validated with experimetal results available in the literature and the GT model. It is found that the maximum deviation in the heat transfer rate calculated from proposed model is 10.97%, the coolant and air outlet temperatures is 2.75% and variation in pressure drop is about 3.29%.


Author(s):  
Muhammad Ansab Ali ◽  
Tariq S. Khan ◽  
Ebrahim Al Hajri

The quest to achieve higher heat transfer rate, smaller size and minimum pressure drop is a main area of focus in the design of heat exchangers. Plate heat exchangers are one of viable candidates to deliver higher heat duties but still have a drawback of higher pressure drop due to long restricted flow path. Motivated by demand of miniaturization and cost reduction, a novel design of tubular microchannel heat exchanger for single phase flow employing ammonia water mixture is proposed. Numerical simulation of unit fluid domain is conducted in ANSYS Fluent. Parametric study of the different flow geometries is evaluated in terms of Nusselt number and pressure drop. The salient features of the design include ultra-compact size with higher heat transfer rate and acceptable pressure drop.


2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (04) ◽  
pp. 1450026 ◽  
Author(s):  
HONGGI CHO ◽  
TAEHUN KIM ◽  
JUNGHO KIM ◽  
CHANGSEON LEE ◽  
JAEYOUNG CHOI

The present study is aimed to investigate the effect of fin geometry on the performance of a concentric heat exchanger with the commercial CFD software of Star CCM+. In general, the concentric heat exchanger consists of inner and outer tubes. The inner tube has a lot of serrated fins spirally manufactured on its surface in order to increase the heat transfer performance. A simplified simulation model has been applied to simulate the performance of the concentric heat exchanger in this study. Both inner and outer tubes have the same length of 60 mm. The inner diameter of outer tube is 17.05 mm. The outer diameter of inner tube before manufacturing fins is 11.5 mm. Water is used as a working fluid and the concentric heat exchanger has a counter-flow configuration. The simulation parameters were fin height, fin thickness and fin width. It was found that heat transfer rate increased by 3–4% as the fin height increased from 0.95 to 1.15 mm. However, pressure drop increased highly by 39–41%. The effectiveness, which could be evaluated by calculating the ratio of enhancement of heat transfer rate to that of pressure drop, was about 74% for the fin height of 1.15 mm. In case of fin height of 1.05 mm, the effectiveness was 88% due to the increase in pressure drop, about 15%, compared with the base fin height of 0.95 mm. Also, it was noted that the effectiveness was about 88% and 95% for the fin thickness of 0.5 and 0.4 mm, respectively, compared with the base fin thickness of 0.3 mm. In case of increasing the fin width from 0.8 to 1.2 mm, the heat transfer rates slightly increased by 1–2% and the pressures drops increased by 3–4%. Hence, the effectiveness was about 98% for the fin width of 1.2 mm. And the effectiveness for the fin width of 1.0 mm was 97%. Based on the simulation results, it was concluded that maximum heat transfer rate has been obtained when the fin height is 1.15 mm. However, pressure drop is considerably increased by 39–41%. Therefore, the fin height should be carefully determined according to the criteria of pressure drop.


Author(s):  
Shinhyuk Yoon ◽  
Keumnam Cho

The present study investigated the performance of the evaporator for the residential heat pump under frosting condition. The size of all evaporators was 400 × 250 × 12.7 mm (W × H × D). Key experimental parameters were fin type (plate and slit fin), fin pitch (1.3, 1.4 and 1.5 mm), the face velocity of air (0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0m/s), and the number of row (1 and 2) of the heat exchanger. The ethylene glycol-water mixture was used as a refrigerant. The test was done in a phychrometric calorimeter chamber. The air side pressure drop and heat transfer rate were measured as frost grew. The pressure drop of the evaporator under frosting with the slit fin was higher than that with the plate fin. It increased as the number of rows increased, the fin pitch decreased, and the air velocity decreased for the slit fin. The heat transfer rate of the evaporator under frosting with the slit fin was higher than that with the plate fin. It increased as the air velocity increased even though it was not much affected by the other parameters for the slit fin. The EF decreased as frost grew to be lower than one. The HGR decreased to be lower than one as frost grew. It decreased as the number of row increased.


2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 797-809
Author(s):  
Syaiful ◽  
Bambang Yunianto ◽  
Carisya Dara Salsabila ◽  
Berkah Fajar T.K. ◽  
Maria F. Soetanto

In fin and tube heat exchangers, the gas passing through the fin has a lower thermal conductivity than the fluid passing through the tube. The low thermal conductivity brings a high thermal resistance, which suppresses the heat transfer rate. A common practice to enhance fin-side heat transfer is to generate longitudinal vortex by mounting vortex generators (VGs) on the fin. This paper aims to investigate how longitudinal vortex generator (LVG) improves heat transfer and pressure drop. Numerical simulations were carried out to analyze three types of VGs. The installation of VGs was varied with the attack angle changing from 10°, 15°, to 20° with a 1-3-4-7 VG arrangement on the tube. The flow velocity was expressed in Reynolds number (Re) between 364 and 689. The enhancement of heat transfer rate and improvement of pressure drop were analyzed between three types of VG, three different attack angles, and four types of winglet installation, compared to baseline. The simulation results show that the highest convective heat transfer coefficient (84.85%) was achieved by the VG composed of seven concave delta winglet pairs (CDWPs) at the attack angle of 20° and Re = 689; CDWP VG provides the highest heat transfer improvement among all cases.


1998 ◽  
Vol 120 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. G. Bogard ◽  
D. L. Schmidt ◽  
M. Tabbita

The physical characteristics of surface roughness observed on first-stage high-pressure turbine vanes that had been in service for a long period were investigated in this study. Profilometry measurements were utilized to provide details of the surface roughness formed by deposits of foreign materials on different parts of the turbine vane. Typical measures of surface roughness such as centerline average roughness values were shown to be inadequate for characterizing roughness effects. Using a roughness shape parameter originally derived from regular roughness arrays, the turbine airfoil roughness was characterized in terms of equivalent sand-grain roughness in order to develop an appropriate simulation of the surface for laboratory experiments. Two rough surface test plates were designed and fabricated. These test plates were evaluated experimentally to quantify the heat transfer rate for flow conditions similar to that which occurs on the turbine airfoil. Although the roughness levels on the two test plates were different by a factor of two, both surfaces caused similar 50 percent increases in heat transfer rates relative to a smooth surface. The effects of high free-stream turbulence, with turbulence levels from 10 to 17 percent, were also investigated. Combined free-stream turbulence and surface roughness effects were found to be additive, resulting in as much as a 100 percent increase in heat transfer rate.


Author(s):  
Rong Yu ◽  
Andrew D. Sommers ◽  
Nicole C. Okamoto ◽  
Koushik Upadhyayula

In this study, we have explored the effectiveness of heat exchangers constructed using anisotropic, micro-patterned aluminum fins to more completely drain the condensate that forms on the heat transfer surface during normal operation with the aim of improving the thermal-hydraulic performance of the heat exchanger. This study presents and critically evaluates the efficacy of full-scale heat exchangers constructed from these micro-grooved surfaces by measuring dry/wet air-side pressure drop and dry/wet air-side heat transfer data. The new fin surface design was shown to decrease the core pressure drop of the heat exchanger during wet operation from 9.3% to 52.7%. Furthermore, these prototype fin surfaces were shown to have a negligible effect on the heat transfer coefficient under both dry and wet conditions while at the same time reducing the wet airside pressure drop thereby decreasing fan power consumption. That is to say, this novel fin surface design has shown the ability, through improved condensate management, to enhance the thermal-hydraulic performance of plain-fin-and-tube heat exchangers used in air-conditioning applications. This paper also presents data pertaining to the durability of the alkyl silane coating.


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