Numerical Studies on the Performance of Finned-Tube Heat Exchanger

Authors: Praveen Kumar S P, Bong-Su Sin, Kwon-Hee Lee

Abstract:

Finned-tube heat exchangers are predominantly used in space conditioning systems, as well as other applications requiring heat exchange between two fluids. The design of finned-tube heat exchangers requires the selection of over a dozen design parameters by the designer such as tube pitch, tube diameter, tube thickness, etc… Finned-tube heat exchangers are common devices; however, their performance characteristics are complicated. In this paper numerical studies have been carried out to analyze the performances of finned tube heat exchanger (without fins considered for experimental purpose) by predicting the characteristics of temperature difference and pressure drop. In this study, a design considering 5 design variables and also maximizing the temperature difference and pressure drop was suggested by applying DOE. During this process, L₁₈ orthogonal array was adopted. Parametric analytical studies have been carried out using ANOVA to determine the relative importance of each variable with respect to the temperature difference and the pressure drop. Following the results, the final design was suggested by predicting the optimum design therefore confirming the optimized condition.

Keywords: Heat Exchanger, Fluid Analysis, Heat Transfer, Design of Experiment (DOE), Analysis of Variance (ANOVA).

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1090789

References:

[1] M. V. Ghori "Numerical Analysis of Tube-Fin Heat Exchanger using Fluent”. Volume-1, Issue-2, 2012.
[2] Shiv Kumar Rathore "Comparative Analysis of Finned Tube and Bared Tube Type Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger” IJEIT – ISSN: 2277-3754Volume 2, Issue 1, July 2012.
[3] "A Text book of Heat Transfer” by S. P. Sukhatme.
[4] "Fundamentals of Heat & Mass Transfer” by F.P. Incropera and D.P. Dewitt.
[5] Bong-Su Sin, Kwon-Hee Lee, "Optimization of the cyclone separator for geothermal plant”.
[6] "Fundamentals of Heat & Mass Transfer” by F.P. Incropera and D.P. Dewitt.