On the Heat Transfer Enhancement of Plate Fin Heat Exchanger

Yuan Xue, Zhihua Ge, Xiaoze Du and Lijun Yang
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Yuan Xue: Key Laboratory of Condition Monitoring and Control for Power Plant Equipment, Ministry of Education, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China
Zhihua Ge: Key Laboratory of Condition Monitoring and Control for Power Plant Equipment, Ministry of Education, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China
Xiaoze Du: School of Energy and Power Engineering, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou 730050, China
Lijun Yang: Key Laboratory of Condition Monitoring and Control for Power Plant Equipment, Ministry of Education, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China

Energies, 2018, vol. 11, issue 6, 1-18

Abstract: The plate fin heat exchanger is a compact heat exchanger applied in many industries because of its high thermal performance. To enhance the heat transfer of plate fin heat exchanger further, three new kinds of wavy plate fins, namely perforated wavy fin, staggered wavy fin and discontinuous wavy fin, are proposed and investigated by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The effects of key design parameters, including that of waviness aspect ratios, perforation diameters, staggered ratios and breaking distance are investigated, respectively, with Reynolds number changes from 500 to 4500. It is found that due to the swirl flow and efficient mixing of the fluid, the proposed heat transfer enhancement techniques all have advantages over the traditional wavy fin. At the same time, serration is beneficial to reduce the friction factor, and the breaking technique can reduce heat transfer area. Through the performance evaluation criteria, the staggered wavy fin has an advantage over the small waviness aspect ratio; with increasing waviness aspect ratio, this predominance is gradually surpassed by the perforated wavy fin, and the advantage of the discontinuous fin is the smallest and almost invariable. A maximum performance evaluation criteria (PEC) as high as 1.24 can be obtained for the perforated wavy fin at the waviness aspect ratio γ = 0.45.

Keywords: staggered wavy fin; perforated wavy fin; discontinuous wavy fin; heat transfer enhancement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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