Research on the Thermal Hydraulic Performance and Entropy Generation Characteristics of Finned Tube Heat Exchanger with Streamline Tube

Zuoqin Qian, Qiang Wang and Song Lv
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Zuoqin Qian: School of Energy and Power Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430063, China
Qiang Wang: School of Energy and Power Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430063, China
Song Lv: School of Energy and Power Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430063, China

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 20, 1-28

Abstract: Thermal hydraulic performance of the fin-and-tube heat exchanger is presented in this paper. The purpose of this investigation was to investigate the heat transfer mechanism and flow characteristics in the finned tube heat exchanger with streamline tube. The streamline tube in this paper had the streamline cross section which was composed of a semicircle and a half diamond. Three-dimensional numerical simulation was presented and validated by the experiment and the other numerical simulation from public articles. The present simulation had good agreement with the experimental results. The difference of the j factor and f factor between the experimental results and present simulation results by k-ε- enhance model was less than 7.6%. The geometrical parameters were considered as every single variable to investigate the thermal hydraulic performance. The results showed that smaller transversal and larger tube pitch provided greater compactness and better thermal performance. Moreover, a larger angle was not only beneficial to enhance the thermal performance, but also helpful to improve the overall performance. Secondly, the effects of angle on the heat transfer performance and fluid flow characteristics were investigated as the perimeter kept constant. It was shown that the overall performance of the streamline tube was better than the circular tube. Lastly, the entropy generation including frictional entropy generation and the thermal entropy generation were analyzed. It can be concluded that by using the streamline tube, the wake region can be obviously reduced, and thermal performance can be improved.

Keywords: streamline tube; thermal hydraulic performance; comprehensive performance; entropy generation (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: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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